Buffalo River Watershed Alliance
By Emily Walkenhorst
This article was published today at 2:38 a.m
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance has filed a formal complaint with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, alleging that C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea has violated the terms of its permit.
The alliance cites University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture quarterly reports on conditions surrounding the facility as evidence that it is contributing to higher levels of E. coli and nitrate in Big Creek, a Buffalo National River tributary on which the facility sits.
Alliance President Gordon Watkins said the hog facility's permit is a no-discharge permit, meaning any discharges not connected to a significant storm would be a violation of its permit. The complaint suggests that the higher levels are evidence that hog waste is either leaking through the karst terrain or that runoff from waste applied as manure is making its way into the creek.
But lead researcher Andrew Sharpley said that although E. coli and nitrate levels near the facility have increased, such levels vary seasonally and can be affected by rain. Further, he said, the source of pollution could be a something other than the facility, such as a faulty septic tank.
He said his team is studying the increases but that they had not concluded the source yet.
"It's higher but it's impossible to say what that might be caused by," he said. "We are looking further into that."
Sharpley said it was premature to say whether the levels were a problem and mentioned that E. coli levels have been elevated before, including before the facility was built.
"I'm not going to say there is a problem and it turns out there isn't a problem," he said, adding that his credibility could be hurt by such an event.
The complaint notes higher levels of E. coli in the House Well, a private water well used for consumption by hogs and humans.
Watkins said the well had a filter on it and noted that private wells are not regulated, but he said any amount of E. coli would be considered harmful to drink by state and federal standards for public drinking water.
"I would encourage them to determine that source," Watkins said. "There are ways to find out."
Watkins noted tests that can be used to detect both E. coli and nitrate sources.
"Whether we're right or wrong we feel like ADEQ needs to investigate and look at the data and make their own determination," he said.
Katherine Benenati, a spokesman with the department, said officials had received the complaint and were still in the process of reviewing it.
A voice mail left Thursday afternoon with C&H co-owner Jason Henson was not immediately returned.
The alliance complained previously to the Environmental Quality Department -- on Feb. 8, 2014 -- along with the Arkansas Canoe Club, National Parks Conservation Association and Ozark Society. The complaint was filed by Earthjustice, a national environmental law group.
That complaint requested that the department reopen the facility's permitting process, citing taxpayer interest and "misrepresentations" by C&H Hog Farms regarding its operations.
C&H Hog Farms is a large-scale swine facility permitted to house 2,503 sows and 4,000 piglets. The facility has been the target of environmental groups for more than two years since receiving an expedited permit to operate from the Environmental Quality Department.
In 2014, the Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- had more than 1.3 million visitors who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.
Metro on 08/14/2015
Print Headline: Alliance filing says hog farm violates permit
By Mike Masterson
Posted: August 11, 2015 at 3:28 a.m.
The two federal agencies, ordered last December by a federal judge to assess potential environmental damages from the waste produced by C&H Hog Farms in the Buffalo National River watershed, have released their draft report.
Their conclusion: All's hunky-dory above the river. So we can all relax, fall back asleep and quiet the unfounded concerns. Meanwhile, one geoscientist studying the potential contamination called their assessment "hogwash."
This paper's Emily Walkenhorst reports that a complete assessment wasn't submitted with the original approval of Farm Credit Services' loan guarantees by the Small Business Administration and the USDA Farm Service Agency. The original assessment without nearly enough significant data to suit U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall essentially found no potential problems, but in a lot fewer words. The new one finds no need for concern that the millions of gallons of hog waste being routinely spread six miles above the Buffalo might permanently contaminate the country's first national river, not even after an historic rainfall.
Whew! I'm glad those agencies finally performed a supposedly "complete" assessment that ... drum roll, please ... happened to affirm their initial decision. The new draft basically contends concerns for the well-being of the precious river from waste leakage just aren't warranted.
Well, excluding any possible accidental discharges from historic rainfall amounts. But even that, the revised document contends, would be "unlikely" to cause lasting contamination.
The report also concludes there's not even the need to change anything about the surface water, groundwater or soils to ensure there's no contamination. It also says, according to Walkenhorst's thorough account: "The assessment concluded permanent damage is unlikely: '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.'"
