AGFC wins lawsuit over timber damage at Dave Donaldson WMA

This is a PUBLIC forum for club related questions and other topics of interest to Ducks Everywhere and our guests. Messages in this forum may be viewed by anyone, and posts may be made by anyone who registers as a member or guest.
Post Reply
User avatar
Brent Bryant
Founding Owner ('93 - Present)
Posts: 1133
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:09 am
Location: Jonesboro, AR during season; Springdale, AR the rest of the time

AGFC wins lawsuit over timber damage at Dave Donaldson WMA

Post by Brent Bryant »

LITTLE ROCK – The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is entitled to about $7.3 million from the United States government, according to a July 1 U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling by Judge Charles F. Lettow.

The AGFC filed suit against the U.S. March 18, 2005, to recoup the value of dead and dying timber and to restore areas where timber died on Dave Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management Area, which covers about 24,000 acres in Clay, Randolph and Greene counties. The AGFC was able to prove that the Corps of Engineers’ management of water from the Black River and Missouri’s Clearwater Lake caused millions of dollars of damage to the WMA’s bottomland hardwood timber.

The U.S. will have 60 days from the date Lettow’s judgment is entered into the legal record to appeal the ruling, which came after an 11-day trial last December. The ruling also states the AGFC will be awarded attorneys’ fees and expenses.

“We won on every argument,” said Julie Greathouse of the Perkins and Trotter law firm in Little Rock, co-counsel with the AGFC’s Jim Goodhart and John Marks. “We didn’t get every bit of our requested damages. The court agreed that we were entitled to our claim for restoration, and we were awarded costs to restore the most severely damaged areas but not for restoration of lesser-impacted areas of the WMA.”

The court’s 61-page document indicates a thorough examination of the disagreement between the agencies. “We hope (the USA) doesn’t appeal,” Goodhart said. “The case has taken considerable time and expense to litigate, and the court has expended a great amount of effort to spell out a just solution. It is now time to move on and focus on restoring the damage.”

The Clearwater Lake water-control plan of 1950 was being followed until 1993 when the Corps began deviating from the plan and, at times, flooding Black River WMA, particularly during the summer growing season.

According to Lettow’s ruling: “At various times, members of the Commission attempted to persuade the Corps of Engineers to return to the original water control plan, which the Commission argued would more promptly evacuate water from the management area.”

By the late 1990s, according to the ruling, the AGFC had warned the Corps about flooding and hardwood damage on Black River WMA. Had the Corps “performed a reasonable investigation of the effects the deviations would have on downstream water levels, it would have been able to predict both that the deviations would increase the levels of the Black River in the management area and that the flooding caused by these increased levels would damage timber.”

In 2000 and 2001, the Corps performed an environmental assessment of the modified water-control plan it had been using since 1993 and determined that it could not continue the practice because of the potential for significant impact on natural resources. The Corps then returned to the water management plan used before 1993.

More than five years passed between the time serious timber damage occurred in 1999 and 2000, and the AGFC’s lawsuit. The AGFC was negotiating with the Corps during that period, hoping to receive compensation and avoid a lawsuit before the statute of limitations ran out. In the end, the lawsuit was unavoidable.

“We are committed to working with the Corps toward a fair resolution of these issues,” AGFC Director Scott Henderson said when the lawsuit was filed. “But the Commission’s first priority is conserving the wildlife and fishery resources that belong to the people of Arkansas. We must do everything we can to protect the valuable habitat on our management areas, and it got to the point that it was necessary to take this formal action to preserve our claim.”

The corridor of bottomland hardwood timber in Dave Donaldson Black River WMA is the largest contiguous block of timber along the Black River in Missouri and Arkansas, and is among the largest contiguous areas of bottomland hardwood timber remaining in the Upper Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Much of the WMA land was purchased by the AGFC in the 1950s and 1960s to preserve bottomland hardwoods and provide wintering habitat for migratory waterfowl. The AGFC operates the WMA as a wildlife and hunting preserve, placing special emphasis on the waterfowl that pass through the area in the late fall and early winter on the Mississippi River flyway.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests