SWEPCO employees Bradley Hardin (left), External Affairs and Government Affairs Manager, and Scott Carney, Principal Plant Environmental Coordinator at Flint Creek Power Plant (right), present Watershed Conservation Resource Center's Sandi Formica and Matt Van Eps with a ceremonial AEP Foundation grant check.
The American Electric Power Foundation donated $20,000 to the Watershed Conservation Resource Center (WCRC) in Fayetteville, Ark., to help fund The River Institute of Northwest Arkansas – a multiple-phase project that will enhance the organization’s ability to support ecological restoration of rivers, wetlands, prairies, riparian areas, and floodplains in the Ozark region.
Established in 2003, the nonprofit organization has 10 employees dedicated to ecological restoration on big and small scales.
“We’re kind of a boot-strappy organization, we’re not a national entity with lots of benefactors,” said WCRC Associate Director Matt Van Eps. “But our mission statement is to protect, restore and conserve natural resources using watershed-based approach.”
The River Institute project
The WCRC secured 98 acres along the West Fork White River at the corner of Huntsville and Dead Horse Mountain roads in southeast Fayetteville. The property showed signs of degradation and needed restoration – a perfect place to construct The River Institute’s permanent facility for WCRC offices, including a training center with indoor and outdoor classrooms. A second phase of the project would include creating public access opportunities to the West Fork White River and walking trails for the public to engage with the natural environment.
WCRC Executive Director Sandi Formica said AEP Foundation’s grant will help pay for the engineering and architecture designs for the training center. To Formica, the facility is one of the most important steps in helping to ensure the current work of WCRC continues by helping to train and develop future environmental professionals.
“If we’re not able to continue this ecological restoration into the future, that’s not good,” Formica said. “It’s really important for Northwest Arkansas – and from a national standpoint – that nonprofits like us provide this kind of expertise to preserve and restore ecological environments. Without it, you’re just going to have a lot of degradation going on without anyone trying to restore it.”
Scott Carney, SWEPCO Principal Plant Environmental Coordinator at Flint Creek Power Plant and board member of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, said he has been impressed with WCRC’s efforts to improve damaged areas and educate the public to incent them to make their own improvements.
“WCRC has made significant improvements to riparian areas (edges of bodies of water) in Northwest Arkansas on both public and private lands,” Carney said. “I think that the AEP Foundation supporting this group meshes very well with AEP’s goal to operate in conjunction with environmental compliance and to advocate for environmental improvements.”
Training the public
The River Institute’s training center would not only be used for WCRC staff but also to help educate the public on how they can address storm water problems on their own property using the same techniques they use on many of their projects.
GlossaryEcological restoration – the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed.
Ecosystems – dynamic communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms interacting with their physical environment as a functional unit.
Damage – an acute and obvious harmful impact upon an ecosystem such as selective logging, road building, poaching, or invasions of non-native species.
Degradation – chronic human impacts resulting in the loss of biodiversity and the disruption of an ecosystem’s structure, composition, and functionality. Examples include: long-term grazing impacts, long-term over fishing or hunting pressure, and persistent invasions by non-native species.
Destruction – the most severe level of impact when degradation or damage removes all macroscopic life and commonly ruins the physical environment. Ecosystems are destroyed by such activities as land clearing, urbanization, coastal erosion, and mining.
Wetland – areas where water covers the soil or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season.
Riparian – lands that occur along the edges of rivers, streams, lakes and other water bodies.
“There’s going to be a big emphasis at this training center on residents being able to get information to help them handle stormwater and enhance environment,” Formica said. “We want to show them how they can use different materials and plants to control erosion, divert water and create beautiful habitats for wildlife and for enjoyment.”
If you’d like to learn more about the Watershed Conservation Resource Center, including ways to volunteer or donate, visit their website at watershedconservation.org.