There is no catch. Participation is totally voluntary, and we only implement practices requested by the landowner. IRWP is a non-profit organization, not a government agency. If you receive funding, you maintain full control over your property.

The Riparian Restoration Program is funded in part by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, and in part by a grant from Arkansas Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Division. Since part of the program comes from the State of Arkansas, we cannot fund projects on the Oklahoma side of the watershed.

Riparian area. The riparian area is the land adjacent to a stream that regularly interacts with that stream, including the streambanks and the floodplain. Without dense, healthy riparian vegetation to hold soils in place, buffer erosive storm flows, filter pollutants, feed wildlife, regulate water temperatures, and recharge the ground water, you can’t have clean water. Period.

No. We will likely design a solution that controls livestock access, through fencing, dedicated watering lanes, and stabilized crossings. We try to limit livestock access as much as possible by providing off-stream water and shade through our program. In our watershed, stream segments with unrestricted livestock access are twice as likely to exceed state standards for E. Coli and Fecal Coliform bacteria than those without.

Yes. Wet-weather creeks or intermittent streams are important components of the river network. In fact, small headwaters streams account for nearly 90% of the streams within a river network. If the headwaters streams are unhealthy, it is likely that the main stem of the river will be as well.

IRWP has a project prioritization table that ranks projects based on several criteria including, total length of the project, whether or not the stream is on the Arkansas’ list of impaired waters, whether or not the landowner is participating in other cost share programs, whether there are cattle present, etc. At your site visit, IRWP’s Program Manager will be able to tell you whether or not your project has a good chance of being funded.

Yes. Funding is based on the total linear feet of stream that we are improving on your property. We can typically fund about $35 per linear foot of riparian vegetation improved. This is usually enough to fund projects like new plantings, minor streambank stabilization, fencing, and watering facilities. However, it is not enough to fund major streambank restoration—which can cost upwards of $400 per linear foot. For larger projects we may be able to find matching funds, but these projects of that size often take several years to organize.

There are two main reasons that most people in NWA are seeing more flooding:

1. Changing Precipitation. Over the past 20 years, NWA has seen a marked increase in the frequency of intense rain events.

2. Changing Land-use. NWA is growing at break-neck speed, which means that the pastures and forests that used to absorb rainfall are being replaced by parking lots, roads, and roofs that do not. Our stream channels aren’t large enough to handle the extra runoff, so they are flooding more often, and eroding more rapidly.

The thing is, most creeks don’t need “cleaned up and cleared out.” In fact, it is usually the case that right along the bank, the thicker the vegetation the better. The roots of plants in the streambank are like the rebar in concrete. Without vegetation, there is nothing to hold soils in place, and streambanks will quickly begin eroding. A healthy riparian forest has dense vegetation at ground-level, mid-story, and canopy.