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The Institute for Southern Studies

Koch Industries tops list of water polluters spending big on politics

With corporate interests mobilizing to kill the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to restore Clean Water Act safeguards to thousands of waterways across the nation, an environmental advocacy group is shining a spotlight on major polluters' efforts to influence federal policymaking.

This week Environment America released "Polluting Politics," a report that analyzes spending on federal lobbying and campaign contributions by companies releasing the most toxic chemicals into U.S. waterways, more than half of which aren't safe for fishing, swimming or drinking due to pollution.

"As it turns out, the same companies that are polluting our waterways with toxic chemicals are also polluting our politics with their spending," said Ally Fields, the report's author.

The study comes as some members of Congress are trying to block the Obama administration's proposed clean water rule expanding the number of waterways protected under the landmark 1972 law. The proposal has gotten strong support from the American public, which submitted more than 800,000 comments in favor of the rule during last year's comment period.

According to data self-reported to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory for 2012, the top 10 water polluters include nine corporations and one government agency. In all, industrial facilities reported dumping a total of more than 206 million pounds of pollution into U.S. waterways in 2012.

The top water polluter was Ohio-based AK Steel Holding, a steel company that released over 19 million pounds of toxic chemicals to U.S. waterways. It was followed by meat processor Tyson Foods of Arkansas (18.5 million pounds), the U.S. Department of Defense (10.8 million pounds), the Minnesota-based international food conglomerate Cargill (10.6 million pounds), Perdue Farms of Maryland (7.4 million pounds), Kansas-based oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries (6.6 million pounds), Colorado-based chicken producer Pilgrim's Pride (6.5 million pounds), chemical giant DuPont of Delaware (5.5 million pounds), Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel (5.2 million pounds), and Phillips 66, a multinational energy company headquartered in Houston (5.2 million pounds).

Of those top polluters, Koch Industries spent the most by far on lobbying in 2014 at $13.8 million. Based in Kansas, the privately held oil and chemical conglomerate has operations nationwide and across the South. It was followed by DuPont ($9.2 million), Phillips 66 ($3.7 million), U.S. Steel ($1.8 million), Cargill ($1.3 million), Tyson Foods ($1.1 million), AK Steel (over $739,000) and Perdue Farms ($40,000). Pilgrim's Pride and the Defense Department reportedly did not spent anything on lobbying in 2014.

Among the top 10 U.S. water polluters, Koch Industries was also the leading spender on campaign contributions in the 2014 federal election cycle at over $7.7 million. Other top 10 water polluters who were also major campaign contributors were Phillips 66 ($362,315), Cargill ($336,907), U.S. Steel ($301,677) and Tyson Foods ($281,280). Koch, DuPont, Cargill and Tyson are also members of industry associations that are working to kill the proposed clean-water rules.

In North Carolina, the state chapter of Environment America highlighted political giving by Smithfield Foods, the Virginia-based pork processor now owned by the Shuanghui Group of China. The company operates the world's largest meat-processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina -- a facility that dumped over 2.3 million pounds of pollution into the state's waterways in 2012. In the last federal election cycle, Smithfield spent $1.4 million on lobbying. The company is also a member of the National Association of Manufacturers, which submitted public comments opposing the rules.

"It's clear that our nation's polluters have deep pockets, but hundreds of thousands of Americans have raised their voices in support of doing more to protect our waterways, from the Chesapeake Bay to Puget Sound," Fields said. "It's time for Congress to listen to citizens, not the polluters, and let the EPA finish the job to protect our waterways."

Sue Sturgis By Sue Sturgis on March 2, 2015 3:21 PM

 Business Insider
The secretive Cargill family has 14 billionaires thanks to an agricultural empire — more than any other clan on earth

DRAKE BAER

MAR. 2, 2015, 
 

Cargill is the largest privately held company in the US.

The Minnesota-based agriculture giant has 75 businesses employing 143,000 people in 67 countries. In 2013, yearly revenue topped $134 billion.

That money has made the Cargill clan very, very rich.

As Forbes reports in their annual billionaire list, the Cargill family now has 14 billionaires, more than any other family in the world.

To put this in perspective, if the Cargills were a country, they'd have as many billionaires as Sweden or Israel. That's enough to make them the 31st-most billionaire-filled nation around.

It all started back in 1865.

"W.W. Cargill founded the business on the Iowa frontier at the end of the Civil War, and his descendants still own 88% of the agricultural conglomerate 150 years later," Forbes reports.

Heirs to the family fortune include James Cargill II, Austen Cargill II, and Marianne Liebmann.

While huge, Cargill is famously quiet as a company and a family.

"The Cargills live extremely private lives, many of them on ranches and farms in Montana," Forbes reports.

