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  • 10 Mar 2016 4:26 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen to Ozarks At Large: KUAF Radio 


    Buffalo National River Park Service Claims

    More Tributaries Ecologically Impaired


    Every two years, Arkansas submits a listof impaired streams, rivers and lakes to EPA for cleanup. This year Department of Interior National Park Service agents submitted several tributaries to the Buffalo National River as candidates for that list, one stream adjacent to a new industrial hog breeding operation. But the federal request failed to qualify, according to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.

    In response to requests received from the public, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has extended the public comment period for the agency’s proposed 2016 Impaired Waterbodies List (commonly called the 303(d) List). The ADEQ will now accept written or electronic mail comments until 4:30 p.m. (Central Time) March 16, 2016. Written comments on the proposal should be sent to: Jim Wise, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Water Division, 5301 Northshore Drive, North Little Rock, AR 72118. E-mail comments should be sent to: ImpairedWaterbodies_Comments@adeq.state.ar.us

  • 09 Mar 2016 4:59 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    ADEQ Director Becky Keogh gives testimony to US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, titled COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM: STATE PERSPECTIVES ON EPA REGULATORY ACTIONS AND

    THE ROLE OF STATES AS CO-REGULATORS” March 9, 2016

  • 08 Mar 2016 1:42 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansasonline

    On the Buffalo

    Critical alliance

    By Mike Masterson


    Leaders of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance have penned a letter to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) that justifiably criticizes that agency's failure to include three primary tributaries of the Buffalo National River on its latest official list of impaired Arkansas streams, despite water-quality studies by two federal agencies that justify doing just that.

    The organization, some 1,200 members strong, is headed by Gordon Watkins of Newton County. Their letter to Jim Wise of the agency's water division explains pretty much what I've outlined in a previous column: Big Creek, Mill Creek, and Bear Creek should be included on the 303(d) list prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency due to water-quality data collected by both the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

    But the state agency says the deadline for inclusion on its 2016 list has passed and the next one won't be prepared until 2018, although its final 2016 draft isn't even due until April 1. The alliance and many others in Arkansas believe that delay ensures another two years of continued elevated E. coli levels and/or decreased oxygen levels when the evidence is clear those problems already are happening.

    "We are concerned that waste from this facility is making its way into the ground and surface water and that it is negatively impacting Big Creek and the Buffalo National River," the alliance writes, noting that the agency has a responsibility to follow up on warnings of water-quality impairment, especially those from the Park Service and Geological Survey.

    "Whether or not Big Creek, Mill Creek or Bear Creek are included on the 2016 303(d) list is secondary to the larger issue of impairment of the river. [The Department of Environmental Quality] first and foremost should take heed of the [Park Service] warnings, increase its monitoring of these streams, take all necessary steps to determine the sources of impairment and eliminate their impact on the Buffalo National River.

    "It's discouraging to know that, since 2008, [the agency's] recommendations for 303(d) listings have not been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency due to the inability or unwillingness ... to comply with federal standards. This is unacceptable and stands in the way of the state's ability to address and correct impairment of Arkansas lakes, streams and groundwater. [Environmental Quality] should make every effort to bring its regulations into compliance with federal requirements ... so it can properly protect the waters of the state."

    The group also sent a letter to agency Director Becky Keogh, dated Oct. 6, pointing out the documented dissolved-oxygen problem discovered on Big Creek. But apparently for the agency, it wasn't early or thorough enough to make its impaired streams list final deadline three weeks from now. This smells more to me like a continuation of more political do-si-dos when it comes to effectively dealing with the Cargill-supplied hog factory wrongheadedly permitted into the pristine watershed in 2012.




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

    Editorial on 03/08/2016

    Print Headline: On the Buffalo

  • 06 Mar 2016 9:26 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansasonline

    U.S.: List 3 streams as fouled

    State holding off, says data lacking

    By Emily Walkenhorst

    National Park Service officials have asked the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to list three tributaries to the Buffalo National River on the department's biennial list of polluted water bodies in Arkansas, but so far the department has declined.

