Events - Event View

The Buffalo National River is the nation's first national river (designated in 1972) managed within the National Park Service. A critical component in the long-term protection and management of the river has been monitoring the river's water quality. This presentation will include the history of the water quality program along with an overview of the program's methods, findings, and challenges for the present and future.

Derek Filipek is the Aquatic Biologist at the Buffalo National River and manager of the Buffalo National River Water Quality Program/Lab. He has worked at the Buffalo National River since 2020 and acted in his current position since 2022. Derek has a long history of aquatics in Arkansas, raised by a fisheries biologist father, and spent much of his childhood floating and fishing the many wonderful streams of the state. He has also held multiple positions in the nongame aquatics division of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and worked with aquatic snakes during his graduate research in

the Boston Mountains ecoregion of Arkansas.