By Mike Masterson
Posted: February 18, 2014 at 2:34 a.m.
 

I’ve happened across a copy of our state’s 1992 moratorium that forbade discharging animal waste into the watershed of the Buffalo National River.

The document makes for interesting reading and leaves me wondering just what about preserving the purity of our national treasure has changed in 22 years. After seeing how determined our state was then to protect this cherished resource, I became curious just when and why it became acceptable to risk contaminating this magnificent stream with waste from thousands of hogs.

And why is it, valued readers, that taxpayers now pay an expensive tab so our national river can be put at risk for private gain?

The 1990s clearly were the rational years before the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (chuckle) assumed accountability from what for decades had been officially known as the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology (or PC&E).

The official wording from the moratorium enacted by former PC&E Director Randall Mathis allows you to decide for yourself whether that era truly constituted the good old days of controlling and managing pollution in the Natural State’s environment.

I can’t find anyone who recalls just when, or why, the moratorium was lifted after Mathis departed his position. And why would it ever have been removed? I strongly suspect removing those safeguards involved special-interest groups, arm-twisting, and perhaps campaign contributions to those elected to lead. Isn’t that the perverted process of undue influences we’ve come to accept as government of, by and for the people?

Here’s exactly what Mathis’ mysteriously scrapped moratorium said about preserving the river’s pristine quality:

“During the pendency of the surveys and [water quality] studies described the department will not issue any new permits for new sources to discharge waste into any stream in the Buffalo River watershed. Nor will the department issue no-discharge permits for any facility or activity which would generate waste that could potentially impact the water quality of the river or its tributaries.

“The Department will perform surveys and inspections of all existing facilities within PC&E’s regulatory jurisdiction located in the Buffalo River basin. The purpose of these studies will be to catalog and assess what impact existing facilities may have on the Buffalo or its tributaries. Operators of confined animal facilities permitted by PC&E are strongly urged to consult with representatives from the Cooperative Extension Service to review the requirements of their permits and how their operations may be improved.

“A person subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of the Department shall cooperate with the survey and studies described in this Administrative notice, which includes allowing reasonable site access to Department personnel conducting inspections, collecting water samples and placing monitoring wells or other testing devices. Nothing in this notice shall preclude the Department from taking any form of enforcement action deemed appropriate to prevent or abate pollution of the Buffalo River watershed.”

In a “Notice of Findings” within the moratorium, our former PC&E chief further explained why restrictions had become necessary: “The Buffalo River is one of the state’s and nation’s treasures. The Buffalo was the first stream to be designated as a National River. Arkansas Water Quality Standards classify the Buffalo as a Natural and Scenic Waterway and an Extraordinary Resource Water. … Water quality [regulation] standards directs the Department to protect such high quality waters using, among other means, pursuit of land management protective of the watershed.

“In general, the water quality of the Buffalo is excellent. Recent data, however, indicates impairment of aquatic biota in tributaries to the Buffalo which could reasonably be expected to affect the Buffalo in the future if the cause is not discovered and abated.”

I’m willing to bet that if Mathis was still heading this agency, his moratorium would remain in effect. He also would have known well in advance of any plans by a major corporation such as Cargill to supply and sponsor a hog factory with up to 6,500 swine on a major tributary of the Buffalo.

With an environmentally protective and aware leader like Mathis in place, there’s no way he wouldn’t have learned a potential polluter was being permitted by his very own agency until after it was a done deal. Under Mathis, departmental heads would have rolled over that.

Mathis would have insisted the National Park Service and other affected agencies, as well as the public, received ample notice of this wrongheaded plan well before any permit for a hog factory was issued here.

And I can’t help but believe that before the notion of locating such a mega-waste producer in the Buffalo River watershed was even entertained, he would have insisted that Cargill and the politically involved local family who got the permit pay for extensive water quality and subsurface flow tests of the karst-riddled ground that pervades the river basin.

Finally, I strongly suspect Mathis then would have ruled out such a stunningly inappropriate location altogether. Don’t you?