Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

AG&FC To Induct Dr. Nix

When bald eagles began dying mysteriously at DeGray Lake late in 1994, no one had to call Dr. Joe Nix for help. He was on the scene early, volunteering his expansive knowledge of the lake's water quality in the eagle investigation.

The deaths of 29 eagles were never solved, even with the best wildlife forensics researchers on the continent joining Arkansas technicians and bioligists in addition to Nix in seeking a cause for the baffling mystery.

Nix, now retired from a career as Ouachita Baptist University professor of chemistry, remains active with the Arkadelphia-based Ross Foundation as reserarch and conservation coordinator. Nix is one of four Arkansans who will be inducted into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame November 2.

Water chemistry research has been Nix's focal point for more than 30 years, and his field of operation has been Arkansas lakes and rivers. DeGray Lake was a natural for him, since it's just outside Arkadelphia, but he has also led extensive research work on nearby Lake Ouachita in addition to studies on lakes and rivers in states surrounding Arkansas.

In water qualtiy study, Nix is a home in a college laboratory and in spending long hours with scientific reading. but he's equally familiary with field work, wet, cold days on a lake or river with a soggy sandwich for lunch.

Arkansas's struggle toward effective regulations on safe water use has involved Nix, along with a cadre of staff members of the state Department of Pollution Control and Ecology. Water quality is a broad field, far exceeding a private university's resources or even those of the state of Arkansas. So Nix has been an effective coordinator for years of aid through grants and partnerships.

He's worked with the Waterways Experiment Station, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Facility at Vickburg, Miss., other Engineers offices, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service and many private industries.

He was the second president of the Ozark Society, long a leader in conservation, and currently is chairman of the Governor's Task Force on Mercury Contamination.

In this role, he has been at the forefront of the ongoing inverstigation of mercury in fish in the lower Ouachita River and other Arkansas streams and lakes. Nix's early finding that mercury occurs naturally in some Arkansas soil remains the primary suspect in the contamination study.

Nix is a native of Malvern, graduate of Arkadelphia High School, holds a bachelor's degree from Ouachita and master and doctorate degrees from the University of Arkansas.

Dr. Nix, Bill Norman, George Cochran and Pat Stephens Johnston will be installed into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame at a banquet Saturday, Novembr 2, at the Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock.

For more information contact Steve Smith at 223-6396.