A 2011 Fortune profile helped to put the reach of the company in perspective:

You don't have to love Egg McMuffins (McDonald's buys many of its eggs in liquid form from Cargill) or hamburgers (Cargill's facilities can slaughter more cattle than anyone else's in the U.S.) or sub sandwiches (No. 8 in pork, No. 3 in turkey) to ingest Cargill products on a regular basis.

Whatever you ate or drank today — a candy bar, pretzels, soup from a can, ice cream, yogurt, chewing gum, beer — chances are it included a little something from Cargill's menu of food additives.

Its $50 billion "ingredients" business touches pretty much anything salted, sweetened, preserved, fortified, emulsified, or texturized, or anything whose raw taste or smell had to be masked in order to make it palatable.

Sounds like a dynasty, huh?



 

Arkansas democrat Gazette

Columnists:
Best check records

To ‘assume’ makes . . . you know
By Mike Masterson
 

Steve Valentine of Mount Judea was fit to be hog-tied when he discovered a wooden platform on his property at the convergence of Dry Creek and Big Creek not far from the controversial C&H hog factory (that some in the industry like to mislabel as a farm).

No one had asked Valentine about constructing what looked at first to him like a hunting stand. So he called the Newton County sheriff and asked what he could do. He said the sheriff told him do whatever he wanted since it was on his property. So he cut the thing down and had it hauled away.

Several weeks later he learned from a friend the mystery stand had been constructed as part of Dr. Andrew Sharpley's ongoing attempts to monitor water quality around the factory our state permitted to house up to 6,500 swine.

The University of Arkansas environmental sciences, soils and crop professor is being paid a lot of money by our state to monitor this factory our state wrongheadedly allowed into our state's treasured Buffalo National River watershed. The professor's team is tasked with examining the effluent from surrounding fields that are regularly sprayed with raw hog waste.

Confused, Valentine said he couldn't understand how, since Mount Judea is a place where everyone knows everyone else and their relatives, the professor's folks would apparently ask everyone but him for permission to built a stand on his property.

" I learned Sharpley had contacted my neighbors, whose properties also butt up against Dry Creek, for permission to build his monitoring station on their land. But they turned him down.

"This is where it gets interesting," he continued. "At no time did Sharpley contact me for my permission. Instead, he contacted the Newton County judge, Warren Campbell, for permission--and [apparently] got it."

In addition, Valentine heard through the grapevine how Sharpley intended to build another monitoring station over the remains of the one he'd removed.

In the process, news of the university's mysteriously destroyed monitoring station had made news.

After discovering what this structure had been, Valentine did what most of us would do. He contacted Sharpley directly with an email that read in part: "... I don't recall giving my written permission to have any structures built on my land ... If it were not for the assistance provided to me by an activist opposed to the hog factory, I would never have known who constructed the platform ... I learned that it was put there by the University of Arkansas ... so my question to you, sir, is do you have any documentation from me that grants you or the university permission to build anything on my land? If you do, please contact me as soon as possible with a copy of that documentation ... Believe me, sir, I do not enjoy writing this letter, but I believe you have the right to defend your actions ..."

I can only imagine Sharpley's expression when he got that bit of news on University Hill in Fayetteville.

The professor responded basically by saying oops, but the county judge told us in writing it would be all right. "Thank you for giving us the opportunity to respond to your concerns," he wrote Valentine. "Last year, an External Review Panel recommended that we monitor the quality of Dry Creek as it enters Big Creek, as three large fields, which are permitted to receive slurry [hog waste], have the potential to contribute chemicals to Dry Creek.

"Agreeing with the Panel's recommendation," Sharpley continued, "I started the process of getting landowner permission before doing anything else. Thus, at the beginning of September 2014, I obtained information on the ownership of land adjacent to the proposed Dry Creek sampling site (map attached). From that map it appeared that the main landowners around that bridge were Sam Dye and Ronnie Campbell, who had worked with Dr. [John] Van Brahana to conduct dye tracer studies.

"On September 15th and 22nd, I called Dye and Campbell and left a message. Not hearing back, I wrote them on September 29th, requesting permission. As I did not receive a response, I decided to contact the County Judge [Campbell], who agreed to give us permission to place the stand and monitoring equipment within the easement of the county road and bridge. On October 20th, Judge Campbell signed a Memorandum of Understanding for us to install our monitoring equipment. This agreement was the same as those signed by landowners of all our other sites.

"I can assure you it was never my intent to encroach on anyone's property without their expressed written and preferably verbal consent and have obtained landowner permission prior to conducting any monitoring work on any private property. If I had known or been told that this stand would be on your property, I certainly would not have proceeded without contacting you and your approval.

"As this is the only logical location to locate a sampling station for Dry Creek, we will not pursue or try to relocate this site unless you agree to our presence. I would be more than happy to visit with you at your convenience to explain exactly what we would be specifically doing at that site and what we are doing in general for our monitoring and why."

Valentine says, in light of the inexplicable way this encroachment occurred, he's decided against giving Sharpley that permission. Can't say as I blame him.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Relevant findings
Swine and health

By Mike Masterson

I concede that the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas are not located in the similar verdant hills of North Carolina.

I'll agree the climates of each state can differ, especially considering we are landlocked while eastern North Carolina has a scenic and historic coastline.

But I draw the line at believing the potential contaminating effects of raw waste emanating from swine factories on pristine freshwater streams located near them is different at all. And none of it is good.

With that in mind, I read with interest an article published the other day by Environmental Health News about the big stink groups there are raising over high levels of bacteria being discovered in North Carolina's rivers and the science reportedly linking such contamination directly to that state's large swine factories.

The story raises so many pertinent questions about the possibility of similar off-site pollution leaking into Big Creek and waters flowing alongside and beneath the controversial C&H Hog Farms our state wrongheadedly permitted in 2012 to operate in the Buffalo National River watershed.

The magnificent Buffalo is our country's first national river, designated as such in 1972.
While research groups (such as that headed by University of Arkansas' geoscience professor emeritus John Van Brahana and his volunteers) continue to examine the quality of water around the C&H factory and the creek which empties into our revered Buffalo six miles downstream, academic researchers in North Carolina say they've already connected elevated bacteria levels to swine.

Those findings come from their own streams flowing around such factories. They say they have identified specific markers in the waste attributable solely to swine.
Of course, the state environmental agency has done its best to discredit the study, calling it "inconclusive," as has the industry that supports the millions of swine. Why would we the people expect anything less regardless of scientific findings in 2015 America?
These discoveries, in my mind, certainly have meaningful relevance to our ongoing situation at Mount Judea. Brahana and his crew already have been using dye testing to determine how rapidly and widely the runoff flows after being absorbed into the fractured karst subsurface.

Come this spring I expect Brahana's team to begin using even more sophisticated methods to determine possible links with what elevated E. coli levels are already being discovered in the watershed.

Back in eastern North Carolina, the battle continues, according to the article published Feb. 18: "[H]ealth and environmental groups continue to pressure the state, the second leading pork producing state behind Iowa, to more strictly regulate large pig farms. Meanwhile evidence continues to mount of the industry's impact in the region: A study published in January concluded that streams near large industrial farms in eastern North Carolina are full of pig poop bacteria."

"People just can't ignore this," Naeema Muhammad, a co-director and community organizer at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network told Environmental Health News. "The air stinks, the water is contaminated and property values are depleted."
As in our own state, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources considers large swine operations with thousands of pigs as "non-discharge facilities," thereby exempt from state rules on having to monitor the waste they dump in rivers and streams.

Environmental Health News also reports that Steve Wing, a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina who co-wrote the January study, believes the case for that exemption is dubious. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and UNC for about a year tested water upstream and downstream from swine waste dispersal fields in eastern North Carolina.

"You have evidence of pig-specific bacteria in surface waters, next to industrial swine operations," he told the publication.

Wing went on to contend the farms generate so much waste that it would be too expensive to transport by pipeline or truck; the manure is dispersed by pumps through pipelines and sprayers across fields. The sprayers shower hundreds of gallons per minute.
Brahana said C&H has applied to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) for a similar pipeline and spraying operation in their waste fields around Big Creek, rather than continuing to truck the waste from lagoons to dispense.

Environmental Health News reported the North Carolina study found the "highest concentrations were found 'immediately downstream' of swine feedlot spray fields and during the spring and summer seasons. ... Of 187 samples, 40 percent exceeded state and federal water guidelines for fecal coliforms, harmful bacteria from animal feces. In addition, 23 percent and 61 percent of the samples exceeded the water quality standards for E. coli and Enterococcus respectively, two other feces-derived bacteria harmful when they're ingested."
------------v------------
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 02/22/2015

Environmental Health News

Pig poop fouling North Carolina streams; state permitting questioned.

Streams near large factory pig farms have high levels of bacteria. Health groups are raising a stink.

February 18, 2015

Brian Bienkowski
Environmental Health News

Few people know the pig business like North Carolina’s Don Webb.

Webb raised pigs in Wilson County, North Carolina, until, in the late 70s, residents told him the smell near his farms was unbearable. He tried some solutions. They didn’t work.

“I was riding down the road and got to thinking of my own mother and father and what would I do if one of these was their homes [near the pig farms],” Webb said in his heavy Southern drawl. “So I got out of the business.”

Webb, 74, soon went from pig farmer to vocal critic. Over the past few decades he’s frequently done battle with the large pig farms in North Carolina over their waste management. He once took former state Sen. Wendell Murphy, owner of Murphy Farms and notorious for pushing industry-friendly laws, for a ride in his pickup truck to show him his farm's impacts.

He brought the senator to a home where a woman lived with her husband, stricken with tuberculosis. Their home was a trailer. The couch had springs sticking out, Webb recalled.

The stench was noxious.

“She told Murphy ‘if you could please do anything to help us, I can’t put my clothes out sometimes and my grandchildren won’t visit me,’” Webb said.

Other neighbors Murphy visited had similar pleas.

"I was riding down the road and got to thinking of my own mother and father and what would I do if one of these was their homes. So I got out of the business."-Don Webb

Things haven’t changed much since that tour two decades ago. The battle in eastern North Carolina persists as health and environmental groups continue to pressure the state, the second leading pork producing state behind Iowa, to more strictly regulate large pig farms.

Meanwhile evidence continues to mount of the industry's impact in the region: A study published in January concluded that streams near large industrial farms in eastern North Carolina are full of pig poop bacteria.

For those battling the state for more stringent regulations, it's another knock against an industry that heavily impacts their lives.

“People just can’t ignore this,” said Naeema Muhammad, a co-director and community organizer at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. “The air stinks, the water is contaminated and property values are depleted.”

State permitting questioned
 

The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources treats large swine farms – operations with thousands of pigs and up – as "non-discharge facilities," exempt from state rules on having to monitor the waste they dump in rivers and streams. The case for that exemption is dubious, suggested Steve Wing, a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina who co-authored the January study, published in "Science of the Total Environment."

"You have evidence of pig-specific bacteria in surface waters, next to industrial swine operations,” he said.

For about a year, from 2010 to 2011, researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina tested water both upstream and downstream from fields in eastern North Carolina where pig poop from large factory farms is applied.

"You have evidence of pig-specific bacteria in surface waters, next to industrial swine operations."-Steve Wing, University of North Carolina

The farms generate so much waste that it would be too expensive to transport via pipeline or a truck, Wing said. So manure is dispersed via big pumps and sprayers that act like “a lawn sprinkler," Wing said, and spread the slurry across fields.

The sprayers shower hundreds of gallons per minute (household lawn sprinklers average about two or three gallons per minute).

The highest concentrations were found “immediately downstream" of swine feedlot spray fields and in the spring and summer seasons, the authors wrote.

Of 187 samples, 40 percent exceeded state and federal water guidelines for fecal coliforms, harmful bacteria from animal feces.

In addition, 23 percent and 61 percent of the samples exceeded the water quality standards for E. coli and Enterococcus respectively, two other feces-derived bacteria that can hurt people when ingested.

Sampling took place in Duplin County, a place with more pigs than people: 2 million vs. 60,000. Wing and colleagues tested water from Goshen Swamp, a tributary of the Northeast Cape Fear River.

Big “cesspools”
 

But a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the study “seems to be inconclusive.”

“The information presented provides an indication of overall water quality in these [waters]; however, it is not an indication of a discharge of waste,” Drew Elliot, communications director for the department, wrote in an email after sharing the study with state water quality experts.

The department questioned whether the researchers analyses met the state’s water analysis requirements and pointed out that sources of such fecal pollution could include “any warm blooded animals and failing septic or sewage collection systems.”

But Wing's study accounted for this: Since the fecal bacteria potentially could be from leaking residential septic tanks or other animals, Wing and colleagues tested markers in the bacteria and found the majority matched what would be found in pigs.

A spokesperson for Smithfield Foods agreed with the state’s critique. Smithfield’s subsidiary, Murphy-Brown LLC, is the world’s largest producer of pigs and headquartered in North Carolina.

“The information presented in this study does not accurately reflect waste management practices at Murphy-Brown, and unfairly vilifies North Carolina's agricultural community,” Kathleen Kirkham, director of corporate communications, wrote in an email.

"The information presented provides an indication of overall water quality in these [waters]; however, it is not an indication of a discharge of waste."-Drew Elliot, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources

The study is not able to “legitimately differentiate the type of feces in the river between swine, goose, deer or human that will also be there from the natural environment surrounding waterways,” she added.

Wing said the latter is a recurring industry argument and that the bacteria markers they used to pin the pollution on pigs were quite conclusive.

The National Pork Producers Council did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this article. A spokesman for the North Carolina Farm Bureau said the organization doesn’t “typically provide comment on academic studies.”

Wing’s study suggests that the methods for getting rid of animal waste from huge farms are not working.

“The farms hold the waste in lagoons, as the industry euphemistically calls them, which are big cesspools,” said JoAnne Burkholder, a professor and aquatic ecologist at North Carolina State University. The waste can run off from such areas and get into waterways.