While I'm just tickled pink these agencies predictably justified their initial oversights by spending seven whole months to determine they were right in their original inadequate assessment, I give ample credibility to qualified differing views.
Geoscience professor emeritus Dr. John Van Brahana, about whom I've written plenty, and his band of volunteers already have spent about two years studying how subsurface water flows through the fractured limestone karst that channels it throughout the region, as well as water quality in Big Creek, flowing beside the factory.
So I asked if the findings contained in the revision happen to correspond with his own discoveries. He called the findings "hogwash."
"This draft environmental assessment is flawed," he said. "It completely ignores groundwater and karst, although this version does at least include paragraphs that mention the terms unlike their original notice of intent approved by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. The flow of water streaming through the rocks and soil is essential to study and understand so to protect those who live downstream. It's a key component of any environmental assessment. Yet meaningful discussion remains missing in this version.
"The factory hoses its slatted floor so all manure and urine flow into troughs piped to and stored in clay-lined lagoons," he continued. "Lagoons are allowed to leak, more than 5,000 gallons a day under the terms of the state's permit. Because hogs are continually creating waste, the lagoons must be emptied lest they overflow.
"So they spray the hogwash on fields, all of which are uphill from Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo. On karst terrain, rain or hogwash introduced on the land surface typically infiltrates through soil and moves downward unseen through voids and fractures in the rock beneath the surface. It re-emerges as springs and base flows to the streams, some which we have traced with dyes to other drainage basins, but always flowing to the Buffalo."
He said this latest report fails to address groundwater studies, which is dominant water flow in this basin. "In fact, it introduces no specific groundwater quality data whatsoever," he said. "Our team, Karst Hydrogeology of the Buffalo National River (KHBNR) has observed and documented these changes. Their assessment offers no pre-factory measurement of any groundwater quality with which to compare and evaluate changes caused by this factory, nor do they report any measurement of its current state.
"This assessment ignores not only the KHBNR studies, which strictly follow standards of the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Arkansas, but they don't even mention key karst hydrogeologic research conducted by peer-reviewed journals, numerous faculty, graduate theses, or relevant studies of water quality problems in karst that are known from many other areas.
"Our KHBNR studies are expanding into areas that continue to reflect the concentrated hogwash, already is affecting groundwater and surface water downstream. Space limits my comments to this groundwater. But based on what we have found and I know to be true, the [report] is rife with errors, omissions, and misrepresentations."
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Arkansasonline
No flies on that!
by Mike Masterson
I appreciate it when readers respond to my opinions. It matters not to me should they agree or disagree (poetic, eh?). I'm always pleased they took their valuable time to read and reflect upon their feelings.
Following a recent column in which I enjoyed speculating on what a day in the life of a roomful of D.C. bureaucratic regulators might be like, I received some complimentary, along with less-than-favorable, email messages.
Here was one reactive letter about that column from reader Ben Novak of Monticello published on the Voices page.
"Mike Masterson has on many occasions written about the pig farm in Northwest Arkansas, trying to get it regulated out of business, but in a recent column he ridiculed the very government that would pass such regulation. You can't have it both ways, Mike. Or do you think that you are the only one who knows what should or should not be regulated?"
Well, by golly, Ben, after lengthy consideration, I believe I might just be the one.
Mike's regulations would be simple. Ignore special, competing business and personal interests who try to use my mandates to their advantage. Regulate only what is demonstrably necessary to maintain a level playing field for everyone and prevent our citizens from being harmed by obviously unscrupulous, wrongheaded or unsafe practices created out of ignorance, stupidity or political favoritism.
I'd classify the hog factory our state Department of Environmental Quality (cough) allowed to operate in the watershed of our precious Buffalo National River, at the very least, as a remarkably wrongheaded decision.
Beyond that, I'd be satisfied letting taxpaying adult citizens in a representative governmental process decide their own personal risks to take. I do believe one of my favorite Ozark armchair philosophers, the Durable Ralph Guynn of Harrison, might proclaim of my regulatory plan: "Ain't no flies on that!"
Two federal agencies issued a draft environmental assessment Thursday for C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea that comes to the same conclusion as a tossed-out 2012 study: The farm is not likely to have a significant detrimental impact in the Buffalo National River watershed.
