thenorphletpaperboy: Who Am I?

thenorphletpaperboy: Who Am I?:                           WHO AM I? My favorite Broadway Play is Les Miserables, and in the play Jean Val Jean sings “Who am I?... I...

Who Am I?

                          WHO AM I?

My favorite Broadway Play is Les Miserables, and in the play Jean Val Jean sings “Who am I?... I’m Jean Val Jean…24601!” It’s his confession that he is the escaped prisoner. Well, after writing my column for several months, it seems I need to tell some folks, “Who am I?” 

For my exercise, I walk and jog the 167 Bypass. It’s around three and a half miles, and during the summer, I’m tired and sweaty when I finish. Since, I do the same route four times a week, most folks know it’s me, and I get a lot of waves. However, last week I was plodding along and as I finished the route, up the access road toward Calion Road I heard whining mud tires, and I knew a pickup truck was about to pass me.  I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a black pickup, which was slowing down as it approached me. When he got right beside me, going less than ten MPH, I was nearly blasted off the road by an air horn. You bet, it bothered me, and I’m glad I don’t have heart problems. It was that loud.

 But then I started thinking about the air horn blast. Does the guy pull up beside every walker or runner and blast away with his air horn? No, I don’t think so, or he’d be arrested for harassment. So, I guess the guy just wanted to air honk Richard Mason. Was it because I am opposing the hog farm on the Buffalo, or maybe because I have tackled  the bill to let forest companies have  a free go to harvest the National Forests, or maybe because I oppose coal fired plants that put mercury in Arkansas fish? No, I don’t think so. Well, maybe, he was the writer who sent me an email calling me “A toad-licking liberal” or the guy who said I was the worst columnist of the sorry lot on the Perceptive Page, which, from his email, put me to the left of Nancy Pelosi. Yes, the air horn honk startled me, and some of the emails irritated me, but after spending six years as a member and one year as Chairman of the Arkansas Pollution Control & Control Commission as the designated Environmental Member, where at times, the meetings were one step away from having my arm tied to another member’s and each being handed a knife, I can handle the air horn. So being called “A toad licking liberal” just got a small grin. Actually, I think that would look good on a t-shirt.

Of course, I don’t get all negative emails. So, before I continue, I want to thank all the other folks who have contacted me with positive responses. They outrank the negatives by 20 to 1. However, if you are going to stick a label on me make it real, so let me give you the so called toad licking liberal side of me.

 I have spent thousands of hours fishing and hunting in Arkansas’s woods, paddling up Champanolle Creek fishing around the big cypress trees, several thousand squirrel hunts, frog gigging, and running a trap-line, all of which ingrained in me an appreciation of Arkansas’s natural setting, and I don’t have any doubt that influenced me.  I will admit, I am an individual who readily joins or leads the fight when Arkansas natural heritage or wildlife is threatened. Well, does that make me a toad licking liberal? Of course not; because I don’t think the majority of Arkansas folks are for letting the Buffalo National River be polluted by a hog farm, or do they want to see our National Forests become company tree farms and the size of our national monuments reduced. So, I don’t believe the air-horn honking guy who blasted me off the road is anti-environmental. He and his mud tires probably spend a lot of time on or near the Ouachita River. Of course he may have forgotten that I and a host of others fought the Corp of Engineers and two very prominent Democrats to keep the Corp from making 28 river-killing bend cuts. Yes, I opposed Democrats! That fight took months until our group of anti-bend cutters---Republicans and Democrats, finally prevailed.

Well, on top of that, I’m a free trade no tariffs person and the idea that we don’t have a balanced budget and keep running up the national debt is horrible. Those traits are bedrock Republican, or at least they were. And I have in the past voted for a Republican president and local Republicans. Well, does that make me a Republican?  Of course not, but it doesn’t make me a toad licking liberal Democrat either.

Yes, I’m opposing several Republicans because of their detrimental environmental policies, but I would be hounding a Democrat just as strongly. There are many things in politics that are wrong-headed short-term fixes for special interests, and the Democrats have had their share. However, today, we have a party that is hell-bent on destroying the environmental progress made by a bipartisan congress. Republicans have had a lot to do with all of the environmental bills that were passed, and many bills and regulations were Republican initiated.

Calling someone a liberal because they oppose the destruction of our forest, wildlife, streams and rivers is just plain wrong.  When a person does that they are saying you can’t be a Republican if you support things like removing the hog farm from the Buffalo National River Watershed. Or if you criticize a congressman for a wrong-headed bill that would gut the Endangered Species Act, you can’t be a Republican, and any criticism of the administration makes you’re a liberal, and you are subject to degrading name calling and air-honks? No! There are plenty of Republicans who are strong supporters of good environment policies.