The large farms are located in rural areas where many people use private wells. But due largely to a lack of funding, studies on groundwater effects of human health are rare, Burkholder said.

Poor, minorities most impacted
 

North Carolina environmental and health groups are fed up -- not just about the farms’ impact, but who is most impacted.

“It seems that the industry goes into an area that they think is perfect for their needs: lots of land, and people without a voice and not many of them,” Burkholder said.

But Kirkham, Smithfield's spokeswoman, said people from Smithfield are members of the community too.

“We live here, work here, and raise our families here. We have a vested interest in the health and well-being of these communities,” she wrote.

She said the company averages about two or three notices per year from neighbors concerned about the operation.

Duplin County, where Wing’s study took place, is 26 percent black and 21 percent Hispanic, according to the US Census. Duplin’s median income is 25 percent lower than the rest of the state, and 26 percent of its residents live below the poverty line.

"It seems that the industry goes into an area that they think is perfect for their needs: lots of land, and people without a voice and not many of them."-JoAnne Burkholder, North Carolina State University

Earthjustice - along with the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help and Waterkeeper Alliance - filed a civil rights complaint with the EPA against the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which states in part, “lax regulation of hog waste disposal discriminates against communities of color in eastern North Carolina.”

The complaint is a response to the state’s renewal of a general permit for large pig farms to continue operating and storing waste as they have been for years.

“We’ve been asking the state and our representatives for years to do something different about how this industry operates in the state of North Carolina,” Muhammad said. “It was an insult to the community and to the people of the state of North Carolina to renew those permits.”

The complaint was filed in September. Earthjustice is still waiting to hear back from the EPA.

“They’ve been dragging their feet,” said Jocelyn D’Ambrosio, senior associate attorney with Earthjustice.

Forced “bondage of feces”
 

Webb still makes his home in Wilson County, North Carolina. He works with a group called the Alliance for a Responsible Swine Industry to find solutions to the pig farm waste.

He’s animated when he talks about pig farming. But he strikes a somber tone when he recalls the people impacted.

“The woman taking care of her husband with tuberculosis? She died. Her husband died. They were forced to live years in the bondage of feces and flies,” Webb said.

“So a rich man can have hogs.”

 EHN welcomes republication of our stories, but we require that publications include the author's name and Environmental Health News at the top of the piece, along with a link back to EHN's version.

For questions or feedback about this piece, contact Brian Bienkowski at bbienkowski@ehn.org.

 

Arkansas Online

Environmental notebook

By Emily Walkenhorst
This article was published February 17, 2015 at 2:42 a.m.

Agencies appeal ruling on hog farm

The federal agencies that backed loans made to C&H Hog Farms in Newton County formally filed an appeal in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday against a judgment that suspended those loan guarantees.

Environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration in August 2013, arguing that the latter two agencies failed to properly consult with other agencies, including the National Park Service, in conducting an environmental assessment of the farm while considering the loan guarantees.
The environmental assessment carried a "finding of no significant impact."

In October, U.S District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. ruled that the assessment was insufficient and violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The U.S. Small Business Administration and the Farm Service Agency had agreed to back $3.4 million in private loans made to C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea after the farm was found to have insufficient collateral, meaning that the agencies would foot the bill for the farm's loans if the farm defaulted.

The agencies have not made any payments on the loans.
C&H Hog Farms is on Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River. Environmental activists and others have been concerned about the amount of animal waste generated in the environmentally sensitive area.

Attorneys for the agencies filed a notice of appeal in federal court Jan. 30. Wednesday's filings included a schedule and rules for the appeal process.

Water, air quality concerns heighten conflict with pig farms

Emery Dalesio

Posted: Monday, February 16, 2015 9:47 am | Updated: 1:05 pm, Mon Feb 16, 2015.
Associated Press |

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Modern meat production, in which thousands of animals are packed into barns for concentrated feeding operations, has proven to be efficient and profitable, but comes with its own set of problems.

From Washington state to North Carolina, federal lawsuits are challenging the livestock industry to change its ways, basing arguments on studies that increasingly show the impact that phosphorous, nitrates and bacteria from fertilizer and accumulated manure have on lakes and rivers, as well as air pollution that can be harmful to respiratory health.

Livestock farmers insist they're trying to ameliorate the problem by installing grass strips, tilling less and using other techniques to keep manure and fertilizer from draining into waterways.

"I have a general care and concern for the state's water quality and I've personally invested my own dollars to install conservation nutrient retention practices on my farm," said Bill Couser, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer with 5,200 cows. "We realize this is not going to happen overnight or in two years. This could take up to 10 years as this technology comes along."

