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Vitamins and Groundwater - Mike Masterson

22 Jul 2014 9:48 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/jul/22/vitamins-and-groundwater-20140722/


Dr. John Van Brahana, the widely respected professor emeritus and specialist in hydrology from the University of Arkansas, must be taking mega-vitamins.

How else to explain the energy level of this man who for almost a year has volunteered his time and resources, along with a team of volunteers, to monitor the water quality at Mount Judea in the Buffalo National River watershed?

His work matters more than we can realize since C&H Hog Farms (sponsored courtesy of Cargill Inc.) opened the state's first concentrated animal feeding operation nurturing up to 6,500 swine under the new General Permit. The state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) was directly responsible for quietly issuing the permit to operate in such an incredibly sensitive environment.

The agency's wrongheaded action since triggered a continuing firestorm of public controversy by multitudes who want to protect the river.

So many hogs amount to a lot of animal waste daily that is siphoned into two open lagoons, then routinely sprayed onto fields around the factory, including several along Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo flowing just six miles downstream.

I've written about Brahana and his work for months now.

Most recently he and his group have been monitoring the flow of sub-surface groundwater beneath the factory's acres and around adjacent Big Creek by tracing the flow of a special dye injected into the ground. The fields beneath the factory, as with most of the the ground in the Ozarks, are underlain by fractured limestone called karst. This kind of rock creates gaps, voids and caves that can easily carry water from the surface into surrounding streams and on to the country's first national river.

I asked Brahana what's been happening lately with his efforts.

"Briefly, our dye tracing has been yielding valuable information," he said. "One trace injected into a shallow-dug well in the middle of three spreading fields came out as expected at four springs that surround the property. But the water also traveled 3.5 miles northwest, beneath high ground, to seven springs that lie in the next drainage basin to the north (Left Fork of Big Creek). Then the flow continued to transfer the injected dye for more than three weeks."

The soft-spoken Brahana explained that downstream from these seven springs algae growth is flourishing, especially compared to last year.

"We don't know the exact pathway the groundwater is taking," he said, "only that we injected dye south of the factory farm, and we found irrefutable evidence that some of that dye is coming out north and west of the farm in another surface drainage basin that flows into Big Creek."

From there, the injected dye flows at a rapid rate toward the Buffalo National River. "The flow velocity is fast, typical of karst groundwaters," he said. "Our conservative estimate of the groundwater velocity is from 1,500 to more than 2,500 feet per day. It may be as fast as several miles per day, which means there would not be much time to react should contamination get into the groundwater."

Brahana's no stranger to politics in Arkansas and the role it played in our state allowing this mega waste-producing factory in the national river's watershed, of all places.

He expressed his feelings this way: "Please encourage your readers to contact their representatives and encourage them to vote for the upcoming proposed changes to regulations, rule-making that replaces the General Permit, a flawed document that ignores key science that would protect our precious water resources, " he said.

Lots of rumors appear to be running rampant on this matter, he added, but right now facts are hard to come by.

At least I have faith that objective facts gathered from the science of water quality (rather than the political maneuverings that obviously got this factory permitted) always will be Brahana's foremost goal.

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial on 07/22/2014

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