This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 21, 2013 - Environment Missouri, an environmental advocacy group, released the "Citizens' Guide to the Current River" at Kirkwood's Alpine Shop on Wednesday in hopes of educating the public about the river in anticipation of the National Park Service's new general management plan.
The Current River, along with Jack's Fork River, make up the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, which was the first national park created specifically to protect a river system. Its general management plan is expected to be updated for the first time in more than 30 years and released this fall.
"It’s a chance for the public to weigh in on why the park is such a special place to them and what they believe the National Park Service should do in order to protect the park for future generations," said Stuart Keating, the state advocate for Environment Missouri.
The new general management plan would govern the park for the next 20 years. Although it has been in the works since the mid-2000s, the process of bringing the plan to fruition has been delayed a number of times, according to the National Park Service's March 2012 update.
Environment Missouri has been pushing for an updated plan to address the concerns raised in 2011, when the Ozark National Scenic Riverways park was named the No. 10 most endangered river by American Rivers.
"Though the National Park Service has done a fantastic job of protecting the park, we have seen that there are some threats that still persist. Chief among those are illegal and unauthorized motor vehicle access," Keating said.
Because there are many more access points now than were authorized in the 1984 management plan, the quality of the water is at risk of being degraded because of increased bank erosion.
Keating said that a second major threat to the river system is "unauthorized horse access."
Similarly to the problems with motor vehicles, there are now more than 10 times the number of originally authorized horse trails. There are also as many as 80 unauthorized water crossings by horses.
"While horses do have a place in the park, the proliferation of stream crossings leads to E. coli pollution ... and dangerous confrontations between people floating down the river and blind horse crossings," Keating said. "It would be like driving a car down the street and having a horse step out in front of you on the road. It’s not safe. It’s not safe for the horses, it’s not safe for the boaters, and it’s not safe for the water quality."
Water quality is important in consideration of the fact that the Current River and Jack's Fork River are two of the three most pristine waters in the state. This ecosystem found in the Ozark region is home to species seldom found elsewhere, including rare wildflowers and the Ozark hellbender, an ancient amphibian native in the region.
"The National Park Service, by protecting this habitat, is doing a great service to the entire world by making sure that the hellbender can maintain its population in the face of extinction," Keating said.
Thus, one of the guide's main points is educating people about the threats to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and the ways that the public can get involved and help.
Another goal is to help visitors learn more about the natural elements and recreational activities that the park offers. Keating noted that many people only think of floating when they think of the Current River, when, in reality, there are a number of other outdoor opportunities.
"The actual park has over 135 miles of floatable river, has sections of the Ozark trail, which runs all the way from St. Louis down into Arkansas. It has multiple opportunities for bird watching, spotting outdoor critters like otters, beavers, wild turkey and elk. It has plenty of opportunity for hiking, photography, and other natural pursuits," Keating said.
The "Citizens' Guide" also has history on the early Osage settlement of the Ozark region, the later Scots-Irish inhabitation and the region today.
Sharing this information with the people who use these spaces is important to protecting them for use in the future.
"Too many of our natural areas, our parks and rivers, wild places are encroached on and even taken over by other interests," said Todd Oswald, the marketing director for the Alpine Shop. "Even as outdoor recreation, as an industry, contributes enormously to our economy, it is also endangered as our children have fewer and fewer places to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors."
In keeping with the Alpine Shop's mission statement, Oswald noted that "places like the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Current River, the Jack’s Fork, and every place around those areas are places that nourish our spirit. And we believe that they’re essential to us to experience them and to go out and do the things that are involved with it."
Chelsea Embree is a Beacon intern.