A wetland for storm water from the parking lot of the Downstream Casino Resort.

The demonstration projects will provide information and education to residents about the watershed, said Carl Hayes, chairman of the Spring River restoration group.

Blex said that ideally, a demonstration project would be on public land or land accessible to the public. He said that would complicate the subdivision wetland proposal.

“We’ve got to have a willing landowner, whether it’s the school district or the nature center or a private individual,” Blex said.

Linda Phipps, with the Southeast Kansas Nature Center in Schermerhorn Park, proposed the wetland there.

“It would be an ideal outdoor classroom,” Phipps said. “The kids could watch the waterfowl fly in and the critters crawl out.”

Hayes said one of the proposed wetlands for Baxter Springs is on the site of an old trolley car bridge that transported miners to work in the Tri-State Mining District. He said that idea was proposed by Dennis Burke, the school district superintendent, as was the parking-lot wetland.

There was enthusiasm among the group for the wetland off the parking lot for the Downstream Casino Resort. Group members said the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma, which owns the casino, is willing to pay for the project, with technical assistance from the Spring River group and the alliance.

“They’ll want to stay green,” Blex said of the tribe and casino.

Federal plan

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s restoration plan is on a much larger scale and is much costlier that what the local group is proposing. The purpose of the plan is to determine the best ways to use $2.6 million available from EaglePicher Industries and LTV Corp. from bankruptcy proceedings to clean up forming mining land in the county.

According to the draft plan, the preferred option for restoring the land is to preserve the native prairie at a cost of $4,300 to $5,600 per acre, plus fencing. The area covers 470 to 600 acres.

The preferred option for aquatic-habitat restoration includes preserving high-quality river and stream banks, and Empire Lake in Riverton. The river and stream banks project would involve 290 to 560 acres and would cost $4,600 to $8,900 per acre.

The Empire Lake buffer involves 470 to 640 acres at a cost of $4,100 to $5,600 per acre.

Not ideal