Unknown Speaker  0:00  
The following is a production of wild idea media.

Bill Hodge  0:05  
Welcome to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature and our ongoing series southern currents, another bonus episode. Again, does bonus mean it's a bonus because you weren't there for the whole conversation. Anders,

Anders Reynolds  0:20  
we don't have time to dig into that, because you've got a very, very important topic today,

Bill Hodge  0:25  
I do. I think it's one. I know it's incredibly important to you. We're talking to members of the Ozark society about your great state, the natural state, of Arkansas. I think you're really excited about this one, even though you weren't there for the interview.

Anders Reynolds  0:38  
I'm so excited about this one. I'm grateful that you've, you know, invited me in to listen to all of these. This is the second of four of our special bonus series, Southern currents. But, you know, it may be the second thematically, but this one is the first in my heart, for sure. I love the natural state as you know.

Bill Hodge  0:58  
Well, specifically, we talked to the Ozark society about the history of their organization, and they were, well, the instrumental tool to getting the buffalo National River, sort of designated as, I think, our first National River, actually. And if you grew up in Arkansas, if you grew up anywhere near Arkansas, you grew up hearing the term float the buffalo, I'm curious like, what your memories like, what does the buffalo mean to you? Anders,

Anders Reynolds  1:22  
man, it's such a difficult question to answer, and that's because it's in my, in my DNA. You know it's, it's like asking, What are your hands or your feet mean to you? You've you know, what is your what does your culture mean to you? It's so ingrained that it's hard to explain. But do you know the the Dan reader song a place on the river. I think I do. I think I remember them. I'm just going to read the first verse really fast. There's a place on the river where it forms pools and turns where ferns shade the moss and pines shade the ferns. And you can tell by the smell of the cool, damp air that you don't really have any business there. And that is what the Buffalo was to me. It was a place to go where there was absolutely no business to take care of, right? My earliest memories of it are floating out with my family, with my friends, a place of respite and escape. But you know me, the Buffalo River also means ragging rights to me, the second I hear Buffalo River come up in conversation, I tense up and I'm ready to be like, did you know that's America's first National River, and I am just ready to hit them hard with that. Fact. I'm very proud of many things about my state, but I'm especially proud of the buffalo River's protection. Oh, well,

Bill Hodge  2:31  
that makes me especially sad that you actually weren't there for the conversation. We tried to make that work, but the way travels worked, you weren't there. There's a couple things in this episode we should talk about before we get into the conversation. And the conversation is with Stuart, Nolan, Tommy Kelly and Martha Morris, all from the Ozark society, from the board. Stuart actually is the archivist for the organization, like he is the keeper of the history. But there's a couple terms we talk a lot about karst topography, which we try to explain in the interview. But the other one we talk about is CAFOs. We actually talk about CAFOs in the current threat category, and that's been resolved a little bit recently. But can you explain to our audience what a CAFO is? Exactly?

Anders Reynolds  3:11  
Sure, CAFO stands for concentrated animal feeding operation. So it's everyone's seen one of these, probably on like a hillock as you're as you're driving down the highway. CAFO is basically an industrial scale livestock operation where animals are housed and raised in sort of the same confined space. Typically, that's for, you know, meat, dairy or egg, and it's just a horrific experience for the animals. It's unhealthy for the environment around the operation and very, very dangerous for water sources.

Bill Hodge  3:44  
Well, we talk about that a lot in this interview, and appreciate you sort of clarifying that for folks, we talk about cars topography, because that plays into why CAFOs are not appropriate in the watershed of a place as special as the buffalo National River. So you hear us talk about that. They did resolve one of the big proposed CAFOs, but there was an ongoing threat that's actually now been resolved thanks to a bipartisan effort across the natural state there in Arkansas. Well, with that said, let's hear from Stuart, Martha and Tommy about the river and about the Ozark society. So Stuart, I guess I'll start with you. I had the chance to watch first river, a great documentary that you all had put together, and if folks want to watch it, you can find it on the Ozark Society's website. Well worth the hour to spend watching that. But could you sort of take us back to the beginning a little bit, I know you're the archivist for the Ozark society, so sort of the keeper of the history. A little bit, I guess is one way to think about that role. You know, some of the early names that jumped out at me, obviously, Dr Compton, but a lot of other names from the early but what was the drive? So folks that don't know, the buffalo National River was designated. What year was that Stuart March of 1972 but when did the journey to that designation actually start? It.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Least 10 years before that. Okay, so

Bill Hodge  5:02  
what was the driver, obviously, was the risk of damming up one of the last free flowing rivers in the south right? Is that sort of

Speaker 1  5:09  
the core? Yes, I think it was actually 1939 if my memory serves me correctly, that the Corps of Engineers did what they call a reconnaissance study, I believe, kind of a pre feasibility study of putting dams on the Buffalo and it was all part of their development of the White River Basin, of which, if you look at a map of North Arkansas, you can see the other major reservoirs that are there. And initially they proposed two dams on the river, one within a couple of miles of the mouth of the river that and then another one in the Middle River area near Tyler, what's today called Tyler bend. So

Bill Hodge  5:44  
how did, originally, did Dr Compton get involved? So at this point, there is no Ozark society, right? And what sort of was the took the sort of Formless structure and turned it into

Speaker 1  5:53  
what, well, they considered, I think, working through the Nature Conservancy, and there's nothing negative about this, they just decided they wanted to form a more local group to to advocate for preserving the Buffalo. And so I think it was May of 1962 that they met in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and decided to form what they called the Ozark society. Initially, it was the Ozark society to save the Buffalo River, and of course, pretty quickly that got to be a name that was just a little too long to deal with, so they just changed it to the Ozark society, which just reflects the name of the mountains that you know that we're sitting in here.

Bill Hodge  6:28  
Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that I what I've learned is Dr Compton was a heck of a storyteller, and that's a theme, if you look at public land protections across the country, is you have to have that storyteller. I think about the storytelling that went on to protect the Dinosaur National Monument from a dam. Howard Zahn Heiser, who was the architect and author of the of the Wilderness Act, apparently, could walk around Capitol Hill with copies of drafts of the law, but he also walked around with a small projector and made them watch what happened when we had lost other wild and scenic rivers in the past. And I think it's kind of interesting. I'm curious, Tommy, coming to you, when was your first connection with the buffalo? Like, when did it begin for you? Like, what was that first connection

Speaker 2  7:12  
the early 1980s right out of college, I would go and float the buffalo with friends.

Bill Hodge  7:18  
And how long did the journey take you to where now you're actually actively engaged with the Ozark society and the protections that the organization does to this day. Like, how did that evolve? How did that go from experience in the river to being involved?

Speaker 2  7:30  
Well, I'm retired now, so I have no time. I'm a retired educator. So again, the idea of preservation, conservation and education are important, and and I've received so much from the Ozark society, because there are members like Stewart who have been members for so long, and I benefit from their knowledge, whether it's hiking or or paddling. We have such strong leaders. And I just kind of follow along. I show up and follow. And so I want to give back to that.

Bill Hodge  8:04  
And Martha, what about you? When was your earliest connection to the river or to the Ozarks and and how that led to where you are today as a member of the Ozark society and a board member?

Speaker 3  8:13  
Well, I, I grew up floating the buffalo at camps, believe it or not, that's that's one of the things the church camps used to do is spend a week, spend a week on the buffalo. So I've always known about the buffalo. I was raised in northern Arkansas, so I am also retired now, so I have an opportunity to join and participate in everything that those Ark society's doing so

Bill Hodge  8:37  
well, that's great. Thanks for sharing that connection to the place that led to getting involved. I think there was a quote that I love that I'm gonna butcher, but I'm gonna really paraphrase it. To Know a Place is what it takes before you become an advocate for a place. And to know a place, you have to experience it. Somebody has to introduce you to it. Somebody has to educate you. And that's a lot of what the society does, am I right? Is helping the public understand what the resource is.

Speaker 1  9:00  
Right? We have outings, you know, constantly, as do other organizations, all to introduce them to trails or rivers or, you know, wilderness areas, whatever, whatever it may be.

Bill Hodge  9:12  
So what's the I now, I haven't looked this up. What's the society? The size of the society today? Like? What's the structure look like? You know, is there is over 100 members. I mean, it seems like it's a pretty large organization with chapters like 1000

Speaker 1  9:24  
members, yeah, but those are family membership, so, yeah, who knows how many people are behind that? You

Bill Hodge  9:30  
know, and spread across how many states would you say, oh,

Speaker 1  9:32  
numerous. But particularly Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri got

Bill Hodge  9:39  
you Okay. And now, after having sort of that Genesis with the protection of the river, the organization has also been involved in other protections. We were talking before we hit the record button, there's sort of a mosaic of, sort of Land Management here. We're, you know, on the Ozark National Forest. We're also adjoining the buffalo national. River, which is a part of the Department of the Interior. We have designated wilderness areas. Could you talk a little bit about that Stuart and sort of, sort of, that mosaic that makes this place so interesting. It's also a collection of a lot of interesting private, you know, managed lands as well, too,

