Anglers and environmentalists complain that the mining is making the 82-mile scenic stream muddier, warmer, wider and shallower. Landowners and gravel miners contend the mining has no effect on the stream and that the mining is crucial to the local economy. A lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Winston Bryant in 1997 and set for trial Dec. 15 could determine the outcome of the controversy. The Sierra Club and a handful of other environmental groups have announced another lawsuit that they hope will force the state to more aggressively address questions about how polluted Arkansas streams actually are. More recently, however, the spread of commercial hog farms threaten an even bigger stink.
Rural residents fear water contamination and complain of the overpowering odor of hog manure.
People who would have never even talked to the Sierra Club 10 years ago are now calling us for help. As it has for decades, logging in Arkansas's watersheds continues to stir angry protests. What was once a continuous forest that went from the eastern states all the way out to the Plains has now been reduced to islands of publicly owned forests. Environmentalists continue to battle the U.S. Forest Service in the courts over logging and roadbuilding in the national forests, contending it damages wildlife habitats and causes siltation in the Buffalo River, Richland Creek, the Mulberry River, Hurricane Creek, the Big Piney River and other first-rank Arkansas streams. And that includes only the toxins we know about.