What about those multiple plumes of suspicious leakage discovered by an Oklahoma State University geologist deep beneath the clay-lined waste lagoons at C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea?

While Dr. Todd Halihan stopped short of calling the substance hog waste, other knowledgeable scientists say the results imply groundwater contaminants "suggestive of waste" have indeed been leaking into the limestone karst beneath the lagoons for at least a year.

Halihan, you may recall, offered in 2015 to help arrange for drilling at no cost to acquire samples of the leakage that would easily either confirm or refute the findings from his equipment, which shows the amount of electrical resistivity underground.

A recent news story by reporter Emily Walkenhorst quoted Andrew Sharpley of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team saying his group sees no need to drill and learn what the stuff actually is. Yep. You read that right.

They apparently are content to remain blissfully ignorant of learning whether the stuff Halihan has documented through science is waste, clay or Nutella. Can't say as I blame them since, if it is hog waste, the Big Creek team would not only look bad for not revealing Halihan's results many months ago, but for not themselves discovering the mess. I'd call such an approach preferring comfortable political science and denial over painfully uncomfortable scientific confirmation.

Halihan conducted his tests beneath the waste lagoons and on several spray fields in March 2015 in conjunction with a contract requested by the Cooperative Extension Service and Sharpley's team. That UA team was established by former Gov. Mike Beebe to monitor environmental effects of the factory on the Buffalo National River watershed. The magnificent Buffalo flows less than seven miles downstream from this factory that spreads raw waste it generates across fields adjacent to Big Creek, a major tributary of the river.

The OSU professor apparently provided the results of his testing shortly after his studies were complete. Afterwards, Halihan is said to have offered to arrange for sample drilling to see whether the suspicious plumes that show up distinctly on the professor's charts are indeed hog waste.

Halihan's offer was declined at the time. I'd have jumped at Halihan's offer to determine the truth and promptly disclosed the results.

Today, well over a year has passed since those tests. Even as a layman, I must assume the plumes have continued to infiltrate the subsurface to possibly enter the underground fractures and fissures that are characteristic of the pervasive karst terrain.

I've seen how Halihan's tests of the area beneath four corners of the factory's dual lagoons reflect significant patches and streaks of purple at the lower ends at depths between 90 and 120 feet. That matters because the color purple on his transects represents the presence of easily conductive wet matter such as waste. In the factory's surrounding spray fields, Halihan's test shows only the single field most recently sprayed with hog waste from the lagoons reflected the same color purple to a depth of about 10 feet.

If the stuff beneath is clay, as Sharpley and his team surmise, why doesn't "clay" show up in the other fields not recently sprayed, and as pervasive around the clay-lined lagoons? Even Halihan said in Walkenhorst's story that he didn't believe his study reflects simply clay.

So what happens now, since Halihan's findings were finally made public the other day at a meeting of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission? Does no responsible tax-paid public servant feel the need to know exactly what Halihan's testing discovered? Commissioners and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) all claimed they didn't know of Halihan's disturbing revelations until that meeting just the other day. Why not?

The question remains: Just when did the Big Creek team know of Halihan's results anyway?

Why weren't relatively inexpensive test drillings performed to settle the issue conclusively?

At this point, I believe public pressure to do right falls squarely on the shoulders of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, Department of Environmental Quality, and our governor. And I know those folks at the University of Arkansas Divison of Agriculture should quickly secure an independent agency to perform the sampling beneath the lagoons. This matter is simply too important to our state and our national river to needlessly settle for assumptions and uncertainty.

If it turns out the plumes are clay or even peanut butter, at least the people of Arkansas will know. Let's suppose science determines all this leaking is from the lagoon's clay liners; wouldn't gravity also say the raw waste those liners were supposed to contain follows on its heels?