    The park service has asked to add Mill Creek, Bear Creek and Big Creek, but the department has argued that the data obtained during the "period of record" -- before April 1, 2015 -- don't show that the waterways are polluted. The department uses five years of data to determine pollution or lack of pollution.

    The list is the 303(d) list, which is required under the federal Clean Water Act and is overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Placement on the list -- if the list is approved by the EPA -- can require studies to determine appropriate limits for cities, businesses or others seeking permits to discharge wastewater into a particular body of water.

    The EPA has not approved an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality list since 2008, but being on the list would mean that the department could continue to require additional water monitoring on those waterways when issuing wastewater discharge permits to new facilities or renewing existing permits.

    The National Park Service used its own measurements and U.S. Geological Survey measurements from 2015 as the basis for its request in October that the three tributaries be classified as polluted.

    The original request was not for the creeks to be placed on the 303(d) list, but for the department to acknowledge that the creeks were polluted under department regulations, said Chuck Bitting, natural resource program manager for the National Park Service at the Buffalo National River.

    Now the park service is asking that the department look at the trends as indicated by the data over the past two to four years when considering the creeks for the 303(d) list, Bitting said.

    The park service and the department have been discussing the service's concerns, Bitting said, and may meet again before the department sends its final draft of the 303(d) list to the EPA on April 1.

    "We just want to protect our water quality as best we can because 1 million people rely on it," he said, referring to the number of people who visit the Buffalo National River each year.

    In 2014, more than 1.3 million people visited the river and spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.

    Arkansas Department of Environment Quality spokesman Katherine Benenati said the data obtained for the period of record don't indicate impairment for those creeks, but the department is taking the National Park Service's data into account.

    "ADEQ staff is currently reviewing the data and it will also be considered as part of the data record which will be evaluated for the next cycle occurring in 2018," she wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

    A portion of Big Creek is where C&H Hog Farms is located. C&H Hog Farms has been the target of many Buffalo River advocates who believe that the farm has had a negative effect on the river and that the pig manure poses a threat to the water during flooding.

    On Tuesday, the 44th anniversary of the federal act certifying the Buffalo River as the first national river, several people asked department officials to be mindful of the significance of the river when considering the three tributaries. They asked that the department classify the three tributaries as polluted.

    "You cannot expect to have high water quality on the river if you don't have high water quality in its tributaries," Bitting told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after that meeting.

    "We want to protect our visitors from getting an infection from wading, canoeing or swimming in the Buffalo River and its tributaries within the National River boundary," he said.

    The National Park Service has not determined a reason for pollutant levels at any of the sites, but Bitting noted that Bear Creek is classified as polluted because of total dissolved solids, which refers to minerals, salts, metals or other matter found in the water.

    Mill Creek is a major tributary to the Buffalo River near Pruitt, providing about one-fourth to one-third of the river's downstream flow during the summer, Bitting said.

    The National Park Service collected weekly water samples in the creek for more than a year and has collected more periodic samples for more than 30 years, Bitting said. Based on the National Park Service's data from 2015, the creek has elevated levels of E. coli.

    The National Park Service has placed signs along Mill Creek and downstream on the Buffalo River, warning people of elevated levels of E. coli.

    Downstream of the Buffalo River where it meets Mill Creek is Big Creek at Carver, where the National Park Service used U.S. Geological Survey data to determine that the amount of dissolved oxygen in the stream is too low, leaving it less hospitable to aquatic species.

    The National Park Service has made a similar determination at Bear Creek near Silver Hill, which is downstream where the Buffalo River meets Big Creek.

    The National Park Service sent its first letter Oct. 6 asking that the streams be classified as polluted on the basis of park service data.

