The clean water of Beaver Lake faces at least two threats. One is pollution. The other is more government control, which will grow if the first threat becomes a problem.

We applaud the Northwest Arkansas Council and the lake’s governing board. They are moving to forestall both dangers.

Beyond that, we support the state’s Natural Resources Commission’s request for $4 million to revise the badly outdated state water plan. We do not favor more government studies, as a rule. We would do so more often if more agencieshad the commission’s track record.

The NWA Council consists of local business and civic leaders. They will come forward with a plan next month for protecting the lake, worked out in cooperation with the Beaver Water District. That plan will rely on voluntary measures by private landowners working with communities.

Show people their best interest and they will usually follow it. Problems arise when the interests of one group clash with the interests of another. Since everyone in this region shares a need for clean water, we do not foresee many clashes here. We can manage our own affairs.

Northwest Arkansas as we know it cannot exist without a clean Beaver Lake. The need for safe drinking water is paramount. However, the importance of clean water to this region’s industries is hard to overstate. We are a major center of food processing, for instance.

All this is plain so far. Our support for revising the state water plan stems from the same train of thought.

The Natural Resources Commission was known as the Soil and Water Conversation Commission until recently.

The agency’s history of being a partner with private landowners is long and productive. Its history of fiscal prudence in projects to bring piped water and other services to rural districts is impressive.

Their water plan, however, has not been revised since the 1990s. This was before a way to tap the Fayetteville Shale formation for natural gas was in place. That gas exploration makes significant demands on the state water supply - demands that we hope will increase as the economy recovers.

We believe a new water plan that takes Fayetteville Shale into account will prevent more regulatory problems than it will create. We also believe more could be done to protect streams and rivers from the erosion caused by the road building that goes with this gas exploration. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of printed-up regulations afterward.

We must focus on the real challenge here. This is not to keep the water in Beaver Lake clean, or any other body of water we want to protect. The real challenge is to keep the water that drains into Beaver Lake clean. By the time the water reaches the lake, it is too late. By then, what is required is not protection. It is cleanup. And that will result in dictates by the government. By then, it is too late for the interests of all groups to coincide.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. This is especially true in regards to our own government, which is an everpresent threat.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 11/03/2009

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