01-18-2007, 10:10 PM
GASSVILLE - Most people are familiar with the practice of recycling Christmas trees as fish habitat, but fish structures also come from less well-known sources.
In the case of a recent habitat restoration project on the Bull Shoals tailwater, they came from a catfish restaurant, a highway project and a new Wal-Mart store.
The AGFC aquatic habitat program recently completed work to restore habitat on the White River between Roundhouse Shoals and Redbud Shoals, using leftover materials from construction sites for fish habitat.
"We're kind of like scroungers when we go after this stuff," said Larry Rider, AGFC habitat coordinator. "The great thing is that it doesn't cost anything to get these materials. We get them from a lot of sources - construction sites, new retail stores that are being built in the state. They build their foundations and clear their sites, and they usually have these big boulders that are hard to get rid of. And they're glad to see us come because we haul that stuff off and it saves the contractor a lot of money and we're able to put it to good use. It also saves us a lot of expense that would go toward buying materials."
AGFC acquired boulders from the excavation of a Bellafonte site that will become the Cadron Catfish House. Other boulders came from a new Wal-Mart store in Flippin. Large trees with root structures were recovered from the construction area for the U.S. 62/412 bypass around Flippin.
"Instead of just piling it up and burning it and watching it go up in smoke, we put it back into the environment," Rider said, referring to the trees. "When you do that, it improves the quality of the fishery for our anglers, it reduces erosion, and it improves water quality. It makes a big difference."
Using a unique barge brought to Arkansas by an Iowa construction company, the AGFC habitat program placed more than 25,000 combined tons of rock and wood into the two-mile stretch of White River.
"There's good habitat upstream at Roundhouse Shoals and the Armstrong Hole, and there's good habitat downstream from there at Rim Shoals," said Darrell Bowman, AGFC trout biologist. "This habitat work completes the missing link."
Since the Bull Shoals Dam was built in 1951, habitat quality in the tailwater hasn't benefited from the natural processes that normally provide streambed fish habitat. During events such as floods, trees often become uprooted and wash downstream. Currents deposit the woody debris along the channel, where it becomes fish habitat.
The AGFC habitat program is assisting nature by placing structures in areas where they've been washed out of the stream that have been a direct result of various hydrological influences including extreme water level fluctuations and inconsistent flows. Strategic placement of the trees and large boulders provides a velocity break for the fish, and when water flows around the structures, it also creates scour holes that provide additional habitat. The movement of water over the structures also creates a riffle or vortices effect, diffusing sunlight and creating overhead cover for fish. That helps trout elude predators, which can't see as far into the rippled water.
The area at Redbud Shoals is one of many projects on the drawing board for AGFC's habitat program. Similar projects have been carried out on the Beaver tailwater and at Winkley Shoals on the Little Red River. One prominent piece of habitat work took place between the White River bridges at Cotter.
"Habitat is one of the keys to anything in fish or wildlife management," Rider said. "If you don't have habitat, you don't have anything."
In the case of a recent habitat restoration project on the Bull Shoals tailwater, they came from a catfish restaurant, a highway project and a new Wal-Mart store.
The AGFC aquatic habitat program recently completed work to restore habitat on the White River between Roundhouse Shoals and Redbud Shoals, using leftover materials from construction sites for fish habitat.
"We're kind of like scroungers when we go after this stuff," said Larry Rider, AGFC habitat coordinator. "The great thing is that it doesn't cost anything to get these materials. We get them from a lot of sources - construction sites, new retail stores that are being built in the state. They build their foundations and clear their sites, and they usually have these big boulders that are hard to get rid of. And they're glad to see us come because we haul that stuff off and it saves the contractor a lot of money and we're able to put it to good use. It also saves us a lot of expense that would go toward buying materials."
AGFC acquired boulders from the excavation of a Bellafonte site that will become the Cadron Catfish House. Other boulders came from a new Wal-Mart store in Flippin. Large trees with root structures were recovered from the construction area for the U.S. 62/412 bypass around Flippin.
"Instead of just piling it up and burning it and watching it go up in smoke, we put it back into the environment," Rider said, referring to the trees. "When you do that, it improves the quality of the fishery for our anglers, it reduces erosion, and it improves water quality. It makes a big difference."
Using a unique barge brought to Arkansas by an Iowa construction company, the AGFC habitat program placed more than 25,000 combined tons of rock and wood into the two-mile stretch of White River.
"There's good habitat upstream at Roundhouse Shoals and the Armstrong Hole, and there's good habitat downstream from there at Rim Shoals," said Darrell Bowman, AGFC trout biologist. "This habitat work completes the missing link."
Since the Bull Shoals Dam was built in 1951, habitat quality in the tailwater hasn't benefited from the natural processes that normally provide streambed fish habitat. During events such as floods, trees often become uprooted and wash downstream. Currents deposit the woody debris along the channel, where it becomes fish habitat.
The AGFC habitat program is assisting nature by placing structures in areas where they've been washed out of the stream that have been a direct result of various hydrological influences including extreme water level fluctuations and inconsistent flows. Strategic placement of the trees and large boulders provides a velocity break for the fish, and when water flows around the structures, it also creates scour holes that provide additional habitat. The movement of water over the structures also creates a riffle or vortices effect, diffusing sunlight and creating overhead cover for fish. That helps trout elude predators, which can't see as far into the rippled water.
The area at Redbud Shoals is one of many projects on the drawing board for AGFC's habitat program. Similar projects have been carried out on the Beaver tailwater and at Winkley Shoals on the Little Red River. One prominent piece of habitat work took place between the White River bridges at Cotter.
"Habitat is one of the keys to anything in fish or wildlife management," Rider said. "If you don't have habitat, you don't have anything."