Environment notebook

By Emily Walkenhorst

Group wants time with hog-farm data

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality should allow the public more time to submit questions regarding the test results on a project to detect whether a hog manure pond is leaking on a farm in Mount Judea, a member of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance told the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday.

Brian Thompson told the commission that his group would have to hire outside researchers to go through the data and that the group would need more than a week to be able to ask good questions of the department.

The question-and-answer period ends at noon Friday.

Department Director Becky Keogh told the commission last Friday that the department wanted the period to end Dec. 9 to conduct a more expeditious review of the test results.

The alliance also issued a release lamenting that only one hole was drilled into the ground at C&H Hog Farms in the Buffalo National River watershed during the research process, which involved taking samples at various depths below the farm’s surface. The alliance also expressed continued concerns that C&H poses a pollution risk to the Buffalo River.

State-funded research so far has drawn no conclusions.

The Arkansas Farm Bureau also issued a news release Friday saying its environmental experts had looked at the data and “they say it’s clear the team at C&H Hog Farms is doing the right things and are good stewards of the environment, as well as good neighbors to the Buffalo River watershed.”

Samples taken at C&H were tested for 18 nutrients and minerals, although not every sample was tested for all 18. The results mostly were within the parameters set by the U.S. Geological Survey, except where the Geological Survey did not have comparable data, according to a presentation Thursday by state contractor Harbor Environmental.

Soil leachate samples showed higher concentrations of the nutrients and elements below the ponds but still fit within Geological Survey parameters when applicable. The Geological Survey did not always have comparable data for nitrogen, phosphorus or total organic carbon. No soil samples detected E. coli, and ammonia was found above Geological Survey levels in one of five water samples.