What We Do
Beaver Watershed Alliance protects and restores water in Northwest Arkansas.Protecting Source Water
Source water refers to sources of water (such as rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and groundwater) that provide water to public drinking water supplies and private wells.
Why Protect Source Water?
Protecting source water can reduce risks by preventing exposures to contaminated water. Drinking water utilities that meet the definition of a public water system are responsible for meeting the requirements of EPA and state drinking water programs under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Protecting source water from contamination helps reduce treatment costs and may avoid or defer the need for complex treatment.
There are many additional benefits associated with source water protection, such as protecting water quality for wildlife and recreational use and protecting the availability and quantity of water supplies.
Stewardship
The Beaver Watershed Alliance engages the community and invites volunteers to help tackle growing concerns in maintaining a healthy watershed. Stewardship opportunities include:
- Creek and Lake Cleanups
- Invasive Plant Removals
- Riparian treamside) Plantings
Since 2011, volunteers have helped to give back to the region. Stewardship activities typically take place on public lands, including parks, trails, and shorelines. Depending on programming, landowners can be eligible for riparian planting assistance. Need volunteer hours? The Alliance can develop a program to fit your needs to accomplish volunteer hour requirements.
Education and Outreach Services
The Beaver Watershed Alliance conducts a wide variety of programming ranging from awareness and education activities, conservation and stewardship-in-action programming, to technical workshops designed to engage, increase, and empower watershed stakeholders to carry out voluntary watershed protection measures. In fact, the Alliance has a program for almost all stakeholders, and water quality issues and topics. If you are interested in learning more about our programs, check out our program links below.
Beaver Lake Watershed Annual Symposium
Beaver Lake and its tributaries are interconnected with the regional landscape of Northwest Arkansas. Landowners, universities, scientist, government agencies, utilities, conservation organizations and water quality groups are working in collaboration to achieve conservation objectives. The Annual Symposium aims to bring educational awareness on technical topics, highlight the efforts and results achieved in the Beaver Lake watershed and open a dialogue for stakeholders.
Beaver Lake Watershed Annual Symposium
Beaver Lake and its tributaries are interconnected with the regional landscape of Northwest Arkansas. Landowners, universities, scientist, government agencies, utilities, conservation organizations and water quality groups are working in collaboration to achieve conservation objectives. The Annual Symposium aims to bring educational awareness on technical topics, highlight the efforts and results achieved in the Beaver Lake watershed and open a dialogue for stakeholders.
Quarterly Speaker Series
The Beaver Watershed Alliance is working with local governments and other nonprofits to reduce the amount of sediment entering streams, improve fish habitat, and reduce flooding – an essential service to local communities. Because Beaver Lake supplies 1 in 6 Arkansans (nearly a half-million people) with clean drinking water and provides over forty million tourism and recreation dollars for the local economy, the Alliance developed this quarterly speaker series to share the rationale behind investing in watershed protection that will benefit the future of our entire region.
Land Management Practice Workshops (Forest, Streamside, Urban, Agriculture)
Land Management Practices are voluntary actions you can take on your property, no matter how big or small of acreage you have. The Alliance staff and partners specialize in Forestry, Ecology, Streamside Management, Urban Landscapes, and Agriculture and can bring subject expertise through public workshops, and share online, in-person, and in the field. These focused workshops are intended to bring solutions to the table and guide landowners, cities, and counties through the process of implementation. The Alliance is in place to assist from start to finish!
Check out the calendar for a list of upcoming Land Management Practices Workshops.
Outdoor Watershed Education and Recreation
Youth engagement in the outdoors is now more important than ever. There is a unique connection between nature, human impacts, ecology and water resources for all living things. The Alliance engages youth groups through paddling experiences on the White River, teaches stewardship through stream and waterway cleanups, and increases awareness about Beaver Lake and its watershed through group presentations. If your club or youth group would like to engage in outdoor stewardship or learn more about Source Water Protection and watershed work, contact the Alliance to learn more.
Outdoor Watershed Education and Recreation
Lakes Appreciation Month
In addition to Lakes Appreciation Month being a time to appreciate lakes, it is a time to think about where we would be without their water, and the threats facing lakes and reservoirs. These threats include impacts of population growth, development, and invasive plant and animal species that put stress on waterbodies. The importance of protecting these lakes and reservoirs for future generations is critical to our quality of life, communities, wildlife, and potential for future growth and economic development.
Lakes Appreciation Month is a signature program of the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) whose mission is to foster the management and protection of lakes and reservoirs for today and tomorrow. Specific goals of the society are to promote public awareness of lake ecosystems, encourage public support for national, state, and local programs promoting management of lakes and their watershed, and facilitate the exchange of information on the technical and administrative aspects of managing lakes and their watersheds. To learn more about the national Lakes Appreciation program, visit www.nalms.org, and to learn more about the events taking place to appreciate Beaver Lake and its watershed this month, visit our website calendar in July.
Source Water Protection Awareness
Source Water Protection encompasses the land, water, people and resources that work together in concert to maintain high-quality drinking water for NWA, and beyond. The Alliance offers general presentations on water quality, watershed work, and conservation measures happening in Northwest Arkansas. We also develop resources in-house and share resources from local partners to assist in learning more about water quality, land management practices and conservation.
Landowner Support
The Beaver Watershed Alliance also helps landowners achieve conservation goals on their property.
Water Quality Monitoring
The Beaver Watershed Alliance is committed to monitoring water quality and social indicators within the Beaver Watershed to measure resulting impacts and effectiveness of our education and conservation program efforts. Monitoring allows the Alliance to adaptively manage our efforts in order to achieve the best results possible when it comes to engaging the public and applying best management practices.
The Beaver Watershed Alliance is working to implement watershed-based outreach using the watershed approach to ensure community buy-in, prioritized best management application, and measurable watershed restoration impacts. To learn more about water quality monitoring and water quality within the watershed, check out the map below.
Water Quality Resources
Social Indicator Monitoring
Evaluating the Assessment
Methodology for the Cholophyll-A and Secchi Transparency Criteria at Beaver Lake, Arkansas. In order to provide scientific input into the assessment methodology and resulting measurement approach of numeric criteria established for Beaver Lake at Hickory Creek, Beaver Watershed Alliance commissioned the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and Arkansas Water Resources Center to review existing data and make recommendations for consideration in the assessment approach.
ADEQ Integrated Water Quality Assessment Report
Arkansas Integrated Water Quality Monitoring Assessment Report for Clean Water Act sections 305(b) and 303(d): These reports describe the status of Arkansas waters based on historical data on surface water quality and identifies Arkansas waters that are impaired.
Arkansas Water Resource Center (AWRC)
The mission of AWRC is to conduct water quality testing, train future scientists, and transfer water quality information to the public of Arkansas. The AWRC website hosts historic water quality reports and has information relating to water quality monitoring programs.
Beaver Water District (BWD)
Beaver Water District pulls and treats water from Beaver Lake and wholesales it to four customer cities. They also have an extensive monitoring program, including Secchi Day on Beaver Lake, a volunteer citizen-science event.
Ozarks Water Watch
StreamSmart is a program through which volunteer groups form teams and claim a stream location site within the Beaver Watershed to monitor several aspects of water quality throughout the year.
United States Geological Survey
A complete listing of USGS water quality monitoring studies including many that relate to the Boston Mountains and Springfield Plateau.