The assessment is good news for the facility but disappointing to environmental groups that have worked to shut down C&H and curb future medium and large hog farms in the watershed for fear of hog waste pollution in the popular tourist area and rough karst terrain.
The facility sits on Big Creek, 6.8 miles from where it flows into the Buffalo National River. It is the first large-scale hog facility in the watershed, which is the area that drains into the river.
The new assessment was mandated by a 2014 federal court order after a judge ruled the 2012 study was faulty because it did not address the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.
The original study allowed for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration to back loans needed for the C&H facility to open -- called loan guarantees.
The court order suspends the guarantees during the reassessment process. But because C&H Hog Farms has been up and running for two years, it could have been affected by the court order only if it defaulted on its loans.
The assessment can be considered a positive development, C&H co-owner Jason Henson said.
"It's good news for the next farmer who might be wanting a USDA or SBA loan."
Henson owns C&H along with his two cousins, Phillip and Richard Campbell.
Jack Stewart, vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, isn't convinced that the assessment is definitive.
"Big agriculture industry has slowly over the years managed to get the rules in their favor, and so it makes it extremely difficult for the average person to object," he said. "They can always say they're following the rules. The rules were written for this kind of large-scale structure, and they're calling it a farm, which it isn't -- it's a factory."
C&H Hog Farms, considered a large facility permitted to house 2,503 sows and 4,000 piglets, opened in May 2013.
The alliance was created in response to C&H's permit approval from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the assessment released Thursday.
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 they agreed to back loans made to C&H that allowed the facility to open.
Before the agencies could back the Farm Credit Services of Western Arkansas loans -- meaning the agencies would pay them back if the facility defaulted -- officials had to conduct an environmental assessment.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. issued the 2014 order that required the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration to follow both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the process, finding the agencies had failed to do so the first time.
The assessment issued Thursday studied surface water, groundwater and soils in the surrounding area, among other things, and determined that no action is needed in any of those areas to avert negative consequences.
Several passages in the assessment acknowledge that a rain event exceeding 50-year or 100-year levels could lead to accidental discharges from waste lagoons that would have "short-term" impact on nearby surface water.
But toward the end of the 81-page report, the assessment concluded that permanent damage is unlikely: "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."
People can comment on the assessment until Sept. 4. A public hearing on it will be held at 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Jasper School District Cafetorium on South Street off Arkansas 7. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
If the draft environmental assessment stays as is, Stewart said, he is concerned that it will be used to justify the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture study that is referred to within it. Stewart and others opposed to C&H are skeptical of the study's scope.
The five-year UA study looked at the cumulative impact of the hog farm's presence on Big Creek. It has been cited by Gov. Asa Hutchinson as his reason for supporting a five-year ban on new medium or large hog farms in the watershed -- as opposed to a previously proposed permanent one. The proposed five-year ban will go before the Arkansas Legislature's Rules and Regulations Committee at 9 a.m. on Aug. 19.
While new farms are being targeted, Stewart said he still thinks environmental interests have reason to hope that C&H could close someday.
He cited Brazil-based JBS' recent purchase of Cargill's pork division. Cargill supplies the hogs and feed to C&H.
"We're not sure that JBS will be pleased to discover all of what they're buying," he said. "There's been so much negative publicity with Cargill on this. ... In the scheme of what they're buying, C&H is pretty small, so it might be wise of them to close it down and move on."
Meanwhile, C&H Hog Farms is examining different waste-disposal methods to better satisfy environmental groups.
One includes a permit modification currently before the Environmental Quality Department that would add liners to some waste lagoons and place a cover on another that would capture gas emissions, send them through an upward pipe and burn them.
Another proposal would involve vaporizing the hog waste with technology from Florida-based Plasma Energy Group, but progress on that effort has stalled, and it has not received Environmental Quality Department approval. Henson, Cargill and Plasma Energy Group officials have said they still plan to pursue the technology.
In 2014, the Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- had more than 1.3 million visitors , who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.
Print Headline: 2 agencies' 2nd look: Hog farm no big risk
North Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Intentionally ignored
Some of you will recall how the whole controversy over our state's wrongheaded permitting of C&H Hog Farms in our treasured Buffalo National River watershed arose when the National Park Service (official stewards of that river) complained loudly and publicly that the state and its Department of Environmental Quality (chortle) had never notified them it was allowing a swine factory into its purview.
