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Northwest Arkansas Times Monday, August 12, 2002 Reprinted with author's permission Sow's ears and silk purses BY FRAN ALEXANDER Every so often the inner voice guiding us through the days gets kicked into a screaming mode and just will not shut up. Since last Tuesday's City Council meeting, mine has been repeating, Just wait a dern minute here! Knowing what is prompting this internal hands-on-hips and foot-put-down attitude, I figure it is about time something gets cleared up once and for all. During this whole Commerce /Industrial /Research/ Technology /Business Park evolution to which the city has been committing money and work hours off and on for 12 years, not once has any contract been signed nor one penny paid to do any serious research on the biological attributes of this 289 acres on I-540. This has been the situation in spite of some glaring evidence that this property is not your basic run-of-the-mill piece of ground. The fact that it can be very wet land at different times of the year has been pointed out to the City for over a decade by neighbors, independent researchers, appraisers, and the Corps of Engineers. Doing what its client requested, an environmental engineering firm contracted by the City has proposed how and where wetlands could be switched to other locations, but at great cost with no guaranteed preservation of the plants and animals affected. Numerous scenarios for developing the property and a few nibbles from potential lot purchasers have occurred over the years, but no finalized plans, physical or economic, have become reality there. Why? Well, to hear the latest, it's all the environmentalists fault. That lap, the newest one on the scene, seems to be a very convenient place in which to dump blame, but we need to get a few things straight right now. The Wilson Springs area on this property was identified several years ago as being one of the few homes to a tiny fish called the Arkansas darter, and university students began to study them. They concentrated on a 7 acre area around the springs and also did biological inventories on a range of life forms from fungi, slime mold, snakes, toads, salamanders, turtles, and fish to opossums, foxes, skunks, armadillos, and deer as well as trees and shrubs. One of the most astonishing studies has been an independent one done by ornithologists Joe Neal and Mike Mlodinow who have recorded 125 different bird species, 24 of which are considered in decline range-wide in the North American Breeding Bird Survey, and 18 which are termed, Species of Concern. Whether the birds were never very plentiful or have lost other habitats where they nest or winter-over or are in decline due to other causes, the fact remains that they have been identified as being here on Fayetteville's wetland site for reasons only the birds understand. Other scientists have commented on the unusual hydrological and geological features of this sloping land, on the grass species found there, and even on a crayfish that is endemic to only 8 counties in northwest Arkansas. The Nature Conservancy and several researchers have volunteered (that means free ) to advise and create different plans for this property which would address the delicate environmental conditions and to figure out just how the water and land are working together to cause this place to support the life forms found there. Imagine what might be discovered if formalized, and, God Forbid (!), funded research data was collected from the site. From the onset in Feb. 2002 of the latest renewed effort to develop this terra -but not-firma for commercial use, some citizens have consistently asked for only two things: an environmental assessment of this property before any money was spent to draw up streets, lots, and infrastructure, and a process for public input so some consensus about the land's best use could be reached. In other words, they felt environmental concerns and public overview needed to have an equal place at the planning team table from the beginning along side the hired engineers, the Chamber of Commerce, and any other movers and shakers. Never did anyone with environmental concerns ask that the city pay engineers to confer with them. Instead they were shown maps of 3 development options for the site and allowed to comment. At that point it was fairly obvious there was no human comprehension that birds and toads do not understand lines on maps or appreciate the overwhelming generosity of being given a hundred acres on which to live. Animal populations and habitat ranges were completely missing from the proposals. Also, environmentalists did not ask for these mapped options to be drawn up; the city council did. Continually since that time, the same requests for data and a formal public input process have been made. During my own fairly close observation of this issue, I have never heard anyone from the ecology corner proclaim that this land should not be developed but only that we need to have clear reasons for where construction would be both ecologically and economically sensible. Planning should be built around that information. As reward for this message, citizens who have given thousands of FREE hours of research and inquiry have been called obstructionists incapable of being satisfied. At the last council meeting, the past president of the Chamber of Commerce said, They will obfuscate... That is an interesting verb, and I feel an incorrect one, to use on people who have consistently only pushed for answers to some pretty large questions and for keeping the public informed. This unfolding saga has become a fascinating exercise in finding someone to blame for the fact the city bought a swamp. Environmentalists are convenient since we are obdurate and obstinate, obsessed with an obligation to object and to obviate the obliteration of obvious as well as obsequious organisms, and we can be obtuse obstacles who often obtrude, not obfuscate, our opinions. But, we mean well. We have made the observation that this land is probably, and ironically, more valuable to us all as a sow's ear than as a silk purse. And, we are getting darned tired of being treated as if we caused this place to be a wetland just because we have the audacity to acknowledge that it is one. |