The Commissioner of State Lands will receive sealed bids for a State sand and gravel permit to remove sand and gravel from submerged land in the Red River in Miller County and Lafayette County, Arkansas, until Wednesday, October 15, 2025. The bids will be opened publicly and read aloud at 7003 Valley Ranch Drive, Little Rock, AR 72223. Miller County and Lafayette County, Arkansas In the Red River, between river miles 279 and 281. 5.0 River Miles *Special Conditions: 1. Although delisted, the Interior Least Tern remains a species of state conservation concern. The following special conditions apply to the permit only if the presence of the federally endangered Least Tern (Sterna antillarum athalassos) is detected. Information on the Interior Least Tern and its habitat can be found at: https://www.fws.gov/midwest/Endangered/birds/leasttern/index.html. 2. Allow no dredges or related human activity within 1,000 feet of the shoreline of the sandbar providing habitat for the nesting interior least tern during the months of May through August. If this sandbar is over one mile long, this restriction should be applied to the shoreline one half mile upstream and one half mile downstream from the colony site. 3. Allow no dredging at any time of the year within two hundred feet of the navigation pool level shoreline of the sandbar on which the terns are nesting. 4. Dredge crews are not permitted on a nesting island from May 1 through August 31. 5. If, in the process of conducting work, the dredge crew or company officials discover an interior least tern colony on another island in the vicinity covered by this permit, the above restrictions should apply to that island as well. 6. Allow no dredging take place during April, May, and June to avoid peak fish spawning. 7. The Red River is designated as Traditionally Navigable Water up to the Arkansas-Texas border. As such, the Rivers and Harbors Act applies to this area, and section 7 consultation is required through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Due to the documented presence of federally endangered least terns, dredging activity is NOT a “non-reporting activity” and therefore requires additional U.S. Army Corps of Engineers preconstruction notification.