Speaker 1  10:14  
right? Well, you know, we have, we have members in all of the states that I mentioned. And, you know, they're the Washington National Forest, for instance, goes well into Oklahoma, right? In fact, there's two wilderness areas in Oklahoma, one black fork mountain and the other one, the kaiamichi and the Washtenaw trail runs right through one of them, and the other one isn't five miles away. And so that just an example of the of the mosaic that you're talking about. And then in Arkansas, you know, the Ozarks, they don't stop at the state line. They go well into Missouri, almost to St Louis, and over almost into Illinois. So there's other national forests there that have wellness areas that we've been advocates for in Missouri as well. So in Arkansas, you know, there's been a concentration of wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers that we worked on, both in the Ozarks and and the wash talls spread amongst, you know, six or eight wilderness areas and and six or eight Wild and Scenic Rivers, and that's in addition to the buffalo National River.

Bill Hodge  11:18  
So with that origin around the river. I guess one thing I wanted to talk about, and we'll come back to some of the wilderness and land protection work that you guys have done as well, but the threats to the buffalo didn't stop with the designation as a National River originally, right, there were continuing. I mean, as recently as less than a decade ago, right there was the risk of a large hog farm that was going to have a lot of affluent that would could make its way into people's wells, but also into this incredible resource that is the buffalo National River. Like, how does the organization sort of calibrate those threats, how to respond to those threats? How does that? How does that work within the club?

Speaker 1  11:54  
Well, as I've told people, some, some who haven't been around as long as I have, my simple statement is it's always something right? It comes back to competition for resources. In the 1980s there was a proposal in the middle part of the river to put a large landfill in well, the Ozarks are covered with karst topography. There's holes, literally, holes everywhere. And so there was a real both a local effort and a and a statewide effort, with respect to the Ozark society, to oppose the landfill, not because we didn't need landfills, but because we didn't think that was a good place to put one for technical reasons and the threat that it would pose to springs and underground waterways and such that find their way in, into the river. Then about 10 years after that, there was a proposal to dam Bear Creek over near what springs near the Richland Richland Creek, and that was the Park Service really got involved with that, and encourages us, frankly, to to oppose that. And our suggestion was to go to an existing reservoir to get water, which they did. They went to to Bull Shoals. And there's a big water line that goes across North Arkansas that supplanted the need from an existing reservoir to keep from having to put another one in. And then, most recently, there have been the confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO issues that have come up, one that was resolved by the state by buying it out and creating a conservation easement. And then, most recently, there's been legislation that has to our knowledge. And I don't think the final boats been taken, but to maintain a moratorium on confined animal feeding operations in the Buffalo River watershed. And it's in, it's, it's, it's been a battle. There are competing interests. Like I said, there's always competition for resources. There's the right to farm. I understand that, but the truth of matter is, you, any landowner, just can't do whatever they want to anywhere, right? And that's true whether you live in the middle of the city, like we do, or whether you live in the country, there's limitations, like we couldn't put a large wood processing facility right here, right? If, if buffalo Outdoor Center wanted to convert this to that, because it would have to be permitted. There would be air issues, there'd be water issues. So you just can't do anything that you want, wherever you want, and that's just something that we as a society are going to need to deal with. And and I think Neil Compton realized that, you know, when he when he wrote this battle for the buffalo. It's interesting, what he said has come so true today. And if you don't mind, yeah, please, Bill, I'd like to read that he says that will mean a protective attitude by human inhabitants for the entire watershed of the Buffalo River will be mandatory if it is to survive as a beautiful, clear water stream of now. National significance, and this is the part that's come true that will mean restrictions on industry and certain types of agriculture in the area, such modalities we must learn to accept and live with if there's to be places on this earth where our descendants can know and understand the wonders of creation. And I don't I mean, he wrote this in the in 1990 It was published in 92 he probably wrote a year or two before that, and it couldn't be any more true today, and it's also probably going to be true 150 years from now, 200 years from now, yeah, you're

Bill Hodge  15:29  
like, 500 years from now, your line, it's always something, right? Yeah, it's always something. And it's the things we don't anticipate. You know? It's and that's

