Office of Planning, Environment, & Realty (HEP)
Planning • Environment • Real Estate
In Little Rock, Arkansas, and other cities throughout the state, discarded Christmas trees don't go to waste. Biologists from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department collect the trees from various city locations and place them in newly created borrow-pit ponds to provide cover for fish. They've put the trees into 20-60-foot-deep ponds connected to Rixey Bayou in Pulaski County and at several other sites. To drop the trees to the bottom of the pond, they tie 12-13 trees together, attach them to pieces of cement block, and lower them into the water from a flat-bottom boat. The woody debris of the Christmas trees make excellent spawning habitat and create a safe haven from predators for the ponds' perch, catfish, largemouth bass, and other fish species.
--Apr 25, 2003
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| Photo by Phillip D. Moore, Arkansas State Highway and Transportatio |
| Discarded Christmas trees are sunk into a pond near Rixey Bayou |