Well, thanks to the 2014 master's thesis by University of Arkansas civil engineering student Samantha Hovis, we learn a special committee appointed by former Governor Mike Beebe under Act 1511--comprised of the Department of Environmental Quality's Water Division now-former director Ryan Benefield; a livestock operator and an agriculture grower, both members of the Arkansas Farm Bureau; an agriculture professor; and a Little Rock attorney--apparently made that decision.
What, no environmental, geoscience or what I'd consider genuine water-quality experts?
Hovis writes that this committee did not approve giving notification to the National Park Service superintendent of "possible CAFOs in the Buffalo River watershed."
Oh, really? And so it was written and so it wasn't done. Governmental transparency at its least transparent with the very people responsible for maintaining the purity of the country's first national river.
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him atmikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 08/01/2015
By Ginny Masullo and Lin Wellford,
Special to the Democrat-Gazette
Recently, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality opened yet another public-comment period concerning the latest modification request for the Cargill-contracted confined animal feeding operation, C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea. This time they are proposing to empty the two open lagoons containing the waste of 6,500 swine to install synthetic liners, a cover and a methane flare.
Two years ago when this facility was built, we were told it was a state-of-the-art operation. Jerry Masters, vice president of Arkansas Pork Producers, wrote a guest column assuring the public that it was extremely unlikely that any hog waste would ever get loose from the "over-engineered" clay-lined lagoons.
Research shows that not only is lagoon leakage common, it is so probable that state regulations allow the lagoons to leak up to 5,000 gallons per acre of lagoon per day. At an Environmental Quality hearing held in Harrison, Farm Bureau Environmental Specialist Evan Teague told the crowd that clay liners are actually designed to leak--until they become plugged up with waste. So, how much waste may have leaked into the ground under C&H? No one can say, since there was no requirement to install a leak-detection system. Where the waste might go is also an open question. No dye-testing was allowed by C&H on the property. What we do know is that the area sits on karst, a highly permeable fractured limestone substrate. It's the reason you see so many gushing springs in the Ozarks after it rains.
The public was also told repeatedly that Cargill/C&H had jumped through all the regulatory hoops, even though many questioned from the outset how the more time-consuming aspects of the process, like the environmental assessment, could have been completed so quickly.
Upon careful review, a judge ruled that, in fact, very little was done to effectively evaluate the potential environmental impacts of this swine operation on a sensitive watershed. No mention was even made of the presence of the Buffalo National River, or that Big Creek, which abuts the spray fields, is a major tributary. The judge termed the assessment "cursory and flawed," and directed that a proper assessment be conducted.
But in the meantime, millions of gallons of hog waste have been sprayed onto pastures surrounding the facility. We can't turn back the clock to the conditions that existed prior to when this CAFO began operations. But we do have the results of a very comprehensive study of the Buffalo River conducted by biologists for the National Park Service over a 10-year period from 1985-1995. At that time, the study concluded that while the water quality of the Buffalo was still excellent, agricultural runoff introduced through tributaries presented a growing threat that needed to be addressed.
With time, so much more has come to light, casting doubt on the motives and veracity of those involved in getting the CAFO swiftly up and running, that it seems only natural to continue asking questions:
Corporate agri-business likes to claim that it is only trying to feed a hungry world, but the reality is that it is reaping major profits by using contract growers who don't own any part of the animal except its waste. Ultimately human survival requires working together to sustain the environment which supports all living things.
Trading our shared resources for cheap pork is no bargain! The real price tag already promises to be more than any of us can afford.
Ginny Masullo of Fayetteville and Lin Wellford of Green Forest are two founding members of the Ozarks Water Stewards, a group devoted to bringing awareness of the value of the Ozark Plateau's shared water resources. The public can email comments to Water-Draft-Permit-Comment@adeq.state.ar.us.
Editorial on 07/27/2015
Posted: July 18, 2015 at 3:37 a.m.
The hype surrounding vaporized hog waste in the Cargill-supplied C&H Hog Farms (it's a factory) in the Buffalo National River watershed has lots of folks waiting and watching for the Plasma Energy Group of Florida to show what it claims it can do.
