Fishers Ford Whitewater Park

[Lemme Hucknboof]

Read an article in the Siloam paper about the Walton Foundation turning Fishers Ford into a park and donating it to the city. They got Recreation Engineering out of Boulder, CO to design the park and river features. Also the county has approved fixing the road and bridge so it will open again. Seems like they had to be working together. Anyone have any better info on this project?

Levi

[Bulldog Nelson]

Wow, post a link if you can Levi.

[tomOzarkVideo]

Holy COW!!!!!!!


Edit: http://hl.nwaonline.com/news/2012/mar/1 ... -20120311/

[Half Ton]

Well I'll be. Could not read all of article but thanks for posting it up. That would be a smart move for Siloam Springs to realize that they have a unique rec opportunity like that in their town and that it brings peeps through.

[Fish]

Holy cow. That's amazing news indeed!

[MaxTexan]

best of luck to them in getting the grant funds

[cpresoz]

I understand the grant award to be a very certain deal with the Walton family members putting the money up specifically for this use.

[okieboater]

Proving once again,

Angels can appear when least expected

Who would have thunk it!

Congrats to the City Planners for their good deeds!

[jdblagg]

man, that is awesome! does anyone know the projected start date?

[Mike_P]

That's incredibly exciting news!! Kudos to any of our chapter folks who may have had a hand (or may be having a hand) at promoting, planning, or otherwise contributing to this project.

I feel blessed everyday to live in NWA. Somebody pinch me.

Mike P.
Rogers

[justin.payne]

Thats awesome news! Lets just hope it doesn't turn out like the one on boulder creek though.

[Mike_P]

According to the paper a few weeks back they (Benton Co.) is reconsidering refurbishing the Fisher's Ford bridge.

[Ben Rodda]

This may not be the good news we are looking for. I offer a huge, huge word of caution over selecting REP for this project. I am not sure how much say we might have in this but would say that other bids should be considered before proceeding with this project.

I will provide several reasons why:

Lawson Project. This was an excellent front range feature in located in Clear Creek county Colorado. It was amazing play spot that would give up loops as low as 400 CFS. Some people said that the hole had an auto loop feature to it. REP was hired by the county to do river bank improvements. The boating public offered severe comments about REP on Mountain buzz telling them not to touch the primary feature. REP employees commented on the thread promising that they would not touch that feature. Sure enough they messed with it and then ruined it. The local boating community raised a ton of hell over it and after two seasons REP finally fixed it. Here is a link to the thread.
http://www.mountainbuzz.com/forums/f11/ ... 27562.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Golden Play Park.... in steady decline. It had a few nice features but each year they get worse. REP comes in with equipment to fix them and leave them worse.

Boulder play park... Kick a** Tubing!

Charlotte Whitewater Center.... Millions of dollars= really sweet rafting.

In the end and based on the track record Fishers Ford may be better if REP does not touch it.

However if they can get Mike Harvey from REP to do the work then there is a bit of hope. Every Successful project that REP has done has got his finger prints on it. Salida and Buena Vista work well.

Other Options:
http://mclaughlinwhitewater.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Is another option. The Tulsa guys can give a better reference than I can.

My Favorite is:
http://www.riverrestoration.org/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They have engineered both high flow features and low flow features. Their features are spot on and functional. They also are able to keep them natural looking.

Anyway. I am pro play park and would love to see something like this work. I just get nervy when I see REP attached to this.

Ben Rodda

[okieboater]

McLaughlin Group has done a good job for Tulsa, in my opinion.

We got Rick down here based on a startup grant we got from a local foundation.

Rick came down and did a good job on a report and park options. He knows how the decision makers think.

He stayed with us and made presentations to the politicians (county and city) and major private funding groups. I think several trips on his own dime. He is now working on the current project.

Rick knows his stuff (if you like Ocoee setup - he was prime mover on that one) and in addition is easy to get along with and makes great presentations to the decision makers.

[midgetwarner]

Heard from the lady at Hwy 59 Canoeing today that they are *supposed* to start work on it in August. Not sure how accurate it is, but I'd sure like to see it. The water is flowing really nicely out there this weekend!