However, those who rely on rivers and lakes for drinking water or live near the large-scale operations — especially in the top two hog-producing states of Iowa and North Carolina — are growing impatient. Joined by environmental and animal rights groups in a growing number of lawsuits, they're highlighting the debate between the right to raise livestock and the right to clean water and air.

Des Moines' water utility, which serves a half-million people, recently filed a notice of intent to sue farmers in three counties populated by 1.2 million pigs and a million turkeys because it must run water sourced from two central Iowa rivers through a costly system to strip out nitrate, which at levels above a federal limit can reduce the amount of oxygen carried in the blood of children younger than 6.

A federal judge in eastern Washington ruled last month that an industrial dairy farm's manure management practices posed an "imminent and substantial endangerment" to the environment and thousands in the lower Yakima Valley who rely on well water. And on Jan. 28, a coalition of groups sued the EPA for what they said is a failure to address air pollution from cattle, hog and poultry farms in California, Wisconsin and Iowa.

"Pork is cheap and cheap to produce in large factories because they don't pay for cleaning up the Des Moines water supply and they don't pay for the asthma neighbors get, they don't pay for polluting downstream water that used to be potable and they don't pay for the loss of property values," said Steve Wing, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill epidemiologist.

About 68 percent of the nation's lakes, reservoirs and ponds and more than half of its rivers and streams are impaired, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says, meaning they don't meet one or more water-quality standards and are considered too polluted for the intended use. The main culprit: agriculture, including poorly located or poorly managed animal-feeding operations and misapplication of chemicals and fertilizer, EPA reports show.

The hog industry's shift from small family farms to large-scale farms is dramatic, going from more than 200,000 in the early 1990s to just over 21,600 in 2012.

A driving force behind some of the large-scale hog farms is Murphy-Brown LLC, which became part of the world's largest pork producer when China-based WH Group bought corporate parent Smithfield Foods in 2013. WH Group aims to feed China's appetite for meat with cheaper hogs from the United States, and that foreshadows increased production in the U.S., according to lawsuits filed in eastern North Carolina.

The water- and air-quality lawsuits are mostly driven by advocates of locally grown food as well as animal-rights and environmental activists. But in some cases, farmers are going after farmers.

Barb Kalbach has fought for more than a decade against the construction of huge hog operations, and joined a statewide nonprofit that argues such enterprises are ruining Iowa's waterways.

Pork is a $7 billion industry in Iowa, which is the nation's largest pork producer with about 21 million pigs — seven times the number of human residents — that create about 9 billion gallons of manure annually.

"I have in the back of my mind this idea that we have thousands of miles of clean water, which is a gift in this state and we just throw manure in it," the 64-year-old said. She and her husband, who live about 40 miles west of Des Moines, once raised a few hogs, cattle and sheep, but quit primarily because it's difficult to compete with large-scale operations that have corporate meatpacking contracts.

About 200 miles north, Matt Schuiteman raises about 3,000 hogs plus some cattle. Since 2008, the 40-year-old farmer has worked with the city of Sioux Center, Dordt College and others to research how to keep nitrogen on the farmland and out of waterways.

Farmers care about the environment and are willing to work on improvements that will minimize impact, he said, adding that lawsuits aren't the course of action.

"Maybe we can all get to where we want to be together instead of drawing the battle lines ... You want to force some action but there are ways to do it and ways that don't work," he said.

In North Carolina, 10 million hogs produce as much fecal waste in a day as 100 million people, much of it stored in ponds as large as three football fields. The treated, liquefied manure and urine is then pumped to large sprinkler systems and flung on fields for fertilizer.

For people like Richard Brown, whose trailer is surrounded on three sides by fields that soak up effluent from 2,500 nearby hogs, the smell is a daily drag.

"It just stinks like the devil," said Brown, who lives in Duplin County — the nation's top county for hog production, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department's 2012 census.

Brown is one of about 500 who've joined the federal lawsuits against Murphy-Brown, alleging the farms deprive them of enjoying their property because of the strong odor — complaints first raised two decades ago that plaintiffs say have gone unanswered by legislators and regulators.

Gases and air particles from the manure affect residents' mental and physical health, Wing says, including breathing difficulty, sore throat, nausea, eye irritations and high blood pressure.

The putrid liquid rains down on 66-year-old Elsie Herring's property in nearby Wallace, and the odor makes her cough and her eyes burn. "Whenever they start spraying, we're held prisoners inside. ... If you're outside it will blow down on you," she said.

Murphy-Brown encourages residents to express concerns about operations, but only a handful do in any given year, the company said in a statement. "We take these complaints seriously and seek swift resolution as part of our environmental management system," the company said. "We have a vested interest in the health and well-being of these communities and we work to maintain positive relationships with our neighbors."

The choice, according to Iowa State University economist Catherine King, may come down to consumers: Does the public pay to remove contaminants or shell out more for meat?