Speaker 1  15:35  
why, that's why organizations like ours, like the Arkansas Canoe Club and others. That's why they're so important, from a conservation standpoint, to just be vigilant, and we're always looking for a way to compromise. We hope everybody can work it out, but, but there's certain places that we need to preserve, right and and our beautiful rivers in Arkansas, wild and scenic rivers, our wellness areas, if we if we like them today, imagine, and I said this while ago, imagine the value of them 500 years from now, 1000 years from now, because without that, it's not going to happen. And I tell people, you go look at the development below on the White River, below Bull Shoals dam. You go look at the development on the Spring River. That's what I'm talking about. And I'm not saying the people didn't have the right to do that, but we also have the right to preserve areas, right? And that's what we've done here. And we have

Bill Hodge  16:21  
to find that. We have to have to find that balance. That's exactly right. We have to find that balance. And, you know, obviously the society had had to work through those issues. It was interesting. And watching the documentary, The the tension wasn't just those who wanted the dam and the economics that would come with the dam and including the recreational values of flat water, you know, recreation, and those who didn't want the dam and wanted to protect the river. There was also the local community who just didn't want anything to happen, you know, they didn't want a designation for the river, they didn't want the dam. I mean, there's, there's always a lot of tension at play, but I always believe we can find a way forward, like we can find enough common ground, you're gonna never have 100% of the people buy into an idea, but it is interesting to think about. You just have to work at the relationships long enough and the society. And you mentioned the canoe club, you guys represent not just the Ozark society, but you're members of different organizations. Tell me about the Canoe Club.

Speaker 1  17:19  
Well, the Canoe Club was formed in the mid 1970s it actually kind of sprang up in Fayetteville, and I was, I was a founder. I was one of the original, original people. I lived there at that point in time, and it's become a very successful organization its own right. Probably again, around 1000 members, and they're very active. Have chapters in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and maybe Missouri, I'm not sure. But anyway, it's, it's very similarly structured to the Ozark society, except it's its focus is been on water recreation, not flat water, but moving water recreation. So

Bill Hodge  17:54  
and the trail club too. You guys represent some hiking clubs. Is that right? Or am I?

Speaker 1  17:59  
Well, we, the Ozark society does a lot of hiking. There are some, some other hiking organizations in the state, several of them,

Bill Hodge  18:05  
is there, is there a stewardship side of the of the organization as well as their trail work? Or, obviously, you talked about public education being a part, an important part of what the club does. What like? What sort of forms does that take with the public? How do you get out and educate people about the experience on the river and why the river and why the river

Speaker 2  18:24  
is important? One thing that we do is write letters to the editor that are published in the newspaper. We've done advertisements in the newspaper to educate people, and we have little brochure that explains what we do, and of

Speaker 1  18:37  
course, it's available on the internet, yeah, on our website,

Bill Hodge  18:41  
yeah, anymore, that's where you got to be, right? Like, a record is one thing. But it was interesting being down at the buffalo Outdoor Center where, and we're sitting here at one of their campgrounds, private enterprise, the buffalo Outdoor Center, but listen to the phone calls they were taking today about the condition of the river and, you know, those sort of things. I know there was recently, you know, we're sitting here and in mid April, and there's been some heavy rain, but now almost that entire flow has gone away, but it did a lot of damage, and educating people about making sure they're ready for the experience they're going to have, because it might be different than the experience you had last summer, right? Because the conditions on the river change quite a bit. You

Speaker 1  19:19  
know, Bill, you asked a question while ago that I've reflected on a little more about. You know what happened in the beginning? You know, the National Environmental Policy Act wasn't passed until 1972 so there was no environmental assessment. There was no requirement for that if, if a dam was proposed on a stream, any stream, whether it was in the West, or whether it's in the east, or whether it's in the Midwest, like this, if it was shown to be beneficial by the Corps of Engineers approved by Congress, allocated money, and the governor of the state approved by it got done, right? It was that simple, right? It was literally that simple. And you know, it's not that way today, but that's the way it was then. Mm. And so the context of your question was, you know, what about that? And you're exactly right. There are a bunch of people along the Buffalo River that wanted to see it left just like it. It was, but it was that that wasn't that simple. It could be that simple today, but it wasn't that simple then, right? And again, I want to refer to Dr Compton's book and read something that, to me, is stood out. And this is, this is the then governor who was governor of Arkansas in the mid 60s, Orville. Faubus, he said the buffalo could not be preserved by leaving it alone. Those who thought it could be were indulging in a mirage. Faubus said that, fortunately, the engineers had given lower priority to dams on the buffalo than to other structures in the White River Basin. In other words, they developed those dams, first like Beaver Dam, then the one in Missouri, and then also Bull Shoals over here in Norfolk. There was a time for numbers of people to become aware of the beauties of the river, he said. He said he met at length in the office with representatives in Little Rock district, and once traveled to Washington to discuss the dam. This is a critical statement. If I had approved it, it would have been half finished before I left office. He said that the he then supported the National River Project, because the river could never have remained the same without some form of protection. And so the point is, is that in that current environment, which is different than today, I get that different than today, he felt that's the only way that it could be preserved, right? It was either one or the other, and I've always recognized that there was middle ground. But just like he said, different governor, different outcome, yeah, totally different. All he had to do was approve it, and it was a done deal, right? And a lot of people don't understand that. They have a hard time thinking, well, that's not the way it is. No, it's not the way it is today. That's the way it was in the mid 1960s and I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind. And you mentioned it while ago. There were at the very same time Marble Canyon Dam and Echo Park were on the books, right? Yeah. And you, I know you're familiar with those, yeah, but those, those were also in the mid 60s. Same consequences, same questions, same proposals,

