Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Relevant findings
Swine and health

By Mike Masterson

I concede that the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas are not located in the similar verdant hills of North Carolina.

I'll agree the climates of each state can differ, especially considering we are landlocked while eastern North Carolina has a scenic and historic coastline.

But I draw the line at believing the potential contaminating effects of raw waste emanating from swine factories on pristine freshwater streams located near them is different at all. And none of it is good.

With that in mind, I read with interest an article published the other day by Environmental Health News about the big stink groups there are raising over high levels of bacteria being discovered in North Carolina's rivers and the science reportedly linking such contamination directly to that state's large swine factories.

The story raises so many pertinent questions about the possibility of similar off-site pollution leaking into Big Creek and waters flowing alongside and beneath the controversial C&H Hog Farms our state wrongheadedly permitted in 2012 to operate in the Buffalo National River watershed.

The magnificent Buffalo is our country's first national river, designated as such in 1972.
While research groups (such as that headed by University of Arkansas' geoscience professor emeritus John Van Brahana and his volunteers) continue to examine the quality of water around the C&H factory and the creek which empties into our revered Buffalo six miles downstream, academic researchers in North Carolina say they've already connected elevated bacteria levels to swine.

Those findings come from their own streams flowing around such factories. They say they have identified specific markers in the waste attributable solely to swine.
Of course, the state environmental agency has done its best to discredit the study, calling it "inconclusive," as has the industry that supports the millions of swine. Why would we the people expect anything less regardless of scientific findings in 2015 America?
These discoveries, in my mind, certainly have meaningful relevance to our ongoing situation at Mount Judea. Brahana and his crew already have been using dye testing to determine how rapidly and widely the runoff flows after being absorbed into the fractured karst subsurface.

Come this spring I expect Brahana's team to begin using even more sophisticated methods to determine possible links with what elevated E. coli levels are already being discovered in the watershed.

Back in eastern North Carolina, the battle continues, according to the article published Feb. 18: "[H]ealth and environmental groups continue to pressure the state, the second leading pork producing state behind Iowa, to more strictly regulate large pig farms. Meanwhile evidence continues to mount of the industry's impact in the region: A study published in January concluded that streams near large industrial farms in eastern North Carolina are full of pig poop bacteria."

"People just can't ignore this," Naeema Muhammad, a co-director and community organizer at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network told Environmental Health News. "The air stinks, the water is contaminated and property values are depleted."
As in our own state, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources considers large swine operations with thousands of pigs as "non-discharge facilities," thereby exempt from state rules on having to monitor the waste they dump in rivers and streams.

Environmental Health News also reports that Steve Wing, a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina who co-wrote the January study, believes the case for that exemption is dubious. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and UNC for about a year tested water upstream and downstream from swine waste dispersal fields in eastern North Carolina.

"You have evidence of pig-specific bacteria in surface waters, next to industrial swine operations," he told the publication.

Wing went on to contend the farms generate so much waste that it would be too expensive to transport by pipeline or truck; the manure is dispersed by pumps through pipelines and sprayers across fields. The sprayers shower hundreds of gallons per minute.
Brahana said C&H has applied to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) for a similar pipeline and spraying operation in their waste fields around Big Creek, rather than continuing to truck the waste from lagoons to dispense.

Environmental Health News reported the North Carolina study found the "highest concentrations were found 'immediately downstream' of swine feedlot spray fields and during the spring and summer seasons. ... Of 187 samples, 40 percent exceeded state and federal water guidelines for fecal coliforms, harmful bacteria from animal feces. In addition, 23 percent and 61 percent of the samples exceeded the water quality standards for E. coli and Enterococcus respectively, two other feces-derived bacteria harmful when they're ingested."
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 02/22/2015