Streamside Protection Ordinance
David Casaletto
The City of Fayetteville is poised to pass a Streamside Protection Ordinance that will establish a list of land uses that help to establish riparian buffer zones. The third reading of the ordinance will be on the agenda of the Fayetteville City Council this Tuesday, March 1st at City Hall on Mountain Street in Fayetteville, AR. I encourage anyone interested in this topic to attend this meeting.
Riparian buffers are vegetated areas next to water resources that protect water resources from nonpoint source pollution and provide bank stabilization and aquatic and wildlife habitat. Natural riparian buffers are composed of grasses, trees, or both types of vegetation. If riparian buffers are maintained or reestablished, they can exist under most land uses: natural, agricultural, forested, suburban, and urban. Scientists agree that a corridor of vegetation can be effective at buffering valuable aquatic resources from the potential negative impacts of human use of the adjacent land. The streamside vegetated buffer filters nonpoint source pollutants from incoming runoff and provides habitat for a balanced, integrated, and adaptive community of riparian and aquatic organisms (Welsch, 1991). These filtering and habitat functions are often best provided by natural vegetation such as trees and associated woodland or forest plants in the zone directly adjacent to the waterway.
Below is a page from the "LID: Low Impact Development, a design manual for urban areas":
Reasons to establish the riparian buffer zone:
·Creates a vegetative buffer along streams which holds soil in place and reduces pollutants.
·Less expensive than mechanically stabilizing banks.
·It protects our drinking water and our recreational areas.
·Our vegetated streams are beautiful and preferable to cemented ditches that can result from not protecting streambanks with vegetation.
·Other communities around the country are doing this, as well, because they see the economic (social, environmental, and financial) value of protecting riparian zones.
- Estimated increased property values as a result of riparian buffer vegetation on a property was $1,400 to $1,625 per property (Qui et al., 2006).
- It costs $250/linear foot to restore streams and their banks (City of Fayetteville cost history).
- Riparian areas can reduce the nitrogen concentration in water runoff and floodwater by up to 90 percent and reduce the phosphorous concentration by as much as 50 percent (NSF, 2006).
"Before" on the left & "After" on the right: Bear Creek Watershed in Iowa upon the establishment of a riparian forest buffer. The change in four years is dramatic.
As I said not long ago in another newsletter: We are blessed in the Ozarks with an abundance of clear, clean waters but we cannot take our abundance for granted. We must learn to preserve and protect our environment, even cherish it! The signs are already here that our drinking water supply is not unlimited and that our water bodies and environment cannot sustain our large population growth without a change in our lifestyles. Some of the changes can happen voluntarily but many will have to be brought about with help from the local and state governmental bodies.
While regulations and ordinances are not always popular, they are needed to make sure Best Management Practices (BMPs) are applied consistently and uniformly in a watershed so as to achieve the desired water quality protection. I am grateful for the Fayetteville government leaders willing to start down this environmentally friendly path.
Quote of the Week
If you gave me several million years, there would be nothing that did not grow in beauty if it were surrounded by water.
-Jan Erik Vold, What All The World Knows
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