As of last week, this supposedly revolutionary method for safely disposing of something as potent and foul as hog waste remained just talk. Cargill has been waiting for the prototype, and it hasn't heard from Plasma Energy in about a month.
Still no prototype? A news account by reporter Emily Walkenhorst said the president of Plasma Energy reportedly will begin testing its electron-fired, waste-zapping condenser sometime in July at another state Cargill-sponsored hog factory called Sandy River Farm. If all goes well there, things could get cooking at the hog factory in the Buffalo River watershed in August.
Murry Vance, who heads Plasma Energy Group, has been quoted saying the results of his firm's technology will spew fewer emissions than does a commercial lawn mower. Now that's an impressive statement.
Plasma Energy Group better hope that proves true. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) warned the firm in October "that testing could result in enforcement action if the technology resulted in gas discharges that would require an air permit," Walkenhorst's story says. "The department had been unable to determine whether Plasma Energy Group needed an air permit because it did not receive enough data from the company on projected gas discharges from vaporizing hog waste. The company has vaporized some materials before, but never hog waste."
Vance told the reporter that liquid pig waste is easier to vaporize than "high solid" materials--like cow manure--his company is accustomed to vaporizing. Vance said he'd been using plasma arc pyrolysis technology since 1992. This process involves transforming material into synthetic gas.
The quantity of waste from C&H won't be large enough to turn into gas, so it would be broken down and vaporized using an electron discharge and heat. The resulting vapor would be condensed into "semi-pure" water.
Yet still the state waits for all this to unfold. The Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson said that office hadn't heard as much as a grunt from Plasma Energy since last October. Cargill says it wants everything about this approach to be not just OK, or good, but downright perfect before it's used at C&H.
Meanwhile, Mike Martin with Cargill said his privately held company is pursuing this new approach in an effort to allay fears that regularly spreading millions of gallons of hog waste from the 6,500 swine at C&H on fields around Big Creek (a major tributary of the Buffalo six miles downstream) could contaminate the country's first national river.
I've spoken with experts in karst terrain who already have performed subsurface water-flow testing, proving just how fast and far dye injected into the groundwater beneath this factory and across the area travels through the fractured limestone karst. These knowledgeable folks will tell anyone who will listen that it's only a matter of time before the Buffalo reflects the results of such huge amounts of waste being dumped on fields around Mount Judea.
Yet again I'm led back to the fundamental question of why the state ever considered permitting this hog factory into such a wrongheaded location ... into the crown jewel of our state's natural tourism attraction.
And look what is being spent to keep this factory operating. Our state is appropriating hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars annually solely to sponsor a University of Arkansas study of water quality around C&H in an effort to determine if the waste is permeating the watershed and river.
In other words, Arkansas is paying the state's flagship university to analyze what the state's environmental "protection" agency should never, ever have even approved.
Now those responsible for operating this factory will spend whatever's required to consider this specialized technology, also in order to keep the mess out of our national river watershed in this inappropriate location.
Then we have geosciences professor emeritus John Van Brahana who, with his diligent team of volunteers, has spent two years objectively analyzing the water quality and subsurface flow around the watershed. Who knows how much time and energy he and his group have invested in monitoring the unnecessary situation?
Did I mention the National Park Service and all the resources it also is having to devote to this factory it never knew was taking shape in its backyard because, conveniently enough, the state's environmental agency never told them how it was quickly and quietly pushing through the C&H General Permit.
Editorial on 07/18/2015
Inside the world's largest food producer you've probably never heard of
This NPR report describes JBS, the Brazilian company which is purchasing Cargill Pork.
The World Eats Cheap Bacon At The Expense Of North Carolina's Rural Poor
http://qz.com/433750/the-world-eats-cheap-bacon-at-the-expense-of-north-carolinas-rural-poor/
This article was published today at 5:30 a.m.
Florida-based Plasma Energy Group plans to test new vaporizing technology on hog waste produced at Sandy River Farm in Conway County this month in hopes of eventually using the technology at C&H Hog Farms in Newton County to allay concerns of environmental groups upset about C&H's presence in the Buffalo River watershed.
Initially, Plasma Energy Group, C&H Hog Farms and Cargill -- which owns the hogs at C&H Hog Farms -- planned to test the technology on-site in Mount Judea, but Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said that changed after meetings with concerned parties in Northwest Arkansas. Cargill owns the Sandy River Farm facility and its hogs, and is choosing the site as a replacement outside the Buffalo River watershed, which is the area surrounding the river where water drains into it.
