NW Democrat Gazette

OPINION | FRAN ALEXANDER: State’s most valued river still faces threats to its future

Buffalo National River deserves better from lawmakers

February 11, 2025 at 1:00 a.m. 

by Fran Alexander

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

-- Gideon John Tucker

American lawyer, newspaper editor, 1866

It's likely readers familiar with Arkansas' environmental challenges are sick and tired of the whiplashing threats to the state's best-known natural wonder, the Buffalo River. The issues seem constant, and perhaps that's part of a wearing-down effort by those opposed to the Buffalo's role as a river instead of a sewer.

For review on today's docket of the Arkansas Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry is Senate Bill 84 to "prohibit a moratorium on the issuance of permits in watersheds and other bodies of water." Its sponsors are Sens. Blake Johnson of Corning and DeAnn Vaught of Horatio, both listed as farmers.

Creation of a permanent moratorium on permitting large- or medium-sized swine farms in the Buffalo River watershed has been an ongoing effort of environmental organizations and individuals. Their exhausting seven-year battle to close a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) finally succeeded in 2019, but no permanent protection has been enacted. SB84 is the backlash to counter a permanent protection effort.

What most Arkansawyers probably don't know is what goes on, or doesn't, behind the scenes in the sausage making of legislation. The toll and toil extracted from citizens trying to stay informed, to show up in numbers and to have input is enormous. Traveling to Little Rock to attend meetings with the hope of speaking (if allowed) on bills can take distant attendees seven or more driving hours in a day or cost an overnight stay, plus meals, gas, parking and time away from work.

Today might be the fourth or fifth time the SB84 sponsor has not shown up to run his bill, which places it on the committee's deferred list. If opponents give up and finally stop showing up, the bill might appear to have no opposition. It's easy for a legislator to find out if there are many attendees from the public in the room where his bill is scheduled and find an excuse not to appear.

The Rules Committee also did what seemed like a bait-and-switch routine a couple of times on this issue in late 2024 and never reviewed it. However, opponents spent hours contacting people, urging comments be made, notifying media what was afoot and some traveled to Little Rock. All these volunteer efforts were costly and futile.

Individuals and organizations have worked since the early 1960s to secure protections for this spectacular waterway, which carves a path through part of the Ozarks. The Ozark Society was founded in 1962 by Dr. Neil Compton of Bentonville to protect this river. After 10 years of effort to prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from damming one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the country, activists secured its federal recognition as the Buffalo National River, the nation's first, in 1972.

There were issues over the years, of course, but perhaps the most threatening was the discovery in 2013 that a feeding operation for hogs had been permitted and built in the river's watershed. That intensified concerns that run-off of manure from fields and its leaching through the karst limestone underground might be feeding nutrients into the watershed of the Buffalo.

Among the consequences of poop washing into a watershed is the growth of algae, which has the potential to produce cyanotoxins. Those can be harmful to humans and animals, and such warnings discouraged swimming in the middle and lower parts of the river. This is not an appealing feature for tourism, a multi-million dollar industry. Yet still the Buffalo remains at risk.

Knowing that doing the same things in the watershed and expecting different results would not be smart, river protectors promoted the moratorium as a solution. Farming interests have opposed this as somehow interfering with their right to farm. Surely that does not -- and should not -- include a right to pollute.

After a total of 63 years of free labor by hundreds of volunteers through multiple generations, our legislators and governor owe the people of Arkansas explanations. Why are you continuing to risk one of the state's greatest assets? What do you want that's more important? Which of these risks do you not understand or want to ignore? How will you fix the river once it's poisoned? Can you ever fix it? What do you expect of us? What will you do if people ever quit their Save the Buffalo efforts?

Inquiring Arkies deserve to know.