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Gazette letters to editor, June 1

04 Jun 2013 6:38 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
 Subject: Arkansas Democrat June 1 letters re C & H Hog Farm

Letter #1) We could all benefit
The hog farm near the Buffalo River has opponents and proponents. Perhaps each side can win. We can have our bacon, ribs, etc., and another products from hogs along with a clean Buffalo River.

I suggest drying the manure, bagging it, selling it nationwide, or worldwide, as fertilizer and potting soil. And believe me, this could be done at a nice profit.

Cargill and the producers have enough financial backing to support such an operation. And perhaps some small company such as Wal-Mart would make a great distributor.

Seriously, problem solved? For everybody?

JOHN WHITTEN

Rogers

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Letter #2) Some changes needed
Does Arkansas need an agency to protect our environmental quality? I had thought that was the job of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. But how then did we get a permitted 6,500-swine farm, built on the most porous rock terrain in the state (the Boone Limestone), where sewage will be stored in open lagoons until it can be spread on fields less than a mile upwind of a school, and where runoff and seepage through the porous rock may pollute wells, endangered bat caves, and even the country’s first national river.

The department says the C&H farmers followed the proper application procedure for their permit. Therefore, without local public notification, comment period or public input, a permit was granted. And this is in accordance with the department’s own statewide rules for permitting contained animal feeding operations.

How did these rules evolve? Has there been pressure from outside the agency? Could the Department of Environmental Quality have allowed giant agribusiness to foist these rules on them? Has it lost its power to protect our natural resources and human habitat?

Statewide permitting without local input is bound to meet the unexpected-karst topography, endangered species, an adjacent school, or even a national river. Arkansas’ natural resources and human habitat need better protection. Arkansas needs a change in laws, a better permitting system, and an agency with the power and courage to protect our resources and the quality of our environment.

PAMELA E. STEWART

Jasper

Note- "Pamela" is better known to most of us as "Pam" Stewart and is married to Jack Stewart

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Letter #3) Do something, stop it
See the Buffalo River hog farmer with his hand on the sow in the pipe-framed enclosure? That is not a chute and she is not on her way to somewhere else.

That is a containment crate and she is going to live almost all her life in it (four or five years). She cannot turn around or even really lie down. She will never see the sun or wallow in mud or even walk on green grass.

These are not pork production units. These are God’s creatures.

For the love of God, good people, do something to stop this!

J.E. CALDWELL

Stuttgart

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