But of all the things in Arkansas that should be bipartisan is the Buffalo National River, and should top everyone’s list. But is it? Have we sunk so low that someone who calls themselves a Republican will stand back and ignore the destruction of our National River in order to keep from being called a toad licking liberal? It will be a sad day for our state if the silence of thousands of Democrats and Republicans causes the demise of our National River. 

For the last several years, we have all but stopped talking about issues, and have tried to tie everyone running for elective office as either conservative or liberal. In other words you can’t be a Conservative Democrat or a Liberal Republican. Yes, those are the so called rules, but what happened to bipartisan voting on issues? Yes, there are plenty of Conservative Democrats and a lot of Liberal Republicans. So let’s stop calling all Republicans conservatives, and all Democrats liberals? Wouldn’t it be great if we once again had campaigns where the best interests of our country was front and center instead of who can trash the other candidate more?  Let’s stop the name calling, and just call us Americans.

But if you still want to label me, tag me with what’s in my heart, and yes it’s the love of a natural Arkansas and its wildlife. Am I a damn tree hugger? You bet I am!

thenorphletpaperboy: Cougars, Quail, and Coal

thenorphletpaperboy: Cougars, Quail, and Coal:                        Cougars, Quail, and Coal Arkansas and Cougars: A lot of my column’s email comments have been from what most f...

Cougars, Quail, and Coal

                       Cougars, Quail, and Coal

Arkansas and Cougars: A lot of my column’s email comments have been from what most folks are calling the “Cougar Column.” The emails were full of sighting from nearly every part of the state, and two of the confirmed sighting were in the city limits of Little Rock. Well, according to the Game and Fish Commission, those sighting were something akin to seeing flying saucers, but I think, with a little more documentation, we might sway over some of the doubters. 

If we record the cougar sighting, I believe we can make a reasonable estimate of how many cougars are in the state. I already have a number of sighting, and if we can log several more, I will pinpointed them on county maps. I’ve got the maps, and a good number of sighting, but from the comments, I know many other sighting could be reported. If you have seen a cougar or know someone who has seen one, report it by email to me and give me the county where it occurred. After the reports are in I’ll highlight the areas where multiple sighting have been reported. I have a feeling we will be surprised at how many confirmed sighting we will have, and by using the data, I think we can make a reasonable estimate of the number of cougars in the state.

Just as I was writing this column, I receive a sighting in Southeast Arkansas, and this one was with a game camera. I’ll give details later in the sighting summary.

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We’re winning the War on Coal! Yes, we are! And even with the President on the Coal Companies’ side, there has been a coal fired generating plant shut down on the average every 19 days since the President took office. But here’s the really good news: In February one of the top five coal fired plants in the nation shut down, the Big Brown Power Plant in East Texas. And this is even better news for Arkansas. Why? Well, numerous studies have shown the mercury emitted from burning coal goes into the atmosphere and comes down with rain to enter the food chain of aquatic species. The Big Brown Power Plant, an East Texas coal plant, was one of the largest emitters of mercury in the United States, and since weather systems move west to east, the air born mercury from that plant rained down on Arkansas. That is part of the reason many Arkansas fish end up being mercury contaminated. Studies have shown during the early pregnancy a woman’s fetus can have irreparable damage if the mother eats mercury contaminated fish. The most common birth defects are a lower I. Q. baby.

  According to a study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center done in 2012, the Big Brown Power Plant caused 55 deaths, 1000 asthma attacks, and 82 heart attacks in 2012. Its retirement will save $1.6 billion annually in public health cost according to a study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Big Brown is the third Texas coal fired plant to retire in 2018. But what about Arkansas? Well, officially, we’re right in there fighting---on the coal companies side! Yes, our attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the EPA to keep it from enforcing the Arkansas’s plants to comply with the Clean Air Act mandates to restrict emissions. The lawsuit says it is too expensive, based on the coal fired plants calculations. The EPA calculations are about a quarter of the coal fired plants figures. Who do you believe?

Our three coal fired electrical generating plants aren’t as big as Big Brown, but they are very significant, and they are contributing to the lower air quality and of course mercury contamination of our fish. Of course, in the long run the switch to natural gas would not only clean up the atmosphere and reduce the mercury in fish, but reduce the cost of electricity. The coal fired plants that are closing are not necessary because the companies want to be environmentally friendly, but because natural gas is cheaper.