Bill Hodge  22:10  
right? We live in a world in which, if you value a place like the buffalo National River, or you know, your favorite place in your backyard, wherever you might be listening to this podcast is the favorite piece of public land. All it takes is losing one time. So we if we win today, and in the case of the Ozark society and many others, won in getting the National River designation for the buffalo, that was just the first win. You have to just keep winning. People see winning. Some people see I use the word winning, but some people see that as constraint. But if those constraints aren't in place, like you said, maybe, maybe the hurdles are a little higher to clear today, but there will always be people who have other designs than leaving it as it is to use Teddy Roosevelt's language. There will always be folks who have other designs and values for it. I think the thing that we all have in common those those of us who value places enough to stand up and join an organization like the Ozark society or or whatever the organization might be, what we have in common is we see a value in the place beyond our horizon, right? We see a value in the place coming for the future. Others don't see that. They maybe see the value in what's the resource we could get from it for today's economy, today's population. And I think, I don't know, I'm kind of rambling, but it's just, I think it's an important thing that you just sort of pointed out that, like at the time when the Buffalo River was designated, the alternative was anything else could have happened if there wasn't that protection? I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the history of the Jubilee bus trip. It's such a it's such a great example of you never know the thing that's going to put an effort over the top. And there's a lot of people today that are like wondering, what honestly, the future of public lands looks like there's a tremendous amount of threat to us even holding onto our public lands today, but I've had wins that I was surprised at. What the last like, what the last straw was that finally made it happen. But it seems like that Jubilee trip, and also the fortune of having a sitting Supreme Court Justice stand up for the cause. Could you talk about that as the archivist, what that history of what I'm talking about with the Jubilee bus, and who that justice was?

Speaker 1  24:27  
Yes, I will. And I forgot the year that Justice Douglas came, it was again in the mid 60s, and they put on the river right down here at the Ponca bridge, and they spent that first night below big bluff, which is four or five miles down river, and then they continued on. The next day. They either took out at the scout camp or at Pruitt, I can't remember, but yes, he came to experience the river, and then he went back and advocated for it in Washington, DC, and it was a big help. Then the other thing the Jubilee. Bus was an effort by the Ozark society to provide transportation to folks that had the time to go to Washington. And I believe it was on October 29 1971 they appeared and testified in Congress. And as they left, somebody commented that it was a Jubilee bus. It wasn't named before it went. It named while they were there. And I knew a bunch of the people are on that bus. I mean, I knew them personally. A lot of them aren't with us anymore, and they felt like it was very successful and it was just part of the advocacy effort. I mean, they they scheduled a bus and and everybody jumped on, and they drove to Washington and and spent a couple of days and drove home,

Bill Hodge  25:48  
and that testimony helped make a difference right in the it did, yes, they walked away with the victory at hand, if I remember right, like they literally sort of knew they

Speaker 1  25:56  
vote took place several days later. But I think the the particularly the Arkansas congressmen that were then in support of it, felt like it would probably pass, and it did. And then it was the next, the next March 1, I think that it was actually signed after both houses had passed. It was signed by the President, march 1 of 72

Bill Hodge  26:19  
nice. I'm curious. You know, again, we're sitting here at a on a private business that exists because of the buffalo National River. It's the reason people come here and spend money with this, this operation, the the buffalo Outdoor Center, is because of the chance to float this river. It has created a whole sort of different economy for for Northern Arkansas, northwest Arkansas, I'm sure with that has come some pressures. Can Can any of you talk about sort of what you see changes in the river, even though we have this protection that have gone on with the volume of use with the river, and if it's creating challenges today on the river, then if you want to tackle that and like, like, how those our society sort of helps people think about their experience on the river today. Martha,