Cargill, a multinational agricultural corporation, can't begin testing until it receives a prototype of the technology from Plasma Energy Group, a Port Richey, Fla., company.
Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said the prototype wasn't ready yet and that his company hasn't heard from Plasma Energy Group in about a month.
Plasma Energy Group President Murry Vance said he believed the company would begin testing this month at Sandy River Farm.
"It will happen in July," he said. "I don't know the exact date yet."
If all goes well, Vance said, the company expects to begin using the technology at C&H Hog Farms in August.
Vance said last fall that his company would begin testing the vaporizing technology early in 2015. But Cargill wants to make sure "everything is perfect" before the technology can be used at C&H Hog Farms, Vance said.
The Department of Environmental Quality warned Plasma Energy Group in October that testing the technology could result in enforcement action if the technology resulted in gas discharges that would require an air permit. The department had been unable to determine whether Plasma Energy Group needed an air permit because it did not receive enough data from the company on projected gas discharges from vaporizing hog waste. The company has vaporized some materials before, but never hog waste.
Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Katherine Benenati said department officials have not heard anything new from Plasma Energy Group since last fall.
Vance said he hasn't spoken to anyone at the department since October.
Meanwhile, Vance has maintained his plans, saying last year that the size of the machine that would be used would produce less emissions than a commercial lawn mower.
He said his company has since been testing cow manure and other waste without any problems. Liquid pig waste is easier to vaporize than "high solid" materials his company is used to vaporizing, he added.
Plasma Energy Group started in 2013, but Vance has said he has been using the vaporizing technology -- called plasma arc pyrolysis -- since 1992. Plasma arc pyrolysis typically involves the conversion of material into synthetic gas. In the case of C&H, Vance has said the waste won't be turned into synthetic gas because the quantity of material won't be large enough.
The method proposed for the C&H farm would break down the hog waste and vaporize it using an electron discharge and some heat, then condense the water vapor into "semi-pure" water that's put back into the plant.
Plasma Energy Group's contract is with C&H Hog Farms, but Cargill officials have been looking for ways to address the environmental backlash against the company for its involvement with C&H Hog Farms' construction on Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River.
Vaporizing is a possible way to reduce the volume of waste from the facility that is spread on fields for agricultural purposes.
"Cargill's willing to conduct that [plasma arc pyrolysis testing] at Sandy River, and we believe it's the right thing to do," Martin said.
"The thought behind looking at this technology is that there are those who believe that spreading manure on crop fields in the Buffalo River watershed near C&H Hog Farm is going to result in the manure somehow getting into the water," Martin said.
"And so we have looked at a number of technologies or explored a number of ideas or options -- most of them are conceptual, such as plasma energy concept. The thought behind that is if we can reduce the volume that is spread on the fields by employing some other technology that will cost-effectively eliminate the waste, even though we feel it has a legitimate purpose as a fertilizer, that could potentially allay the concerns out there that fertilizer might get into the water system."
Environmental groups have been concerned about the potential for a hog waste lagoon failure that would run into Big Creek and then into the Buffalo River, in addition to concern that the rough karst terrain surrounding the river would lead to elevated pollutants from hog manure applied to the ground for agricultural purposes.
A University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture study is looking at the impact of runoff into Big Creek and the waste ponds themselves.
In May, C&H submitted a proposed modification to its permit to add covers on the hog waste lagoons that would capture gas emitted from them and then send it through an upward pipe to flare and burn it.
Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which was formed in response to C&H Hog Farms' construction in 2013, said Cargill's time, energy and money might be better spent moving the operation out of the watershed.
"Generally ... they seem to be throwing every technology at this thing to try and make sure it stays where it's located," Watkins said.
The Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- is a popular tourist spot, with more than 1.3 million visitors in 2014, who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.
C&H Hog Farms is permitted to hold up to 2,500 sows and 4,000 piglets at a time. Small hog farms have existed in the watershed for years, but C&H is the first large-scale hog facility in the watershed.
On Monday, a state legislative committee advanced a proposed five-year ban on new medium or large hog farms in the watershed.
Metro on 07/13/2015
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