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What Transparency?

20 Dec 2016 10:28 AM | Anonymous member

What transparency?

About that plume

By Mike Masterson

Posted: December 20, 2016 at 2:16 a.m.

NWAOnline


The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance says the state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) didn't allow nearly enough time to effectively analyze and respond to the Dec. 1 release of a 540-page report that was supposed to explain the results of the test hole drilled near one of two waste lagoons at C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea.

The agency set Dec. 9 as the cutoff for online-only questions from the public. That was after allowing no questions of project manager Harbor Environmental at the Dec. 1 meeting where its results were publicly disclosed. The agency later extended that deadline until Dec. 16.

Frankly, the way this inadequate single drill hole (that cost Arkansans $75,000) has been handled from the beginning smells worse to me than, well, a hog wallow.

The sole reason for drilling at the hog factory was to confirm the electrical resistivity imaging test conducted in 2015 by Dr. Todd Halihan of Oklahoma State. His work detected a large plume that differed radically from the surrounding subsurface soils, located beneath a corner of the lower of two lagoons, as well as a fracture.

At the time, our state declined Halihan's offer to arrange drilling, likely at no cost, to determine if the plume was leaked waste.

Then there was the backhanded way Halihan's study came to public awareness after the Big Creek Research and Extension Team from UA's Division of Agriculture had failed to even acknowledge its existence until the Watershed Alliance sent a Freedom of Information Act request.

In its news release last week, the Alliance explained: "the hole was drilled due to concerns raised initially by members of the [Big Creek team] who noted a possible 'major fracture and movement of waste' near the ponds. However, neither [the Department of Environmental Quality], the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, nor the public was made aware of this concern until over a year later when [the alliance] brought it to their attention."

In the 540-page report, this clear and simple sentence has yet to be located: "We drilled directly into the plume and discovered the material inside consisted of ..."

So why not, since this suspicious glob was the very reason for the hole?

Alliance president Gordon Watkins said his organization is concerned that "in spite of ADEQ's assurances of improved transparency concerning the C&H Hog Farm, the public is being prevented from seeking clarification by asking questions directly of Harbor." Alliance questions and concerns are posted at buffaloriveralliance.org (click on BRWA questions to ADEQ).

Watkins said "conspicuously absent" from Harbor's Dec. 1 presentation or subsequent report was discussion of Halihan's study. He said the only reference made to it appeared in two sentences: "Interpreted results from a 2015 electrical resistivity imaging survey commissioned by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team suggested vertical leakage from the waste storage ponds and possible fracturing within limestone bedrock below the site. The location of the boring was chosen by ADEQ based on the ERI data." Again unclear.

The Alliance news release notes the drilling found that an apparent void was detected at a depth that closely corresponds to that of the pond floors: "The void was detected during drilling and again when difficulty was encountered while sealing up the hole above a depth of 25 feet below the ground. Water for lubricating the drilling process was lost at this depth and the final grouting of the shaft required almost 50 percent more in cement than what the driller had calculated.

"The report provided little discussion regarding this seemingly significant karst feature. The report and the cores show that karst is indicated throughout most of the 120-foot range of the drilled shaft. Contrary to the earlier environmental assessment of the site, this facility and its waste ponds are clearly sitting atop karst," the alliance added.

Alliance member Jack Stewart: "Our questions are the result of a hurriedly prepared analysis of a fairly lengthy report. We continue to ask ADEQ why they have chosen to force the public to respond in such a short time frame."

Stewart said the agency was notified that alliance efforts to correlate field notes, data, photos, and interpretation will result in questions that will then result in follow-up questions. "We have emphatically requested ... an interactive public question and answer session with Harbor Environmental."

Ellen Corley of the alliance noted: "Thankfully, the sampling results do not appear to show contamination of groundwater inside this drilled hole. However, the report by geologist Tai Hubbard hired ... as an independent observer ... clearly noted multiple limitations of the study, not the least of which was that it provided for only a single drilled hole."

Yep, valued readers, still lots more questions than answers.

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

Editorial on 12/20/2016

Buffalo River Watershed Alliance is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization

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