    In the letter to the department, park Superintendent Kevin Cheri noted that the Buffalo River downstream of the Erbie low water crossing is designated as critical habitat for the Rabbitsfoot mussel, which is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It also provides habitat for several endangered species: the Snuffbox mussel, Gray bat, Indiana bat and the Ozark big-eared bat. The area also provides habitat for the threatened northern long-eared bat.

    Cheri also wrote that the law designating the Buffalo River as a national river requires that the park be managed in "such a way that it conserves the unique scenic and scientific resources and preserves the Buffalo River as a free-flowing stream for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations."

    Metro on 03/06/2016

    Print Headline: U.S.: List 3 streams as fouled

  • 02 Mar 2016 4:44 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Eureka Springs Independent


     Federal agencies deny karst evidence 
    Becky Gillette
    Wednesday, March 02, 2016

    A 6,500-hog factory in the Buffalo River Watershed is not located in a karst region, marked with springs and underground streams that could provide pathways for toxic hog wastes to pollute one of the more scenic and popular attractions in Arkansas, the Buffalo National River, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), agencies that underwrote loan guarantees for the hog factory.

    In late 2014 the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA), the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association won a court ruling that the SBA and FSA had failed to evaluate potential adverse environmental and economic impacts to the region by providing federal loan guarantees to build the C & H Hog Farm. SBA and FSA were required to redo the environmental impact statement, but once again, the agencies issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).”

    The hog factory produces hog waste stored in a settling basin, shallow pits and a holding pond that can hold nearly two million gallons of wastewater that is sprayed onto adjacent fields. The amount of waste created is equivalent to what is produced by a city with a population of 30,000.

    Experts in karst topography said water pollution is a grave concern.

    “The farm is on porous karst geology, therefore seepage into underground water is also nearly certain,” the BRWA said.

    “The conclusion that C&H is not located on karst and that groundwater and surface water contamination is not imminent is absolutely based on flawed science,” nationally recognized karst expert Dr. John Van Brahana said. “Data collected over the past two years by my team and submitted to the agencies puts the likelihood of swine waste from C&H Hog Farms finding its way into the Buffalo National River at 95 percent.  These data were completely ignored, as were similar comments from noted hydrologist Thomas Aley, and the opinions of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey. We have all concluded that the C&H swine operation may have significant adverse impacts, which requires that a full Environmental Impact Statement be prepared.”

    Although disappointing, supporters of the Buffalo River said the FONSI is not unexpected. 

    “The science used was cherry picked, ignoring anything that did not support the preordained conclusion,” Jack Stewart, vice president BRWA said. “More than fifteen thousand citizens, some of whom were scientists, submitted comments. All of that was ignored. To give you just one example of the inadequacies, there is ample evidence that C&H is built on topography that resembles Swiss cheese – a formation geologists call karst. Yet this finding never acknowledges the obvious fact.”

    BRWA members are concerned about potential human health effects.

    “People swim, fish, and paddle in the Buffalo River, and may be subject to contact with untreated swine waste,” Dane Schumacher, BRWA board member said. “Well water that people drink may become affected. By denying scientific evidence of karst beneath the C&H operations, SBA and FSA have opened the doors for a wide range of water quality issues likely to be ahead of us. Our coalition remains very concerned about the unprecedented number of pigs, and the amount of pig waste, that has entered the Buffalo River watershed.”

    The decision means these agencies have failed to meet their obligations under the law, according to Hannah Chang, attorney with Earthjustice, the public interest environmental law firm that represented the coalition in court. “The likelihood of significant environmental harm to America’s first national river mandates a full Environmental Impact Statement, not a finding of no impact that ignores clear data and hard science,” Chang said. “With so much at risk, we are compelled to consider our next options for legal action.”

    It is estimated that 1.3 million people visited the Buffalo National River in 2014 and contributed $65 million to the local economy. Chang said by disputing that seepage of swine waste collected in C&H’s two waste storage ponds and sprayed onto fields will enter a karst system and ultimately flow into the Buffalo National River, the final FONSI erroneously downplays the potential impact of C&H on Arkansas’s tourism economy.

