Governor Asa Hutchinson held a press conference Friday in the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock as an announcement was made concerning a local waterway. According to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), Hutchinson has called on the directors of five state agencies to form the Buffalo River Action Committee.
The committee will be comprised of the leadership from Arkansas Parks and Tourism, the Arkansas Department of Health, the Arkansas Department of Natural Resources, the ADEQ and the Arkansas Agriculture Department. ADEQ Director Becky Keogh is among the members of the new committee, and she says its purpose is to come up with a non-regulatory approach to improving the Buffalo National River watershed.
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Keogh says the maintaining the quality of the Buffalo River has not always been as high a priority as it is for other waterways in Arkansas, but the governor is looking to change that.
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According to Keogh, the committee will meet in the next few weeks to define a framework and roadmap on its future action, and it looks to lay out an open forum for other state agencies to get involved.
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