Our attorney general is on the losing side of the War on Coal, and Arkansas is dragging the bottom as always. I’m thankful our attorney general didn’t eat mercury contaminated fish during her first months of pregnancy, and that she has a beautiful, healthy baby…but what about the young lady from Moro Bay…who didn’t know about the mercury warnings?

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Arkansas and Quail:  If you have been following the flurry of ‘bring back the quail posting’ from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, you know those folks believe the quail habitat in Arkansas left about the same time the last wolf pack did, and if we can convert the state back to pioneer days with quail habitat out the gazoo, then the quail will fill the state again. What have those boys been smoking? Of course, if they don’t muzzle a couple of million feral hogs, having great quail habitat won’t bring back the quail. Let’s look at the disappearing quail problem on a statewide basis, and consider this: If a single feral hog finds and eats one nest of quail eggs a year, how many quail eggs will 2,000,000 feral hogs eat in a year? I rest my case.

Yes, that’s my take on the loss of Arkansas quail. Since my first article on the loss of quail a good friend, former El Dorado Mayor Larry Combs, pointed out that about the same time the quail turned up missing, the killdeer birds followed them out the door. Well, what does that have to do with the missing quail? Quail and killdeer are ground nesting birds! Get it? Those birds lay their eggs on the ground! Now, is it just a coincidence that the population of both birds has dropped like a rock---uh, yeah---just as the varmints and feral hog population went thru the ceiling? Uh, huh, just like the Buffalo National River became polluted after the hog farm started its operation.

I live on 37 acres on the edge of El Dorado and 20 years ago I had a large covey of quail on the property. I would estimate at least 20 birds. I could whistle up the quail every afternoon, but slowly the covey became smaller and smaller until about 10 years ago I heard the last whistle. The quail are gone, but the quail habitat is exactly the same. Nothing has changed, except in place of the quail, I have feral hogs, fire ants, possums, and coons, and these animals and insects will eat anything that doesn’t bite back. 

We still have millions of quail habitat acres in our state, so if we don’t have quail in great quail habitat it means habitat restoration is not the problem. Maybe, we need a woman on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to get those old geezers to look outside the box. Or maybe the governor is saying, “There aren’t any qualified women, and women don’t hunt and fish.” Is that what you’re saying, Governor? If not, then why don’t we have a woman on the Commission?

Backyard Ecology

                     BACK YARD ECOLOGY

Have you ever seriously wondered whether your yard has a positive or negative effect on the environment?  Consider the following:

Watering your lawn depletes water resources.  Mowing, using aerators, leaf blowers, weed whackers, and edgers add to air pollution and eventually to global warming.  To cut your yard one time, your lawn mower emits as much pollution as a car on a 300 mile trip.

Excess fertilizers and pesticides run off into streams and lakes and destroy marine life.  Lawn clippings are over 20% of all household waste.  Lawn owners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides an acre than do farmers.  In many western states, lawn watering accounts for as much as 60 percent of urban water use.  In our country, our lawns cover over 25,000,000 acres of countryside.  We spend an estimated 30 billion dollars each year to maintain the vast green blanket.   Would you believe grass is the country's largest single crop?

As bad as the above sounds, we really haven't touched on the real negative to our perpetual care lawn system.  We have created 25 million acres of an essentially sterile environment, totally absent of any wildlife.  Nothing can live on our grass carpets.

If we look back on our country's history, we can see the development of the lawn.  Our great grandfathers were determined to win the west, conquer the wilderness, and they did.  We won.  The wilderness has surely been conquered.  In fact, most of it is long gone.  It is only natural that we inherited a slash and burn attitude.  Our great grandfathers believed when you prevailed over the wilderness, the evidence of such was no trees.  In fact, most settlers went as far as no grass.  I can still remember my grandmother sweeping her bare dirt yard.  Now, as we approach the 21st century, we have moved slightly away from the slash and burn approach.  We have started replanting the wilderness, but with controls.  In many cities, trees now line the streets, and neatly trimmed yards meet the eye.   We are moving back toward a greener country, but in our landscaping, we are ignoring the basic essentials for wildlife habitat.  For wildlife to flourish, there must be food available as well as cover for protection.  When we remove honeysuckle and blackberry vines that look unkempt and snaky, we remove the animals that depend on the berries for food and the birds and small mammals that hide in the brambles.  One cannot randomly remove habitat if the land is to be shared.

