Rick:
This last year the White, Norfork, and Little Red had a tremendous flow from rains in Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. The resulting rise in water levels flooded areas of the lakes that had not seen water in several years. Those areas stayed flooded for months. As a result of that we had several tons of vegetable matter introduced into the upper watersheds. As this debris began to decompose it removed a majority of the oxygen from the lower levels of the lakes. since these lakes pull their water from the lower regions we have had several months of water with lower than desirable dissolved oxygen levels introduced into our tailwaters.
In the 90's we had some real issues with the water quality on the Little Red. There was a massive fish kill when the Corps of Engineers (COE) and South West Power Administration (SWPA) released full generation of low oxygenated water. The kill resulted in minimum water quality standards on all of our rivers of I believe 2ppm.
From what I have been told by the biologists in the state 2ppm is still a minimum only to sustain life in those areas. They feel that with the frequency of low oxygen events we have that we should begin to look at an option of adding oxygen to the water as it is released from the dam at anytime the the leves fall below 6ppm.
With all that being said I have a few questions:
1. Do you feel that low oxygen is a concern at 2ppm or is that sufficient to maintain a fishery? Most of the time when I see low oxygen levels the fish leave the area. When they are in heavy generation could 2ppm still be an issue?
2. It has been suggested that 6ppm would be much more desirable. Is that a number that is sufficient to maintain a healthy fishery? What would it take to implement a plan to remedy this situation?
3. What can we as citizens of Arkansas do to remedy the situation.
I have been told by several people whose opinion I respect that this could be the issue of greatest concern to the fishery. What are your thoughts?
John
This last year the White, Norfork, and Little Red had a tremendous flow from rains in Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. The resulting rise in water levels flooded areas of the lakes that had not seen water in several years. Those areas stayed flooded for months. As a result of that we had several tons of vegetable matter introduced into the upper watersheds. As this debris began to decompose it removed a majority of the oxygen from the lower levels of the lakes. since these lakes pull their water from the lower regions we have had several months of water with lower than desirable dissolved oxygen levels introduced into our tailwaters.
In the 90's we had some real issues with the water quality on the Little Red. There was a massive fish kill when the Corps of Engineers (COE) and South West Power Administration (SWPA) released full generation of low oxygenated water. The kill resulted in minimum water quality standards on all of our rivers of I believe 2ppm.
From what I have been told by the biologists in the state 2ppm is still a minimum only to sustain life in those areas. They feel that with the frequency of low oxygen events we have that we should begin to look at an option of adding oxygen to the water as it is released from the dam at anytime the the leves fall below 6ppm.
With all that being said I have a few questions:
1. Do you feel that low oxygen is a concern at 2ppm or is that sufficient to maintain a fishery? Most of the time when I see low oxygen levels the fish leave the area. When they are in heavy generation could 2ppm still be an issue?
2. It has been suggested that 6ppm would be much more desirable. Is that a number that is sufficient to maintain a healthy fishery? What would it take to implement a plan to remedy this situation?
3. What can we as citizens of Arkansas do to remedy the situation.
I have been told by several people whose opinion I respect that this could be the issue of greatest concern to the fishery. What are your thoughts?
John