    BRWA President Gordon Watkins said federal agencies ignored any data that didn’t agree with the decision upholding the federal loan guarantees. Watkins said the group would move ahead continuing to find legal avenues to stop the hog pollution from adversely impacting the Buffalo River and the people who recreate in it.

    “We are discussing the best use of our resources at this stage of the game,” Watkins said. “We have filed a formal complaint with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality against actual issuance of permit. We are asking ADEQ to reopen the permit and allow the public to comment in full like we should have been allowed to do in the first place. We are moving ahead looking for ways we can actually challenge the permit itself. We have to exhaust all avenues as this thing moves along through the legal system.”

  • 29 Feb 2016 1:12 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansas Democrat Gazette


    Pollution comments sought 

    Agency preparing list of water bodies needing cleanup

    By Emily Walkenhorst


    Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials will hear public comments this week about the state's latest proposed list of polluted water bodies that require cleanup under the federal Clean Water Act.

    Tuesday's meeting is exactly one month before the department is to submit its final list -- called the 303(d) list -- to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

    Such lists have sometimes languished after being submitted to the EPA, and bodies of water that the department says are newly polluted or no longer polluted go unaddressed.

    Since 2010, the Department of Environmental Quality has submitted three proposed polluted-streams lists, but the EPA has taken no action on them because the agencies are at odds over what the state's water quality standards are or should be.

    If the EPA doesn't act on the Department of Environmental Quality's 2016 list, which is up for public discussion through March 11, it would be the fourth list left to idle since the EPA last approved one in 2008.

    "It does put us in an odd spot," said Sarah Clem, water quality planning branch manager for the Department of Environmental Quality.

    Being included on the polluted list has an impact on a water body's neighbors, including businesses, utilities and individuals.

    "It will affect any permits that industry has or wants to have," said Charles Miller, executive director of the Arkansas Environmental Federation, which works with businesses on environmental compliance. "So yeah, there's an impact."

    Every two years the department is required to produce a new list of streams that are "impaired" or are no longer impaired, on the basis of department testing and reviews.

    A designation of impaired" can trigger a study on the amount of pollutants a stream can have in it and still meet water-quality standards. That study can result in stricter limits in permits for businesses, utilities or others regarding discharging wastewater into a stream. Likewise, removal from the list can prompt the removal of such limits.

    Since 2010, the department has suggested adding at least 165 water bodies to the polluted list and removing at least 240 others. Data provided for 2010 don't include a breakdown of which water bodies were added or removed from the list as compared with 2008. Many water bodies are on the lists more than once because some portions of a river or creek may be considered polluted while other portions may not be.

    According to Stacey Dwyer, the EPA's associate director for national pollutant discharge elimination systems permits and total maximum daily load, the agency has been trying since 2008 to sort out three things with Arkansas:

     The variation of pollutants in the state.

     The way the state assesses water bodies.

     The way the state has changed its standards.

    "It's just a lot of complex issues," Dwyer said. "We want to make sure we're doing it correctly and working with the state."

    The Department of Environmental Quality establishes its water quality standards in Regulation 2 with the approval of the department's appellate body, the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The department then uses those standards to determine stream impairment and sends along its recommendations to the EPA, which oversees the Clean Water Act 303(d) program. The EPA approves the list or recommends changes to it.

    In recent years, the state has added language to Regulation 2 that has changed or clarified the way the state determines whether a body of water is polluted. Changes include allowing certain water bodies to exceed mineral standards in 25 percent of the tests before being considered polluted, instead of 10 percent; applying standards in lakes at 1-meter depth instead of the surface; and clarifying that mineral levels for certain regions -- known as ecoregion reference stream minerals values -- will be used as guidelines and not standards for water quality. That clarification merely reflects how the department has always used those values, department officials said.

