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October 26, 2006

Big Stink On the Buffalo

And I don't mean the river itself, though Lord knows it prolly does after another summer of overuse. (Or so I guess, since I haven't been there since it became more like the sewer-like Seine than the free-flowing, beautifully clean river of my youth.) The latest controversy stems from the Park Service closing even more access roads....an accelerating practice over the last several years. The stated reason?

Park Service officials have said they closed roads to protect resources, prevent vandalism and poaching, and curtail illegal activities. They contend that each area is analyzed, case by case, and stress that many of the gates protect hayfields from vehicles.

Let me translate that into plain English for you. It's to keep out the locals. Because of course the million or so tourist who visit each year never do any of those things. Or if they do something like hang their bare ass over the side of their rented canoe & defecate into the water, it's largely overlooked because by cracky, them's paying customers.

Maybe I'm just being a hyper-realist again, but seems to me the primary resource the Park Service has been ever vigilant about protecting is their cash flow. Locals generally don't rent canoes, cabins or even camping sites. And those 'hayfields' they're so concerned about? Those are pretty interesting hayfields. As I remember it, one of the selling points for nationalizing the Buffalo River was that those hayfields would be allowed to 'return to nature'. Strangely, many of those same hayfields have instead been rented to the highest bidder. And not so strangely, that has tended to piss the locals off, especially those families who had those hayfields taken by eminent domain.

Funny how that happens.

So anyway, this latest round of road closures isn't sitting too well with those who live in the area. Some of them have gotten together and are fighting it, lead by Mr. Jerry Patterson, Esq. (Std. disclaimer, he's one of my many cousins) Now Jerry's gone a round or two with the Park Service over roads before, when they closed off his access to some property he owned. The 8th Circuit Ct. of Appeals smacked 'em down, and the access in question was reopened.

Jerry's circulating a petition opposing the closures, and has enlisted some of the local politicians in his fight. One, Congressman Marion Berry, is discovering what we've had to deal with for years: Park Service employee attitude.

Buffalo National River spokesmen Doug Wilson, Robert Still and Robert J. McGuire told Davenport that no new gates have gone up in Marion County since 1992.
They noted that many closed roads are in designated wilderness areas. Motorized traffic is forbidden in wilderness areas, they stressed, and only an act of Congress can open the roads.

Congressman Berry's response:

"That's what I do"

According to our local paper, the Marshall Mtn. Wave, Oct. 26, 2006 edition (no link available), Congressman Berry has issued a statement after investigating the closures, which says in part:

"My problem with the Park Service there is this. Number one, in my years in office, they have told me and state publicly that they don't care what the people of Searcy County and residents of the area surrounding the Buffalo River want, and that they would rather de-populate Searcy County so that they didn't have the locals to deal with, and that offends me to the soul."

It doesn't exactly please me either. Sure I'm not exactly a local these days, but I will be again someday....and besides, you can take the girl out of Searcy County, but you'll never take the Searcy County of the girl, even if she has seen Paree. I was a Buffalo River rat before being a Buffalo River rat was kewl. And I've seen what the Park Service's stewardship has done to the river, and how locals are slowly being squeezed out of the places their families have used since the first white people moved into the area and before.

And I say that the Park Service has done more damage to the Buffalo River than generations of us local yokels ever did. It's high time they were reminded for whom they work. Taxpayers, not tourists.

My opinion, for what it's worth.

Posted by Rita at October 26, 2006 02:25 PM

Comments

I've never bothered to look at a map before, but your relatives are right next door to my relatives (mainly Newton County, but also Searcy, Pope and Van Buren). I just looked up Newton County and at least two of the current county officials are my cousins. Anyway, the last 20 years my mom was alive we took turns driving her there to see her family and always stayed at an Aunt's house in Deer, which was kind of a central point for her visiting. The area was erie to us because of the dense vegetation and lack of a view of the sky, but the river was beautiful and very interesting to us. Even though we went there nearly every summer and stayed for a couple of weeks, most of our relatives were reserved toward us so we didn't really talk a lot (they seemed to fear hippies, which we obviously were), but I don't recall any of them regarding the river as a recreational place. When we asked them about swimming in the river they would laugh nervously and say, "too many snakes". In fact, their lives seemed void of summer recreation period because they spent the summer getting ready to survive the winter. The only thing I recall that even resembled a Texas style barbeque was tasting a piece of bear meat that was cooking in a big vat in an Uncle's front yard. We always found it odd that although our elderly Aunt knew very little about the world beyond her yard and garden, she knew everything there was to know about Michael Jackson - after "he married that little Presley girl". She would even include Michael Jackson news in her letters to my mom. That was off the subject, but the point is that my impression was that the local people were so reserved/reclusive that outsiders tended to overwhelm them and drive them into hiding, making the place an assertive con-man's/government agent's paradise.

Posted by: Kenneth at October 27, 2006 11:28 AM

Some of my mom's relatives came from Pope County, so I'll bet we're kin somewhere down the line.

I don't think it's exactly outsiders are overwhelming, it's more that we're extremely clannish and don't want much to do with people from 'away'. Which is why the road closings are such a big deal to locals. That's their only access to places in which tourists aren't....except for the ones floating by. Plus many of those old roads go to old family cemeteries.

The other part of the problem, IMO, is that we tend to believe that people should have the right to do whatever on their own property, as long as they're not bothering anyone else. So there's been a general reluctance to speak out, even though many actions of the Park Service have pissed people off over the years....or have made them the object of ridicule, like the big Tyler Bend campground that promptly got washed away after its completion because it was built on a floodplain. There's a reason those bottomland hayfields are so fertile. D'oh.

There's also the so-called 'conservation groups' joining the battle on the Park's side. Innocent as their public agenda appears, their real agenda is closing access to the river entirely....except for people like them. Ignorant hillbillies shouldn't have access to the river because they drive on the gravel bars and other 'bad' stuff.....and mostly the 'conservationists' have to see them when they paddle by. Google 'Ozark Society', read some of their drivel and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not too surprised your relatives didn't use the river much. There's parts of it we didn't use for the same reason. Heck, I never even swam much in the little creek that flows through our property for the same reason. Cottonmouths do not make good aquatic companions.

If you ever want to see people try to walk on water, go down to one of our swimming holes and yell "SNAKE!"

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 31, 2006 08:17 AM

Forgot to ask, how's your dog?

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 31, 2006 12:33 PM