Arkansas Times

Bill filed to derail state’s efforts to protect Buffalo River from hog farming

by Phillip PowellJanuary 22, 2025 1:55 pm

Two state lawmakers filed a bill Tuesday that would  prevent the state from banning hog farming in the Buffalo River watershed or other Arkansas waterways without specific clearance from a legislative panel.

Senate Bill 84 is sponsored by state Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-Horatio) and state Sen. Blake Johnson (R-Corning), who are both farmers. Vaught’s biography on the House of Representatives website says she is a member of the Arkansas Farm Bureau and the Arkansas Pork Producers Association.

The bill targets a pair of proposed rules from the state Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy and Environment that would make permanent a temporary moratorium on hog farming in the Buffalo River watershed. Environmental groups have been pushing for such a ban for years, sparked by the state’s 2013 approval of a hog farm in the Buffalo area that has since closed down. A legislative committee held a hearing on the proposed rules in November but did not make a decision; in December, the state agencies said they wanted more time to work on the rules and take public input into consideration.

But the bill from Vaught and Johnson would go beyond the Buffalo River, and prevent state agencies from placing a moratorium on permits for farming in any watershed or other body of water in the state unless they first obtained approval from the Arkansas Legislative Council. 

Vaught and Johnson could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The Farm Bureau, an industry group, strongly opposes the Department of Agriculture’s proposed moratorium, saying it violates the “right to farm.”

As one of the United States’ only national rivers, the Buffalo River draws millions of tourists every year and is seen as one of the natural treasurers of Arkansas. There’s been recent talk from a group connected to the Walton family of upgrading its status to a national park preserve. Local environmental groups such as The Ozark Society, The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Audubon Delta, and chapters of the Sierra Club have led public campaigns against farming in the watershed for years.

Those groups are particularly concerned about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) — industrial-scale farms which produce an immense amount of liquid animal waste that can pollute waterways with excess nitrogen, phosphorus, and other materials and chemicals. CAFOs confine large numbers of animals in a controlled environment to efficiently produce meat, dairy, or eggs. The controversy over hog farming in the Buffalo River area began with the granting of a permit to C&H Hog Farm in 2013, which caused public outrage and eventually led to then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson to place a temporary moratorium on CAFOs in the watershed in 2020. The moratorium language still stands today, making it government policy not to approve permits in the watershed, though the Legislature has not yet approved that language.

CAFOs must receive waste disposal permits to operate. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (which is now part of the Department of Energy and Environment) used to issue those permits to farms, until a 2023 law transferredpermitting authority to the Department of Agriculture. That legislation, which was seen as a win for agriculture interests, was also sponsored by Vaught.

The new proposed rule by the Department of Agriculture would place a permanent moratorium on “swine Confined Animal Operations” in the Buffalo River Watershed. But it  would also limit public notice of new permit applications elsewhere in the state, effectively removing Arkansans’ ability to object to proposed CAFOs coming to their area. That has led environmentalists to oppose the rule and file dozens of public comments expressing their concern. 

The Department of Agriculture dismissed those concerns, saying in a reply to public comment that “the notice process provided within the rule is sufficient.”

The rule proposed by the Department of Energy and Environment would also place a moratorium on swine CAFOs in the Buffalo River watershed, but it would apply to farms seeking a different type of waste disposal permit that regulates pollution sent directly into waterways. According to the most recent Environmental Protection Agency data, none of Arkansas’s 776 CAFOs have this type of permit.