"We don't know how to produce food and fuel from this incredibly rich land without having nitrogen and nutrient pollution, so society has to figure out what balance it wants," Kling said. "Society needs to be engaged in a conversation about what trade-offs we are willing to make and who is going to bear the cost."

___

Associated Press writer Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

Newton County Times

Big Creek Research and Extension Team releases 4th quarterly report
 

Posted: Saturday, February 14, 2015 2:00 pm
Arkansas Extension Service | 0 comments

Fast Facts:
• Big Creek team releases its four quarterly report
• Bacterial spikes reported upstream, downstream from farm
• Researchers say longer term monitoring is needed
• Report can be found at www.bigcreekresearch.org

LITTLE ROCK — The Big Creek Research and Extension Team has released its fourth quarterly report for 2014 on water and soil conditions near Big Creek, a major tributary to the Buffalo National River in Newton County.
The team was originally commissioned by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe in late 2013 to monitor the area surrounding C&H Hog Farms, a large-scale swine concentrated feeding operation near Mount Judea.
In September 2013, the team led by Andrew Sharpley, professor of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, began collecting water samples from Big Creek both upstream and downstream from the hog farm, and soil samples from several fields near the facility.
The team has analyzed the samples for E. coli, nitrates, phosphorus, suspended solids and other constituents, in an effort to discern if the farm poses an environmental or health risk to the Buffalo National River, Big Creek or other surrounding areas.
According to the report, there has not been a notable or sustained change in bacterial concentrations during the monitoring period. Both E. coli and total coliform counts were found to spike after heavy rain events, but levels quickly dissipated in the days following such events. E. coli spikes were recorded both upstream and downstream from the farm.
However, Sharpley said that “a longer period of monitoring is needed for a more reliable assessment of the farm’s impact on the water quality in Big Creek.”
Building on earlier work that used ground-penetrating radar and supplementing dye-tracing work done by an unrelated research team to help “see” the underlying geology, Sharpley added that “in December we contracted with Dr. Halihan from Oklahoma State to conduct Electrical Resistivity Analysis Imaging of two near-stream application fields.
“This should give us an accurate 3-D picture of what formations are below the surface down to nearly 100 feet,” he said, adding that the results of this analysis will be released as soon as possible.
Todd Halihan is a professor in Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State. The report can be found at www.bigcreekresearch.org.

 PRweb


US FEDERAL CONTRACTOR REGISTRATION
US Federal Contractor Registration
Washington D.C. (PRWEB) February 11, 2015

The United States Federal Government as of 02/9/2015 has 111 open solicitations in Arkansas where they are currently seeking out properly registered government contractors. According to FedBizOpps (FBO) and USASpending, the Federal Government awarded 8,726 contracts in Arkansas for over 1.3 billion dollars in 2014 alone. Please see the below available contract released by US Federal Contractor Registration, additional Arkansas contracts can be found at https://www.uscontractorregistration.com.
US Federal Contractor Registration is reporting the release of the C&H Hog Farms Biological and Environmental Assessment RFQ in Newton, Arkansas posted to FedBizOpps (FBO) on February 9, 2015. The C&H Hog Farms Biological and Environmental Assessment RFQ has a response date of February 26, 2015 for any vendors looking to respond. Every business interested in bidding on C&H Hog Farms Biological and Environmental Assessment RFQ must be properly registered in System for Award Management (SAM), as well as have the North American Industry Classification System codes 541620 - Environmental Consulting Services, and 541 - Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services filed in their SAM account/vendor profile.
Below is a Statement of Work for the Department of Agriculture’s C&H Hog Farms Biological and Environmental Assessment RFQ as posted to FedBizOpps (FBO):
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) are seeking professional services to prepare a Biological Assessment (BA), provide support for formal consultation with USFWS, conduct public meetings, and prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) to address potential impacts associated with the C&H Hog Farms facility located in Newton County, Arkansas. The contractor shall organize, support, and coordinate a conference call kickoff meeting with FSA National Office staff. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the Proposed Action details, data needs, and establish project team Points of Contact. Contractor attendance shall include at a minimum the Program Manager and a project team member.
If sufficient details of the proposed action and existing environment are not available, two contract personnel may be required to travel to the site to collect information from the facility and surrounding area. It is expected that three days would be required. The contractor shall prepare a Description of Proposed Action and Alternatives (DOPAA), which will provide the basis for the assessment of potential impacts in the BA and will serve as Chapters 1 and 2 of the EA. Electronic copies will be provided to FSA National Office for review, comment, and approval before impacts assessments begin.
This contract will be a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract. The contractor will be allowed to invoice monthly for percent complete by Task. Payment will be issued within 30 days of receipt of payment from the government under the Prime contract (i.e., pay when paid). The schedule of services will be determined at the Kickoff meeting with FSA National Office. It is anticipated that the Kickoff meeting will occur within 10 days of prime contract award. The project should take no more than 9 months to complete. Schedule is dependent on timely production of BA and receiving USFWS concurrence through formal consultation (90 days).
Businesses that would like to learn how to respond to RFQs on FBO and bid on available opportunities can call Acquisition Specialist Robert Renzella at 1(877) 252-2700 Ext 767. Vendors have been enrolling in the Simplified Acquisition Program to win available government contracts, network with procurement officers across the nation, and qualify their business for government contracting. Businesses that would like to learn more about the Simplified Acquisition Program can visit http://www.simplifiedacquisitionprogram.org/.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Bad news for river
By Mike Masterson

National Park Service scientists and UA geosciences professor emeritus John Van Brahana have collaborated on a revealing report that details reason for concern over increasing water contamination in the Buffalo National River watershed.
The extensive report goes into detail about declining oxygen levels and rising bacterial contamination in the watershed since the hog factory at Mount Judea began spraying millions of gallons onto fields around Big Creek, a major tributary of the country's first national river flowing six miles downstream.
I believe this report alone further proves the need for Gov. Asa Hutchinson to schedule a fact-finding conference involving every interested party from special interests to the state's environmental regulators to determine through facts and science what already is being discovered in our precious river's watershed as a result of this factory's wrongheaded location.
Yes, I've heard the arguments about private-property rights, the right to farm (this isn't really a farm as we know them), the karst formations and caves that underlie this factory's spray field and the more than 5,000 gallons a day our state allows to leak from two massive waste lagoons.
Created by Brahana and Chuck Bitting and Faron Usrey of the National Park Service, the report was presented to the Ozark Society. It lays out data they've collected and analyzed from streams, wells and springs, including Brahana's groundwater dye-testing of property around the factory.
Their findings present an ominous picture of changing water quality in the fragile watershed during the two-plus years since the factory (supplied and supported by Cargill Inc. of Minnesota) brought in 6,500 swine and the mountain of potent, untreated waste they generate.
The study begins by saying the national river was established by Congress in 1972 in order "to conserve and interpret the unique scenic and scientific features and to preserve as a free-flowing stream an important segment of the Buffalo River in Arkansas for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations."
It notes that on Nov. 1, 2011, the state Department of Environmental Quality created a class of General Permits under control of the state's Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to allow confined animal feeding operations. I prefer to call them domestic edible animal factories.
The agency received 87 comments from 13 individuals or businesses, mostly from agribusiness companies or those involved in factory farms, so the new permitting plan slipped through mostly unnoticed by the public.
It was the science, as Brahana explained, that most interested me. Studies showed the dissolved oxygen concentrations in Big Creek reveals a daily pattern of high dissolved oxygen concentrations during daylight hours and low concentrations at night.
During the day, algae in Big Creek generates oxygen, which is added to the water as it absorbs sunlight. At night this algae absorbs oxygen from the water, thus reducing oxygen available for fish and other aquatic life.
This is a natural variation observed in most streams and rivers. However, if measurements show a stream falls lower than the critical dissolved oxygen level, it's said to be in an impaired state. The critical level determined in this part of the Ozarks is 6 parts per million. Big Creek fell below the level for 120 nighttime hours last summer.
While not the first time low dissolved oxygen values have been observed in Big Creek, the findings indicate the Buffalo River valley already was approaching capacity to accommodate nutrients from all animal wastes, which causes algae to proliferate, even before the state permitted the factory.
"Our sampling of wells, springs and streams in the valley during the summer of 2013 (before waste spreading) reinforce the idea that the natural system was already near saturation, one of many facts ADEQ failed to note when they issued the permit," said Brahana.
He said the duration lower nighttime dissolved oxygen finding last summer "is consistent with an added burden of waste from 6,500 pigs. Local landowners along the creek noticed the algae was particularly luxuriant last summer after about six months of waste spreading on nearby fields."
Concentrations of E. coli bacteria (from the guts of warm-blooded animals) in Big Creek and upstream and downstream from its confluence with the Buffalo also were disturbing. The report says prior to spreading in 2013, the "average" E. coli contribution from Big Creek increased in the Buffalo by more than 37 percent. "Values of E. coli from 2014 taken as grab samples (randomly) show a marked increase from 2013," Brahana said.
"These observations are consistent and indicate Big Creek and its ecosystem are being stressed, not necessarily by the hog factory alone, but by total agricultural loading from this valley. This impaired water is flowing directly into the Buffalo National River," added Brahana, who said even more exacting water-quality studies remain under way.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 02/10/2015

Note: See the PowerPoint presentation of this meeting linked on the BRWA Home Page.