    Because of Regulation 2's role in making determinations under the Clean Water Act, the EPA must approve any changes made to the language of the regulation. The previous major Regulation 2 changes were approved by the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission two years ago but have not been approved by the EPA.

    As an example, the EPA has wanted the state to maintain the ecoregion values as standards for water bodies in the state, according to Jane Watson, associate director with the water quality division for the EPA in Dallas. If Arkansas officials remove those ecoregion values, it should replace them with new ones, Watson said.

    "When a state wants to change an approach to water quality, they can do that," she said. "But from a legal standpoint, we need to have a different set of numbers" or something else.

    Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh said ecoregion values would be used as guidelines so as to not unnecessarily hurt cities or industry by using data in a way it wasn't intended. Keogh did not work for the department at the time of the regulation change but said she wants to ensure that standards are not "overreaching or unreasonable."

    Some stream standards are unnecessary and unreasonably strict, said Allan Gates, an attorney at the Mitchell Williams law firm in Little Rock. Such standards prompt businesses and city utilities to do extensive research on a body of water to determine an easier-to-meet standard that wouldn't negatively impact the environment.

    Gates has represented many industries and municipalities seeking permit changes related to water standards before the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. His latest cases involved the cities of Harrison and Yellville, which wanted to increase the allowable levels of minerals their wastewater utilities were allowed to discharge into Crooked Creek. The city-funded research reviewed by the commission showed no impact from the change.

    Gates noted that many people who are concerned about a body of water use the polluted list to get the water body cleaned up. That cleanup likely won't happen until the EPA approves the state list.

    "We're working very deliberately with the EPA to make sure the state's standards are being applied in an appropriate manner," Keogh said. "It's all protective of the excellent water quality we have in the state of Arkansas."

    Metro on 02/29/2016

    Print Headline: Pollution comments sought

  • 29 Feb 2016 8:23 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)



    Trenton Farms Denied Permit for Grundy County CAFO


    The Missouri Clean Water Commission yesterday made official, it's decision to overturn an operating permit for Trenton Farms Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation proposed for the Hickory area of rural Grundy County. 

    The commission last Wednesday voted four to two, over-ruling the Department of Natural Resources decision in granting the permit. That followed a two-hour plushearing in Jefferson City regarding an appeal filed by a local organization called Hickory Neighbors United which expressed opposition to the proposed hog farm. 

    In its summary available online at the Missouri Clean Water Commission website, the final decision determined DNR failed to meet its burden of proving the operating permit was issued in accordance with current law. Concerns were cited regarding the target area being in a 100 year flood plain and questioning the state regulation whether a permanent organization exists that serves as quote “continuing authority” for the operation, maintenance, and modernization of the facility (CAFO) for which the application was made. 

    Last August, Hickory Neighbors filed an appeal, challenging the DNR issued permit. That appeal was the subject of an Administrative Hearing Commission meeting in October. And then that organization, in December, made a recommendation for the Clean Water Commission to sustain the permit. 

    The website also includes video of last weeks' Clean Water Commission meeting including presentations and testimony from three attorneys. 

    Tim Dugan represented the attorney generals' office after being assigned to defend the DNR decision once the appeal was made. Steven Jeffrey spoke on behalf of Hickory Neighbors United. And Robert Brundage represented Trenton Farms. 



    Brundage was once assistant general counsel for environmental affairs for the company previously-known as Premium Standard Farms. 

    At the end of the presentations, questions and answers, a motion was made for the Clean Water Commission to sustain the state permit for Trenton Farms. 

    But four members voted “no.” One of the Clean Water Commission members voting against Trenton Farms was Buddy Bennett – a former director of Trenton

    Municipal Utilities. It was a roll call vote. The count stood two in favor and three opposed when Bennett cast the fourth and final “nay” vote. Other Clean Water Commissioners voting no were Todd Parnell of Springfield, Dennis Wood of Kimberling City, and Wallis Warren of Beaufort. 