Speaker 1  27:05  
do you want to talk about the trails at all? We don't. We don't see much pressure on the trails. No, don't see much. You know, it's mostly the River Corridor itself. And I'm talking about bank to bank. Yeah, the access points. You know, there's obviously a lot of usage there, but just the popularity the river seems to be the only part of it that we really see overrun, right? And certainly it can be from time to time, yeah, you know, but on the trails, we hardly ever see much doesn't

Speaker 3  27:31  
get as much use as you would think, right? Beautiful as it

Speaker 1  27:35  
is, so it's mainly just the River Corridor. So, I mean, I'm talking about River in the river, yeah, folks flow down the river, and it's only during certain times. Yeah, you know, if you're willing to go during the middle of the week, you could paddle something that on on a Saturday, May have 500 boats on it, or maybe not 500 maybe 250 and on a Wednesday, you may see two other people, right? So it's, it's something that I know the Park Service is addressing. I don't know if concern is the right way to say, but it's a management issue. It's a it's a public lands management issue.

Bill Hodge  28:06  
Obviously, they're probably trying to make sure they're providing a positive experience. They're not wanting to constrain the experience of floating the buffalo. I mean, if you've lived anywhere in the proximity of of the mid south here, you know the the expression float the buffalo. You just know what that means, right? And I'm sure they want to protect that experience and protect a resource for that experience, for folks. And I just know that that's, you know, with a lot of places anymore, it's not the extractive industry that's the challenge. It's the how do we manage the number of people that want to enjoy this experience and make sure that they don't use the old expression love it to death, right? And talk a little bit about Martha, if you would talk a little bit about the hiking experience right here, what is a great hike in in the Ozarks and here in this corridor that you really like? What? What would somebody who's maybe not from, from the mid south would would need to know about what the experience of hiking here in North Arkansas is,

Speaker 3  29:01  
well, you can have snow when you don't have snow anywhere else, you suddenly find yourself walking through that. That's an experience. There's just some beautiful rock formations. There's just beautiful creeks and rivers, other than the buffalo, of course. To do it, the trail heads are fairly remote, and that may have something to do with the Ouachita trail itself kind of has a lot of them that are on highways, but you have to drive, after experiencing day hikes, we you have to drive quite a bit up a dirt road and to get to a trail head, and then you may be 10 miles away from the next trailhead, so you kind of have to plan, but it's very rewarding such a beautiful

Bill Hodge  29:45  
place, and I've had the great pleasure of getting to work on the on the Ouachita trail, and so that's kind of not in the landscape we're sitting here. But let's talk about the Ouachita a little bit. That's a national forest that that that spans Arkansas and all the way into Oklahoma, sort. What role does the Ozark society take with with that slice of land here in Arkansas and Oklahoma, like obviously, you've been involved in land protections there and wilderness

Speaker 1  30:09  
protections we have. Tommy may want to talk about that. She's been in a bunch of meetings. We've we've made an effort through our conservation chair to meet with with different forest service districts, and I know Tommy's been in some of those, and we've just talked to him about maybe some additional wilderness areas. I don't know, Tommy, what else? We

Speaker 2  30:26  
make a real effort to be partners with the Forest Service and to let them know that we're all on the same page, and what we can do to help we go in and maybe put up signs where we have a problem with ATVs running the trails, and we've helped the Forest Service going and gone in and put up signs to discourage the ATVs. And there's a lot of overlap between our organizations. For example, the Ozark society, we have a couple of people who are members of it, and they're also members of Friends of the Ouachita trail, and they sponsor sections, and we go and clean those, so you see a lot of crossover between different groups. And then, you know, again, just the education part in general. People in Arkansas love our outdoors. We're proud of it. It's the natural state, right? Yes, whether it's the Buffalo River or the mulberry river. And it seems to me that when people are educated and aware, then they're passionate about it, you know, and they'll make calls to their Congress. Now that's what you get it, yeah, you know, to get it done. For example, when the state of Arkansas, when Governor ASA Hutchinson was governor, and they found out a way to buy out the cnh hog farm, which was on the Buffalo River watershed, and again, seeping into that karst topography. People knew about it, you know, still today. I mean, if you ask 50% of arkansan, you know, tell me about the cnh hog farm buyout. People know what that is. They know what karst topography means, right? And so, again, just that education piece and talking about it. And people in Arkansas still read the newspaper. And then, again, I know Stuart's been involved with an effort to try to take stress off of the buffalo by doing more education about the mulberry river. You know, other rivers in Arkansas that can be an alternative. The Buffalo is maybe the most famous, but we have a lot of good other water ways that would be fun to camp, to paddle on. So to take some of the stress off of the Buffalo River right,