Nationwide, our songbird population is plummeting.  Worldwide, we are seeing plant and animal extinction at a rate only surpassed by the great dinosaur extinction. There are many reasons for this alarming decline in plant and animal species, but without question, one of the prime causes is loss of habitat due to urban development.

Is there any way we can reverse the trend?  Can we individually make a difference?   I believe we can if we understand a few basic principles of wildlife management and agree to share our yard with wildlife. 

Now, let's look at a few simple ideas that will let us convert our sterile green yards into an attractive wildlife compatible yard.  First, it is not just parking the riding lawn mower or bush hog.  After all, we have worked for years to alter the environment around our home.  To return it to a wildlife compatible state will require more than letting the grass grow.  It doesn't matter if your house sits on 1/4 of an acre or 10 acres, the principals are the same.  When you analyze your yard with an eye toward improving wildlife habitat, the most critical part of your yard is the back yard.  Think of the back 20 feet, or 20 yards if you have a big yard, as a wildlife corridor. Wildlife corridors link together to allow animals to move across an area searching for food while protected by the cover it provides.  Now, consider your 20 foot wildlife corridor connected to your neighbor’s backyard to form a 40 foot corridor, which connects to your adjacent neighbor’s yard to give small mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects access to food and safety.  To continue the concept to create a wildlife friendly yard, focus on the edges of your yard.  If your yard is like my yard, I could give wildlife the back 20 yards or the other edges of my yard, and they would still starve to death.  When you turn this area into wildlife habitat, you must give Mother Nature a hand.  First, we should plant a grove of nut or berry producing trees along the very edge of the lot.  Then edge the grove with berry bushes of varying heights and species.  Mow and weed this area very lightly.  In fact, your goal should be to allow this area to slowly return to its natural state.  Next, along the sides of your lot, continue with more hedgerow type plants, along with berry bushes.  In the adjacent open areas, allow native grasses and wildflowers to reclaim a portion of the area.  In order to achieve the proper balance, you must plant the wildflowers and native grasses.  Finally, in a back corner of your yard, create a small pond.  When you build your pond, set it in a natural drainage area, possibly one that would receive runoff from your roof.  When building your pond, don't be concerned about the size.  A 6' by 10' pond is adequate.  The pond depth should be around 3 feet in its deepest part and feather out to 2" to 6" in depth on one end.  I recommend a thin layer of cement to slow seepage.  After construction, add 4 inches of dirt and rocks to cover the concrete.  Your construction should allow a natural drainage spill point to carry excess water into the wooded back portion of your lot.  Stock your pond with minnows and Mother Nature will do the rest.

Finally, leave a mowed strip along the sidewalk to keep your neighbors happy.

Your new yard now has the three criterion that makes for wildlife habitat: Woodland, wetland, and grassland.

Is the natural state ready for the natural yard?  Well, let's be honest, Arkansas usually doesn't lead the nation in innovative ideas or trends.  However, we do focus on our natural heritage much more than most areas of our country.  We may be ready to take the lead in restoring our urban landscape to one more wildlife friendly.

I believe, if we consider the tremendous expenditure of our resources to maintain the perpetual care yard, we will change our yards.  As our environmental awareness continues to grow, the natural yard will be the yard of choice.  Our grandchildren may very well look back on the first half of the 21th century with as much amusement as we had when we watched our great grandparents sweep their dirt yards.  So join me, and be one of the first on your block to plant something other than grass and ornamental pear trees.  Soon your neighbors will start to admire your woodlands, your berry bushes, your wildflowers, and the variety of wildlife your yard attracts.

Back to the 70s

Back to the 50s...or maybe just the 70s

            Well, I remember the 50s: Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Elvis, but unless you tune in XM Sirius Radio to the Oldies Station, you’re not going to hear any 50s music. However, the 70s music is still around, but I don’t see a resurgence anytime soon. But if you do miss the 70s, the present administration in Washington and in Little Rock are trying their best to bring back the good old 70s—environmentally. Yep, the 70s featured a river actually catching on fire, the Houston ship channel was mostly an oily sewer, New York City’s dirty air was almost toxic, and the idea that a person would swim in the Cities Hudson River was considered a joke.

That national environmental nightmare brought about the Clean Water Act of 1972, and later the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act was passed in a remarkable bipartisan effort.

