Arkansas Water Plan Update Moves Forward After First Phase Completion

Cossatot River (Robert Thigpen-Flickr)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark — The Arkansas Department of Agriculture, along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has completed the first phase of the Arkansas Water Plan (AWP) update as directed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Executive Order 23-27. Completion of Phase I marks a significant milestone in the preparation and development of a comprehensive program for the orderly development and management of the state’s water and related land resources that will benefit all Arkansans.  
 
“Every Arkansan deserves access to safe, reliable drinking water. My administration’s ongoing review and update of our Arkansas Water Plan is key to that goal,” said Governor Sanders. “Completion of Phase I of our plan review is an important milestone and I look forward to moving on quickly to Phase II while we continue making needed investments statewide.”
 
“Governor Sanders has been the most proactive Governor in the country in addressing water issues,” said Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward. “From signing Executive Order 23-27 that initiated an update to the Arkansas Water Plan, to initiating a statewide levee inventory and analysis to prepare for and mitigate future flooding events, to addressing critical groundwater issues for our state’s agriculture industry and administering over $2.5 billion in water development projects in all 75 counties across the state.  There is no Governor that has devoted more time and effort to address water issues and ensure that Arkansas is set up for success for many years to come.” 
 
Phase I required a comprehensive review of the existing Arkansas Water Plan to determine areas of significant change to be reevaluated or updated. Completion of Phase I included a total of seven stakeholder meetings that were held across the state from March to May 2024. Additionally, citizens were encouraged to provide feedback through a stakeholder survey. The Department used this data to better understand the state’s current water needs and to develop the goals for the Arkansas Water Plan update. 
 
Completion of Phase I identified the following six goals for the Arkansas Water Plan Update:

• Provide drinking water that supports public health and well-being.

• Provide water that supports environmental and economic benefits to the state and supports interstate agreements.

• Use the best available science, data, tools, practices, and technologies to support water resource planning and management for current and future needs.

• Maintain and improve water supply, wastewater, stormwater, and flood control infrastructure and plan for future infrastructure needs.

• Maintain, protect, and improve water quality to support designated uses of waterbodies.

• Reduce the impacts of future flooding events on people, property, infrastructure, industry, agriculture, and the environment.

 The update to the Arkansas Water Plan is being completed in two phases. Phase II is scheduled to begin before the end of the 2024 calendar year.

Phosphorus runoff studies show importance of stable banks, cover crops

By John Lovett
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Spring rains are great for flowers and kayakers, but the season also prompts concern about algae bloom-causing phosphorus runoff into drinking water sources.

WATER QUALITY — Jacqueline Todd, left, and Ireyra Tamayo conduct water quality tests from sampels taken in the Beaver Lake watershed as part of ongoing water quality studies with Shannon Speir, assistant professor of water quality with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. (U of A System photo)

Spring streamflow delivery to Beaver Lake has increased over the past 20 years, delivering more nutrients to the reservoir and increasing the risk of algae blooms during the summer, according to an analysis of U.S. Geological Survey data by Ireyra Tamayo, an environmental, soil, and water science student at the University of Arkansas.

Tamayo is a student of Shannon Speir, assistant professor of water quality in the department of crop, soil and environmental sciences with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Her lab's undergraduate students are conducting studies on the watershed as part of an unofficial partnership with the Beaver Watershed Alliance and the Beaver Water District.

“They are really interested in knowing this information,” Speir said. “This was a relatively easy analysis we could do with publicly available data, so we volunteered to jump in and do it.”

Speir said she has shared the information with the groups, and her lab's team has continued to do studies to assist in long-range planning efforts to mitigate phosphorus runoff. Phosphorus runoff can lead to algae blooms in bodies of water, which decreases available oxygen for aquatic life.

There are concerns about streambank erosion and increased streamflow in the Beaver Lake watershed because phosphorus binds to floating sediments that creeks carry into the lake.

Tamayo's study looked at the changing delivery of streamflow and water runoff from four tributaries of Beaver Lake: the White River; West Fork of the White River; War Eagle Creek; and Richland Creek.

The Beaver Lake watershed includes all the tributaries that run into the primary source of drinking water for northwest Arkansas. Speir said the potential for phosphorus runoff in the area prompted her and her students’ water quality studies of the tributaries in rural areas.

“Beaver Lake is still in good health and much of the work is centered around preventing the balance from shifting toward conditions that may cause harmful algal blooms,” Speir said. “Once algal blooms start happening, it's hard to turn the dial back and stop them from happening.”

Using publicly available streamflow data from the U.S. Geological Survey, Tamayo calculated streamflow discharge and runoff changes and compared runoff across the four tributaries over the past 20 years. She also explored seasonal changes in average discharge among the four tributaries.

The study showed that, in general, Richland Creek had the highest runoff to Beaver Lake over the study period, and War Eagle Creek had the lowest runoff. She observed variable trends in average discharge by season across the four tributaries. The most consistent increase in average streamflow occurs in the spring.

“Climate change is affecting the hydrological cycle, increasing global temperatures and changing precipitation patterns,” the study states. “As rain events become more frequent and intense, they are expected to yield higher streamflow and larger peak flows. The increased sediment and nutrient delivery to sensitive downstream systems could lead to water quality problems, such as eutrophication and harmful algal blooms.”

Eutrophication is when excess nutrients accumulate in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, and causes a dense growth of algae and death of animal life from lack of oxygen.

“This was our first cut, but from that, we can start building more management and actionable outcomes,” Speir added.

Student researchers from the Speir's water quality resarch team include Jacob Major, junior; Deo Scott, senior; Lilly A. Stults, senior; Ireyra Tamayo, senior; and Jacqueline Todd, junior. Brynnen Beck and Claire Meara, both sophomores, have also recently joined Speir’s team. All the undergraduates are environmental soil and water science majors in the crop, soil and environmental sciences department.

Erosion and biological impacts on phosphorus 

EROSION IMPACT — Jacob Major collects samples from a Beaver Lake watershed tributary. (U of A System photo)

Jacob Major’s study highlighted the importance of creek bank stability. Major concluded in his water quality study of Richland Creek and Brush Creek that “sediment-associated phosphorus from bank erosion may serve as a critical downstream phosphorus source to Beaver Lake.”

Major's study found higher total phosphorus levels in Richland Creek but higher dissolved phosphorus in Brush Creek. Richland Creek runs through mostly forestland and about 40 percent pastureland. Brush Creek runs through mostly pastureland and about one-third forestland.

Speir noted that the higher concentrations of total phosphorus in Richland Creek could be because of more organic materials like leaf litter in the stream. Soluble reactive phosphorus, however, is more troublesome because the nutrient is more available to create algal blooms downstream.

Major's study won first place in March for undergraduates in the student poster competition at the Arkansas Discovery Farms Conference in Little Rock. In April, his study also won third place in the natural sciences category as part of the University of Arkansas’ Undergraduate Research Week Poster Competition.

A follow-up study is now underway to better understand the role of sediment in driving downstream phosphorus loss to Beaver Lake.

Jacqueline Todd's study on the Upper White River is complementary to Major’s and explores the role of algae in streams removing phosphorus from rivers. She pointed out that while many studies focus on headwater streams, there is a knowledge gap on the interplay of nutrients in rivers.

Her study found that soluble reactive phosphorus uptake was higher in the summer when the flow was slower, and the nutrient uptake was lower in the spring when the flow was faster.

Cover crops keep sediments and phosphorus on fields

Speir’s lab also evaluated the impact of cover crops to mitigate phosphorus runoff on agricultural fields.

A study by Lily Stults in Speir's lab, showed the importance of cover crops in retaining phosphorus on a site. Stults analyzed data on total flow, total suspended sediment, and total phosphorus concentrations from 503 runoff events on cover-cropped and non-cover-cropped cotton fields between 2013 and 2018 at the Arkansas Discovery Farms site in Dumas. The runoff events included rain and irrigation.

While cover crops did not impact the total flow from fields during water runoff events, the total suspended sediment and total phosphorus concentrations were lower in runoff from the cover-cropped field.

Cover crops prevent erosion and sediment loss by increasing the stability of the soil, the study noted.

The study stated that total suspended solid concentrations were consistently lower in runoff from cover-cropped fields. Other data suggest cover crops help retain particulate phosphorus bound to sediments.

Mullins Creek evaluation

A little closer to home, Deo Scott's study titled “Stream restoration effectiveness in Mullins Creek in Fayetteville, Arkansas” concluded that the Watershed Conservation Resource Center restoration in 2012 improved water quality in the restored section. He documented higher dissolved oxygen content, lower temperatures and more diversity of aquatic insects in the restored section of the creek. However, the impacts were variable downstream.

The creek begins as a spring near the Poultry Science building and flows under Razorback Stadium. The restored section of Mullins Creek is between Nolan Richardson Drive and the Gardens on the University of Arkansas campus. Samples were taken at five sites along the creek.

Speir said there is more than one way to restore a stream, but the key components are to keep the stream bank from eroding, add native plants to stabilize the soil and restore the stream bottom in some way to slow the water down and make riffles and pools.

“The hope is that naturally, over time, the fish and insects come back as the water quality improves,” Speir said. “Another piece in the restoration puzzle, particularly in urban areas, is ‘daylighting,’ where a buried stream is re-exposed to the world. Many urban streams have become buried, like Mullins Creek, which has a stadium over it.”

Scott's results also emphasized the need for more monitoring and management to improve water quality.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.

Arkansas researcher’s collaborative method may reveal solutions to water quality issues

By Brittaney Mann
U of A System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Preventing fertilizer run-off from farms is essential to preserving water quality. But preventive measures also help farmers get the most use from their fertilizer.

WATER QUALITY — Shannon Speir, assistant professor of water quality, will conduct research on the Beaver Lake Watershed. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo by Fred Miller)

“It is about realizing that you are on the same playing field and on the same team,” Speir said. “I think that that really ends up getting the most holistic and beneficial product or outcome of the collaboration.”

Shannon Speir, assistant professor of water quality at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, said partnerships with farmers allow her to efficiently conduct research while considering those farmers’ needs.

Speir joined the Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, in early August. She works within the department of crop, soil and environmental sciences, where she earned her master’s degree in 2016.

In addition to investigating how to maintain nutrients on the landscape and out of streams and rivers, she will teach courses through the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas.

Eventually, she also plans to work with local entities to develop community outreach projects, providing education on septic systems and other aspects of water quality.

For her first research project, she will begin a pilot study on three streams — Richland Creek, Brush Creek and Roberts Creek — in the Beaver Lake watershed in September.

“A lot of the issues here in northwest Arkansas are concerns around drinking water problems,” Speir said. “Especially with the Beaver Lake watershed and the reservoir.”

The primary source of freshwater in northwest Arkansas is Beaver Lake, according to a Cooperative Extension Service fact sheet. It is “…crucial to meeting Northwest Arkansas’s increasing demands for abundant high-quality water.”

The study will help determine the location for the first Arkansas Discovery Watershed as part of the Arkansas Discovery Farms Program. The Arkansas Discovery Farms Program, administered by the Division of Agriculture, centers on engaging farmers in the conservation process by conducting research on conservation practices on farmers’ fields.

Speir also researched watersheds for her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Notre Dame. She wanted to reveal the effect of conservation on multiple farms within the watershed and see how it impacted water quality leaving the drainage area. To determine the quality of water, she measured nitrogen and phosphorus levels.

Speir was not always involved in the agricultural side of water conservation. As an undergraduate student at Texas Christian University, she focused on mercury contamination and how mercury moves from water bodies into the terrestrial food web.

“I knew that when I was going to grad school, that I wanted to stick with this contamination issue, but I didn’t know where it was going to take me,” Speir said.

At the University of Arkansas, graduate-level courses introduced Speir to the agricultural aspects of water quality. She did experimental work on vegetative agricultural ditches to see how effective those are at removing nutrients from run-off.

Jeff Edwards, department head of crop, soil and environmental sciences, said Speir’s expertise and experience will strengthen the Division of Agriculture’s research portfolio in water quality and management.

“The water issues our stakeholders are facing are not going away, and we are very fortunate to hire someone with Dr. Speir’s diverse research experience,” Edwards said. “The issues we are facing in the area of water quality are not specific to one discipline, and Dr. Speir’s collaboration-focused approach is what we need to help provide solutions for Arkansans.”

Speir earned her bachelor’s degrees in biology and Spanish from Texas Christian University in 2014, her master’s degree in crop, soil and environmental sciences from the University of Arkansas in 2016 and her Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2021.

“I think one of the most interesting things is to be able to work with farmers,” Speir said. “And I think that brings a whole other side of this.”

As a researcher, “you get to really build these relationships and see what your work is doing on the ground. It kind of ties back to that societal benefit component that I am really passionate about.”