Speaker 1  32:37  
Bill, the designation of the buffalo as a National River, changes the license plates that you see at the put in areas on the buffalo versus the Big Piney or the mulberry or other places. I mean, there's all kinds of beautiful rivers in North Arkansas. Most of those license plates that those other rivers are going to be Arkansas, maybe a few Missouri, Oklahoma. You go down here on a busy day at the Ponca bridge, you'll see license plates from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee. I mean, it's just, I'm amazed when I do that, yeah? And it's because it's a National River, right? And the National Park Service people will tell you that you designate something national. It draws a different clientele. They're enjoying the same thing, but it's a different clientele.

Bill Hodge  33:27  
I have some new friends. I grew up always here and float the buffalo. Float the buffalo, right? You hear that, if you don't have to live in Arkansas to hear, or Missouri to hear, hear it. I had some, some of some of my very dear friends got together. I had to miss it because of having moved out west. But they they did a trip. They did a six day trip floating to Buffalo, and it's created a passion. One of them's gone on now to do multiple, multi day trips in the Boundary Waters, Canoe Area. I mean, it's amazing what that experience on the river, and in this case, one of the most iconic rivers in our country, right? And maybe yet, one that not enough of our population has heard about. So yeah, it's amazing what a draw this place is, what the what float the buffalo means to people. Part of the reason I want to come here and have this conversation with you all is is it's such a icon for the lack of a better, better term. I want to go back, just for our listeners, we've used the word karst topography a lot. And for those of you don't know what we're talking about, it's both sort of the rock structure and the topography of this part of the Ozarks that we're in. It's basically just very porous. So if you if you can imagine a land that perks to an nth degree, that's why you can't have a hog farm that was going to produce millions and millions of gallons of fluid, because there was no way to impound it. It was going to find its way into the aquifer. Am I

Speaker 1  34:46  
saying that? Right? That's the argument. And also it was a land application of solids from that that was put on fields. And again, we could, we could get off in a whole different discussion about whether it was applicable and whether it was a. Appropriate or not, but the bottom line is that, and it was the same thing with the landfill discussion, again, tying it back to other things that have occurred in the past. It was the same thing with the landfill discussion that occurred in the 1980s you can engineer things to address those issues, but it's the consequences of failure that you have to also take into account, right? I mean, nothing is ever engineered to fail, or at least most things aren't. But here, the risk was too great, and that's what, that's what everybody thought. So it wasn't a matter of, well, can we do this? Or we couldn't do that? Yeah, you might be able to do it in my work. But what's, what's the consequence if it doesn't work, right? And all of a sudden, you've got toxic effluent, and you're, you know, in the in the instance of a landfill in a spring that comes up and feeds the river, how can you reverse that? Right? It's gonna, and I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know that anybody, because you don't know the path that water takes, right? Well, it may go to Missouri and come back. I, you know, the unknowns and the risk are just tremendous, right, particularly for a resource that's so important to tourism for Arkansas, and that's where all this kind of ties together. And

Bill Hodge  36:08  
you have to plan for that failure, right? I haven't, haven't lived in East Tennessee when the Kingston coal plants, coal slurry, earth and dam failed, and all of that flowed into the Tennessee watershed, you have to, you have to assume at some point that's going to happen. You know, we have more and more and more. We have 500 year floods. They happen every five years now, instead of every 500 years. I mean, the flood down here just in the last few days was significant, obviously. And what's going on in the HA, in Ohio River Valley right now as we speak, is flooding. So, yeah, you have to, you have to think about all those things. But I want to make sure people, we kept using the term car topography. I think it's important to to just understand what that is. It's very porous.

Speaker 1  36:46  
It's yeah, and it's karst is generally in the limestone, right, right?

Bill Hodge  36:50  
So as we sort of think about wrapping up here, one thing I wanted to ask about the the organization itself, the Ozark society, because this is something I hear a lot. I'm curious about, if you have any struggles with attracting a young, newer membership, I know a lot of organizations in conservation, a lot of recreation groups have struggled with, you know, attracting a demographic to keep the organization healthy. It sounds like it's incredibly healthy still to this day, but does the society have to put a special effort to try to bring in younger, New Generation members of the club. Is that something that that is a struggle at all for the Ozark society?