    Voting in favor of sustaining the permit were Ashley McCarty of Novinger and John Cowheard of Mount Vernon. The seventh member of the commission, Samuel Leake of Perry, was absent. 

    Buddy Bennett, now of Oak Grove, was elected chairman of the clean water commission. He received the state appointment in 2012. Now retired, his background includes experience with municipal utilities and waste water systems.

     Post Views: 445

  • 28 Feb 2016 7:46 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Science ignored

    A new assessment

    By Mike Masterson

    Posted: February 28, 2016 at 1:42 a.m.


    Here we go again, circling the same wagons accomplishing nothing while avoiding robust discussion over the real potential for environmental calamity in our precious Buffalo National River watershed.

    And for what, I continue to wonder? To defend at all costs one family in Newton County who teamed with Minnesota's Cargill Inc. to convince our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) it was a fine idea to approve the first hog factory in the state's most ecologically fragile region?

    It's become a relevant question in light of the state's continuing public expense and political lobbying involved in keeping this misplaced factory running.

    It was no surprise the two federal agencies, which guaranteed the loans for the C&H Hog Farms, released their findings the other day. They claim there's "no significant impact" to the first national river as a result of the millions of gallons of raw hog waste held in two lagoons when not being regularly sprayed across fields near Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo flowing less than seven miles downstream. Don't worry, Arkansas! Be happy!

    This latest environmental assessment follows the initial version filed by the Small Business Administration and the USDA's Farm Service Agency. U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall on Dec. 2, 2014, found it to be woefully lacking in facts and legally inadequate. Marshall ordered the agencies to redo a complete assessment that documented the potential environmental effects from this factory's location.

    So did the U.S. agencies take the apolitical, mature approach and reach out to the Buffalo River Coalition that opposes this factory's location? Did they offer to work with the coalition to address serious and scientifically documented concerns? Did either agency perhaps perform dye testings and other groundwater assessments, since the watershed lies atop cracked limestone that rapidly transports water?

    Nope. It seems instead they've tried to save face by piecemealing what little reported science they could locate to reinforce their original inadequate assessment. Is this a great example of science or what?

    Meanwhile, the coalition, comprised of five groups opposing the factory's location and represented by Earthjustice attorney Hannah Chang, was unimpressed.

    The group said it made sure to alert the two agencies to the known potential adverse environmental and economic impacts to the Buffalo watershed. Yet the agencies' finding of "no significant impact" ignored their science-based data and water-quality studies altogether.

    "Perhaps the biggest flaw in the no impact finding is the conclusion that the water quality of the Buffalo River will not be significantly affected," Chang said. "The federal agencies based this conclusion on inaccurate information and analysis that the swine facility site does not exhibit karst hydrogeology, turning a blind eye to the overwhelming scientific consensus and the comments of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey to the contrary."

    The coalition said it also alerted the agencies that the Oklahoma State University study that they misinterpreted as supporting their faulty determination had actually found a "major fracture and movement of waste" beneath the site. The finding of no impact overlooks this critical information.

    Instead, the agencies' finding rehashes their denial of the hog factory's potential impacts on water and air quality, the quality of life in the community, public health, the health of the children who attend school near C&H, any endangered or threatened species, and the pollution from hog waste in the Buffalo National River, the coalition contends.

    "The conclusion C&H is not located on karst and that groundwater and surface-water contamination is not imminent is absolutely based on flawed science," said karst expert and UA geoscience professor emeritus Dr. John Van Brahana, who with fellow volunteers has studied water quality around the factory since it opened in 2012. "The data collected over the past two years by my team and submitted to the agencies puts the likelihood of swine waste from C&H Hog Farms finding its way into the Buffalo National River at 95 percent.

    "These data were completely ignored, as were similar comments from noted hydrologist Thomas Aley and the opinions of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey. We have all concluded that the C&H swine operation may have significant adverse impacts, which requires that a full Environmental Impact Statement be prepared."

    Chang added: "With this [finding], the agencies have failed to meet their obligations under the law. The likelihood of significant environmental harm to America's first national river mandates a full environmental impact statement, not a finding of no impact that ignores clear data and hard science."

    ------------v------------

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

  • 25 Feb 2016 3:44 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)


    KUAF Radio

     
    Listen to this segment here.
  • 25 Feb 2016 3:34 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansas Democrat Gazette

    Report: Pig-farm harm unlikely

    2 agencies issue ‘finding of no significant impact’ on river

    By Emily Walkenhorst


    Two federal agencies' "finding of no significant impact" report on the environment from C&H Hog Farms near the Buffalo River has been signed, effectively ending a lawsuit that sought to curtail the farm's operations in the area.

    In a three-page statement signed Feb. 18 and posted online Wednesday, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Services Agency finalized the findings of an environmental assessment drafted in August and completed in December.

    The 81-page report concluded that permanent damage to the environment is unlikely from C&H Hog Farms. The farm, permitted to have up to 2,503 sows and 4,000 piglets, is on Big Creek 6.8 miles from where the creek meets the Buffalo River.

    "The construction and ongoing operation of the C&H Hog Farm did not and is not expected to result in any irreversible or irretrievable resource commitments," the report said.

    A lawsuit filed in 2013 by the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Arkansas Canoe Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Ozark Society said the federal agencies failed to adequately consider the hog farm's impact on the environment in their initial assessment. That led to a second assessment being ordered by a federal judge.

    "Essentially they reached the same conclusion as the faulty environmental assessment," said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. "We think they ignored sound science, and they cherry-picked data that suited preconceived notions of what their conclusions would be."

    Watkins' group wanted the assessment to call for more research in the area, such as that being done by University of Arkansas at Fayetteville geosciences professor John Van Brahana. Brahana has said data collected over the past two years put the likelihood of swine waste from the hog farm reaching the Buffalo River at 95 percent.

    The Buffalo River is the nation's first national river. More than 1.3 million people visited the river in 2014 and spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.

    Jason Henson, co-owner of C&H Hog Farms, didn't return a phone call Wednesday afternoon seeking comment.

    Henson has previously said the federal agencies' August "finding of no significant impact" was good news for the next farmer who wants a loan or loan guarantees from either federal agency.


    The four groups that filed the lawsuit and Earthjustice, a national nonprofit law group, could file a new complaint based on the finding of no significant impact, but Watkins said that seems unlikely at the moment.

    "We just think at this point it's probably not a wise use of resources," Watkins said, of pursuing additional litigation.

    Watkins said his group will now focus on complaints at the state level, such as two filed since September that accuse C&H Hog Farms of violating its permit.

    The Small Business Administration and the USDA Farm Services Agency conducted their first study on the farm's environmental impact in 2012.

    The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association sued the federal agencies in 2013 after the agencies had agreed to back loans made to C&H that allowed the farm to open.

    Because the farm didn't have sufficient collateral for its loan from Farm Credit Services of Western Arkansas, it had to get loan guarantees from the two federal agencies. The loan guarantees required the original environmental assessment.

    A federal judge ruled in October 2014 that the initial study was faulty because it did not address the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.

    The finalized assessment studied surface water, groundwater and soils in the surrounding area, among other things. It determined that no action is needed in any of those areas to avert negative consequences on the environment.

    Several passages in the assessment acknowledged that any heavy rain that produces 50-year or 100-year flood levels could lead to accidental discharges from farm waste lagoons that would have a "short-term" impact on nearby surface water.

    The three-page summary of the final assessment was signed Feb. 18 by Farm Service Agency administrator Val Dolcini and John A. Miller, deputy associate administrator with the Small Business Administration office of capital access.

    Metro on 02/25/2016

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