Fast forward to 2018...36 years later, and take a look at the outstanding improvements in air and water quality, our forests and wildlife. In order to achieve this impressive improvement the EPA, Congress, and individual states have had a roll in enforcing the mandated regulations. Some states have made a lot more progress than other, and of course, Arkansas is near the bottom in spite of having the potential to actually be The Natural State. Yes, you got it, we’re moving in reverse with our governor, congressmen, and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality making sure we bring up the rear. Our Attorney General’s lawsuit against the EPA to prevent certain smokestack emission from coal-fired electrical generating plants is a good example. To reduce the mercury spewing into the atmosphere from coal-fired plants with the potential to harm the mother’s fetus is dismissed as being too expensive.

 You might be naive enough to think no one in their right mind would want to reverse the outstanding national progress that has been made under Republican and Democratic administrations. If you actually believe that, you are dead wrong, and are using alternative facts.

            Today the EPA and the President, using Executive Orders, are working to reverse the environmental progress made, and they are being assisted by Congress and some individual state agencies. Those are the facts. It’s is a nationwide rollback of the 36 years of progress, from allowing coal mining in national forests to denying climate change and everything in-between. But let’s look closer to home. We have four Congressional Representatives, two Senators, and a Governor who can influence and actually enhance the EPA in its rule making and certainly can have an overall impact on the President’s Executive Directives. Well, what would I give the environmental score for our congressmen, governor, and president? Just a note of warning to my readers: I’m taking the gloves off!

I’m generous when I give the whole sorry bunch an F without using profanity. Want some local examples? Let’s start with the Buffalo National River. If you have read the papers lately, you know 14 miles of the River is now polluted. Of course, nothing has appreciably changed on the watershed except for...Oh you guessed it... the “hog farm”. Each year the hog farm spreads the hog waste on 11 fields near Big Creek...oh by the way... Big Creek has also turned up polluted. What a coincidence? The last time I checked the science books, water still runs downhill...and downhill to Big Creek...you guessed it again...Big Creek feeds into the Buffalo National River. Yes, only 14 miles of the Buffalo are polluted according to the latest tests, but what will next year and the next and the next bring? I’ll tell you what. It will bring more and more pollution until swimming will be restricted and ultimately the river will resemble a hog farm sewer. Am I crying wolf?

Hell no! I’m a geologist who knows the topography, and the karst (Swiss cheese) Boone Limestone landform that the hog farm and the fields on which they are sited. They are dumping hog farm waste on land that has a direct subsurface conduit to our National River. The tremendous amount of hog waste dumped make it virtually impossible for the river not to be polluted. Just look back at my initial column on the river some months ago, and you will see the current pollution is exactly what I predicted.

            The Governor could stop the pollution source tomorrow, but instead he appointed The Beautiful Buffalo Action Committee—It’s hard to say that without laughing. It has no authority to act on the hog farm. It is just a smoke screen that allows the River to be polluted while the Governor does nothing. Anyone who follows political maneuvers knows appointing a committee is a politician’s way to not act, but to pretend you care about a problem.

However, the Governor is not alone in failing to come to the river’s rescue. Congressman Bruce Westerman, at a Hot Spring’s Coffee with Your Congressman event, was asked: “Congressman, do you believe the C & H Hog farm will pollute the Buffalo River?” His answer was recorded by several individuals. “I think the folks who canoe on the river and urinate in it, will pollute the river more than the hog farm.” The hog farm dumps the waste equivalent to a city of 20,000 on the Buffalo watershed and the congressman can dismiss it? Well, a pro-hog-farm congressman who will let the Buffalo continue to be polluted won’t get my vote this fall. Of course Congressman Westerman doesn’t have the backbone to have a town hall meeting to explain his position. He’s also a back-to-the-70s congressman who has proposed the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017. A thinly designed bill to make our National Forest timber company farms. His bill restricts public comments and allows up to 10,000 acres to be clear-cut without public input. Next time you see him ask how much money forest products companies have contributed to his campaign. It’s north of $100,000. He’s in the corporate timber company’s hip pocket—right next to their wallet.

            I wish that were all of the rollback to the 70s, but it’s not. A bill to gut the Endangered Species Act is on the table and based on the sorry environmental record of our elected officials, they will pass it, and we can kiss the Bald Eagle, the Grizzle Bear, the Gray Wolf, and a raft of other species goodbye.  The proposed bill will gut the original Endangered Species Act, and make it easier to delist and not to list critical species.

There’s a bottom line to all of this, and it is rooted in this administration’s goal to roll back environmental progress When 194 countries and the Pope are committed to fight global warming, and our country is backing out of the Paris Accord as the administration tries to deny climate change—all for coal miners, and when the same congress is trying to gut every environmental act and our congressman are happily going along with the President, you know it’s time to do the only thing we can—vote ‘em out!