Tornadoes, Storm Water and Volunteer Monitoring

by David Casaletto

Ozarks Water Watch Executive Director

I want to thank everyone who has commented to me on how much they enjoy this newsletter. I really do appreciate the feedback and I do enjoy writing it. My most frequent question is, "Do you have trouble coming up with something to write about each week?". Normally that is not a problem but as I sit here on a sunny Saturday morning, I am really itching to get outside and enjoy the Ozark's beauty! But I am not getting up until its done.

As I am sure you have heard, we had some bad weather in Missouri! The tornado first touched down about a mile from my office in Kimberling City. It took out a local hotel/time share next to the bridge, wiped out a few boat docks at Port of Kimberling and The Harbor Marina and then decided it wanted to visit the Branson strip. It was a very selective tornado, hitting a business hard and completely sparing the one next to it. For example, it decided not to re-sink the Titanic but leveled a retail store just across the street. The good news is that we had no loss of life and while the damage is extensive, only a few entertainment venues are affected and Branson is, for the most part already back open for business! 

Tornado damage - Hilton Hotel at the Branson Landing

Kimberling Inn suffered extensive damage while the buildings next door were completely unharmed

A week ago, I headed my car towards Norfolk, Arkansas to meet with the Friends of North Fork and White Rivers. Friends is a very active watershed organization working in the Bull Shoals and North Fork watershed. I was going to give a brief presentation to their board on the current activities of Ozarks Water Watch and to see if they might be interested in partnering on a volunteer monitoring project I am working on in the Upper White River basin as part of our annual Status of the Watershed Report. It was a beautiful day and their board enthusiastically voted to work together on the monitoring project. It is exciting to work with local groups in our common goal of keeping our water clean and clear!

White River at Norfork, Arkansas

On the way to Norfork, I stopped at Crooked Creek near Yellville, AR. I had visited this stream bank restoration site during a field trip as part of the 2010 Arkansas Watershed Advisory Group (AWAG) conference and I wanted to see how the site looked a year and a half later. As you can see from the before and after pictures below, there is a substantial amount of vegetation protecting the bank even though the project did suffer during the 2011 flood. I would have to count the project a success in preventing stream bank erosion.

Crooked Creek restoration project Fall 2010

Crooked Creek restoration project February 2012

Leaving Arkansas, I headed for Columbia, Missouri for a 2-day MS4 Stormwater conference. Much of my water quality career has been spent working on septic system and wastewater issues and I was excited to learn more about the MS4 storm water requirements municipalities and other government entities now face. Some of the things I learned will most likely be the subject of a future newsletter. On Thursday I was back in Kimberling City updating the Table Rock Lake Water Quality (TRLWQ) board of directors on Ozarks Water Watch (OWW) activities. TRLWQ is a partner with OWW on the Septic System Remediation grant. On Friday the alarm went off bright and early at 5:30am so I could present at the 7:30am Watershed Committee of the Ozarks (WCO) monthly meeting in Springfield. The WCO has a long history protecting the drinking water supply for the City of Springfield. Another busy week of water quality activities completed and now my wife and I are heading outside for a hike in our beautiful Ozarks.

Quote of the Week

"You can't cross a sea by merely staring into the water."
- Rabindranath Tagore

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Green infrastructure is an approach that communities can choose to maintain healthy waters, provide multiple environmental benefits and support sustainable communities. Unlike single-purpose gray stormwater infrastructure, which uses pipes to dispose of rainwater, green infrastructure uses vegetation and soil to manage rainwater where it falls. By weaving natural processes into the built environment, green infrastructure provides not only stormwater management, but also flood mitigation, air quality management, and much more.

At a time when so much of our infrastructure is in need of replacement or repair and so few communities can foot the bill, we need resilient and affordable solutions that meet many objectives at once. Green infrastructure is one solution. 

Glade restoration work continues in Roaring River

Cassville Democrat, February 29, 2012

By Lindsay Reed

After completing phase one of a 10-year stewardship plan designed to remove invasive eastern red cedar trees and restore the glade habitat in a large portion of Roaring River State Park's wild area, staff members conducted prescribed burns in 650 acres of the wild area this year. "We are currently in the clean-up phase," said Tim Smith, Roaring River naturalist. "The cedar trees have been cut and burnt. Now we are going back and stacking the cedar remains, or cedar slash, and burning those." 

In November of 2011, staff members began walking through the wild area collecting slash in and around the 171 acres of glade area where the cedar trees were cut over the last few years. Smith hopes to see all of the slash cleared from the areas by mid-April. "Now that the cedar trees have been eliminated from those areas we will be able to let fire play a role in maintaining the ecosystems," said Smith. 

The wild area around Roaring River was once a glade area. As more settlers moved into the surrounding area, fire became more controlled, which eliminated its role in maintaining the natural ecosystem, said Smith. With all of the eastern red cedars removed from the designated areas, Roaring River staff members will conduct prescribed burns in the areas each year in order to maintain the glade ecosystem. "We have divided the areas into three units," said Smith. "Each unit will be burned every three to five years. We will work on a rotation schedule, and some other units will be mixed into that rotation." By maintaining the areas with fire, the park will eliminated the need to cut invasive species of trees and shrubs from the area in the future.

To read more, Click HERE.