Arkansas and Oklahoma promised the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 to work together on an Illinois River watershed management plan.

Instead, the states work separately because of a lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma against poultry companies in Arkansas.

The Illinois River Watershed Partnership will develop a plan for the 45 percent of the watershed that’s in Arkansas, and the Oklahoma Conservation Commission will press on with the Oklahoma plan.

“The only way we are really going to affect river quality is to have a two-state approach,” said Ed Fite, director of the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission. “You can give me all the authority I want in Oklahoma, but unless I have a partnership in upstream Arkansas, I cannot accomplish the mission.”

Officials from both states said the federal lawsuit filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson against poultry companies in 2005 makes it hard to work together. The lawsuit blames eight poultry companies for polluting the watershed with poultry litter. The material is a combination of bird manure, rice hulls and wood chips that’s spread on fields to fertilize hay growth.

“You tend to have difficulty having discussions when there’s a lawsuit that tends to limit discussions for the parties involved,” said Earl Smith, water management division chief for the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission.

“To me, it’s common sense to say there’s an advantage to having an agreed-to joint watershed plan. To our minds, it would let us do joint activities and get down to some coordinated work across state lines.”

COOPERATIVE EFFORTS Watershed management plans are most often developed cooperatively by government entities, landowners, businessmen and environmental groups. The writers decide how best to protect water and aquatic life, evaluate land uses and then spell out goals for using watershed land without harming water quality. Consultants are sometimes hired to start the process of bringing the stakeholders together to talk about what they want and expect in the watershed.

There’s no current plan for the Beaver Lake watershed, but the Northwest Arkansas Council is beginning the process of developing one, said Alan Fortenberry, the Beaver Water District’s chief executive officer and a council member.

The council plans to hire the Pasadena, Calif.-based consulting firm Tetra Tech Inc. to build the framework for what will become a plan developed by local governments, farmers, construction companies, environmental groups and other stakeholders.

The process will start this summer and take two years, said Mike Malone, the director of the council, a private group of business and community leaders that’s pushed for some of Northwest Arkansas’ biggest regional projects, such as Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill.

“A plan fits under the council’s umbrella,” Malone said.

It’s been contentious as Oklahoma and Arkansas develop separate plans for the Illinois River watershed. The states last spring talked about a two-state plan, but Oklahoma officials canceled a meeting scheduled to have been Van Buren, citing the lawsuit as their reason.

Chris Swann, a watershed planner with the Center for Watershed Protection, said the organization wouldn’t comment on whether separate plans for the Illinois River watershed is as good as one plan. The nonprofit center in Maryland helps stakeholders nationwide develop ways to protect rivers and lakes.

“The center tries to avoid placing itself in contentious situations,” Swann wrote in an e-mail.

Everything about the Illinois River watershed management plans is separate for now, although officials in both states talked about merging them someday.

“Somewhere along the way, they’ll have to become one,” said Tony Ramick, coordinator of the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission’s Nonpoint Source Management Program. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise. All the political boundaries have to be moved.”

Dan Butler, water quality director for Oklahoma Conservation Commission, said he’s working on the Oklahoma watershed plan. He’ll circulate a draft of it to Oklahoma state agencies such as the Oklahoma Water Resources Board and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and then submit it to the EPA within a year, he said. “We’re just in a position where we can’t officially send it to Arkansas by ourselves, but we hope that it ends up with people over there,” Butler said. “That’s not an order, but my agency has told the [Oklahoma ] secretary of environment that we’ll do it that way. “ We’d send it to Arkansas if there wasn’t a lawsuit.”

LIMITED COMMUNICATION Edmondson in the past has discouraged Oklahoma agencies from communicating with Arkansas officials in ways that might affect the poultry lawsuit.

Edmondson in an e-mail last week said he supports a twostate watershed plan as agreed to in 2003, but believes it’s not possible with the lawsuit pending in federal court.

Oklahoma believes the poultry companies are polluting the watershed with poultry litter; Arkansas believes Oklahoma is wrongly trying to impose Oklahoma and federal laws on the poultry companies operating in Arkansas.

“There seems to be little chance we could get together on a comprehensive watershed plan that addresses all sources of pollution,” Edmondson said.

Arkansas has a watershed management strategy put together by the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission in 2004, and updated by the Illinois River Watershed Partnership last year.

The partnership wants to develop the new version.

“The two main state agencies that could cooperate on this can’t do that right now, so why wait ?” said Luanne Diffin, Rogers Water Utilities’ environmental services coordinator and a member of the Illinois River group. “We could wait for two or three years until the end of a lawsuit, but why not go ahead and move ? So we’re going to move forward.

“ Everyone wants the same bottom line, for this river to be clean.”