Speaker 1  37:27  
Yes, it is. Is it and, and? And I think it's a struggle for most organizations today. And one thing we've done, and it's because our membership chair, has reduced the cost of membership. Most of our things go out electronically now, instead of hard copy, is that we have started offering free memberships for a year, and a lot of those people have been younger kids, and we hope they hang on right. But like I said, it's always gonna be something, and somebody needs to be around to help make sure that it gets addressed fairly at least our side of the story needs to be told. So I think it's incredibly important that we try to continue to attract others to become a member of the organization. Youth

Unknown Speaker  38:12  
grants program that we have does

Bill Hodge  38:14  
that as well. How does that work? How does that work? Well,

Speaker 2  38:17  
we have grants that we offer youth, for example, and teachers as well. There was a grant. I think it was the teacher went to Antarctica. Was that right?

Speaker 1  38:34  
I can't remember, but there's been a we do it on an annual basis,

Speaker 2  38:37  
education with her class. And I know there was one where the Walton Foundation gave money and the Ozark gave matching funds and to do schools, individuals scouts with their projects, and that's another way, again, of education, stressing the importance of their knowledge, right? And that will become a priority. The

Bill Hodge  38:59  
reason I ask the question is, it so important to engage young people, and even if it's just an experience in the Buffalo River as an example? You know, there's interesting stats out there right now, if a young person's not hunting and fishing by the time they're 10 years old, they're the odds of them ever becoming a fisherman or a hunter is almost zero. That's got to also be true about if you didn't grow up floating the river. You may not all of a sudden awake to go float the river when you're, you know, 45 years old or whatever like, I just know I hear that. I hear that in our travels and in our in our work in conservation is we have to continue to find a way to sort of broaden our audience, and particularly with young people. And it's exciting to hear that you guys are doing

Speaker 2  39:40  
that. It's very healthy. Yeah, yeah. Well, the healthy group.

Bill Hodge  39:45  
What else should I know here as we wrap up? What else should should I take away that, that our listeners should take away that they should know about the Ozark society, about the Canoe Club, make a pitch, why they should come float the buffalo. I'm curious what you would like folks to know about, about this amazing landscape. Right?

Speaker 1  40:00  
Well, you know, while we've been here, Martha's talked about hiking, we talked about running the river. We've talked about the Ozarks. We talked about the washitas, the books open, yeah, find something you like and go do it. You know, there's a lot of opportunities. And of course, we haven't even talked about the flat water recreation. But those are, you know, that's kind of a different, different group of folks, but there's a lot to do in Arkansas, and it's a great it's a great place, and Oklahoma and Missouri, and it's a great place to visit, if you like, to do that sort of thing.

Speaker 2  40:32  
And the Ozark society is organization to do it with. We have outings that different experienced people, such as Stewart sponsor, and like I said, you just have to show up and follow. We're going to do a five night, six day paddle in June, and we have these leaders who have it all organized, and it's just a great way to get experience and to be in a community. I love it. It's a real getaway.

Speaker 1  40:58  
Martha, do you want to add anything on the hiking side? I mean, it just get out and do just get out and beginning. A lot of people joined, like, hiking clubs, and I'm talking about 40 years ago, before the advent of electronic media, because they they didn't know where to go right now all. I mean,

Unknown Speaker  41:16  
just show up. It can be on your mom, it

Speaker 1  41:19  
can be on your phone. And it's so easier to find some of these places. But still, we, you know, we've published things. Ozark societies published maps, canoe guides, everything and now, and you know, they got these national geographic maps that are so handy if you want to do the trail along the river. The other thing the Ozark society did, and it was mainly through the efforts of Ken Smith and then a bunch of volunteers, is they constructed the Buffalo River Trail. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, from here to us, right out here, from here to from Boxley to Pruitt, and from Highway 65 to highway 14. And it was done over a period of 40 years, something like that, 30 or 40 years, and part of it is shared with the Ozark islands trail, yeah, which is a different organization, but very much like mine,

Bill Hodge  42:09  
and they're all very well marked. Yeah, yeah. That's one thing I've noticed, is the trail heads are well marked. The trails themselves are well marked. So I think that's a I think that's a great, a great way to sort of wrap this up, folks, you heard there is a range of things that you can do to come experience the natural state. And how did you say it? You just have to get out and show up. Just show up. Just show up and get out and do it. So Tommy Martha Stewart, thank you all so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed the conversation. Folks, please come find the Ozark society online. I highly recommend that when you get to the website that you check out the documentary, first River. It'll tell you a lot more about the history of how we have this amazing resource that is the buffalo National River and this incredible landscape. Thank you all for coming today. Well, thank you. Thanks.

Speaker 4  42:53  
The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, production and editing by Bren Russell at podlab Digital, support by Holly wilkoszewski at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai