Democrat Gazette

More than 1,100 people attend meeting on redesignating Buffalo National River

by Bill Bowden | October 26, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. | Updated October 27, 2023 at 7:06 a.m.

JASPER — An overflow crowd of 1,135 people packed the Jasper School District cafeteria Thursday night to hear speakers talk about the Buffalo National River.

One entity that wasn’t there was Runway Group, the Bentonville-based firm that has floated the idea of getting the Buffalo redesignated as a national park and preserve.

Their absence did not go unnoticed.

“Thank you, Runway Group, for being here — I mean, Remnants group,” said Jacque Alexander with Backcountry Horsemen. The town-hall meeting was organized by the Remnants Project, a historical and cultural heritage preservation project founded by Misty Langdon.

Langdon said Runway Group had agreed to come to the meeting, then backed out after it became apparent there would be a big crowd.

“Unfortunately, last week Runway told me they would no longer participate in the meeting,” Langdon told the crowd on Thursday night. “It would have provided an opportunity for transparency and an opportunity to meet the community that they’ve been researching. I did receive a call this morning from Runway wishing us well and asking me to make a comment on their behalf. However, I feel that any statement would be better coming from their team.”

Her comment drew applause.

Landon said that in addition to the crowd at the school, another 500 people watched the meeting via Zoom, and more than 1,400 people watched it on Facebook.

Jasper has a population of 547.

Runway Group is a privately held company founded by Steuart and Tom Walton that invests in part in “outdoor recreation experiences.” The Walton brothers are grandsons of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart Stores Inc.

“Change of this type needs to be considered by all who are affected,” said Alexander. “All classes of citizens need to be considered, not just people with a lot of money”

Billy Bell of Newton County hit a similar note, referring to the song “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

“But in this situation, the name of the song should be ‘Rich Men Not From Here,’” said Bell. “Today it appears rich men not from here are pushing to change our way of life once again. … We do not need their redesignation, and we definitely do not need them deciding how to change our Buffalo River.”

Jared Phillips, a farmer who teaches Ozarks history at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, also spoke Thursday.

“At the end of the day, what the Runway Group proposal has done here … is tell us we regular folks in the Ozarks are in the way of what rich folks who want to have a playground are trying to do,” said Phillips, who is also the author of the book “Hipbillies: Deep Revolution in the Arkansas Ozarks.”

Several speakers said Runway Group should have talked to area residents first.

“It’s great to throw out some ideas. That’s where planning starts,” said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. “But they started from the top down instead of the bottom up.”

In July 2022, Runway Group staff met with U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., about the redesignation idea.

Westerman is chair of the House Natural Resources Committee. A bill to change the designation would have to go through his committee before going to the full House for a vote, then to the Senate, then to the president. But no such bill has been drafted.

Westerman said such a change would require much public input before anything is done, and it’s just in the early discussion phase right now.

Locals found out about the idea when a Runway-funded poll was conducted in September. The poll included 412 voters from Baxter, Madison, Marion, Newton, and Searcy counties.

According to the poll results, 64% of respondents said "for" when asked, "If there were a vote in Congress to designate the river as the Buffalo River National Park & Preserve, would you want your member of Congress to vote for or against it?" 

The Buffalo National River — which is administered by the National Park Service — attracted 1.3 million visitors last year and contributed over $64.9 million in spending to “local gateway regions.” The Buffalo National River became the first national river in the United States on March 1, 1972, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. It is one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states.

Proponents say changing the Buffalo National River’s designation to a national park and preserve would bring in more visitors and more federal funding for infrastructure, while preserving hunting and fishing access. That would translate, in theory, to more money for businesses and communities in the vicinity.

Opponents are concerned about overcrowding and the possibility of additional land-use restrictions.

“When do we as people from the hills get to sit at the table and have a say in what happens to us?” Phillips asked. “This stuff is personal for us.”

“We need to be a part of these decisions so they don’t make decisions about our lives without us,” Wendy Finn of Fayetteville, who grew up in Newton County, told the crowd on Thursday night.

She went through the poll line by line and talked about two flyers distributed in the area by the Coalition for Buffalo River National Park Preserve, of which Runway Group is a member.

“The Runway Group drew conclusions and put them on something they called fact sheets,” she said, getting a laugh from the crowd.

She noted that only 7% of the survey respondents were from Newton County.

Jack Stewart, former president of the Arkansas Audubon Society, said part of the problem was that “we lack an agreed-upon vision for the future.”

“Without an agreed-upon vision, it will be easy for some group to divide us and conquer,” he said.

Brinkley Cook-Campbell, who is from Mt. Judea, said “I feel like we were the last to know.”

“We’ve got a pretty good status quo going on right now,” he said. “And if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it.”

If the national river and preserve idea were implemented, Cook-Campbell said, the area would be overrun with tourists.

State Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, said 14% of the Buffalo River watershed is in Baxter County, but 47% of the respondents to the Runway poll were from Baxter County.

King said that only people who live in the Buffalo River watershed should have been included in the poll.

“Is this an accurate representation tonight of the poll?” he asked, referring to the crowd in the school cafeteria. “I don’t think so.”

Runway has been issuing statements about its interest in the Buffalo National River on its website at runwaynwa.com.

“We believe a change in status is one idea that would provide needed infrastructure support to a growing number of tourists; would support the preservation of the river and its current boundaries; and would create new ways to benefit the surrounding communities,” according to a statement that Runway posted Wednesday.

Runway researched preserve status because it’s the only national park status that can maintain hunting and other public recreation access, according to the website.

Runway said it got valuable information from the survey it conducted: “We learned a lot from the survey, including where we have shared values with the community: Runway doesn’t support the taking of private lands and doesn’t support mining or drilling on the Buffalo River. We are in favor of maintaining public access to traditional forms of recreation, such as hunting. We were also looking at the success of West Virginia’s New River Gorge, which recently celebrated $3.7B in federal funding since it was designated a National Park.

“A designation change for the Buffalo National River is not our decision to make, but we believe it’s an idea worth exploring,” according to Runway.