Democrat Gazette
Senate committee passes bill with more hoops for watershed moratoriums
It would set rules for moratoriums
8 hours, 19 minutes ago by Bill Bowden
An Arkansas Senate committee passed a bill on Tuesday that would require additional regulations for state agencies to follow to get or maintain permit moratoriums on certain farming operations in watersheds "and other bodies of water."
The bill would require action to be taken by April 1, 2026, for the state's two watershed moratoriums to remain in place.
Senate Bill 290, sponsored by Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, would require a state agency wishing to continue a permit moratorium to present it to the Arkansas Legislative Council, or if the Legislature is in session the Joint Budget Committee, "for review and approval" by April 1, 2026. That's a year and 90 days after the law would go into effect.
Otherwise, the moratorium "shall expire immediately," according to the bill.
The bill puts the onus on state agencies -- with approval by the Legislature -- to keep moratoriums in the Buffalo River and Lake Maumelle watersheds, said two Little Rock lawyers who spoke against it during Tuesday's meeting of the Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee.
Such moratoriums restrict large farming operations that could affect water quality. The bill doesn't mention either watershed specifically.
Lake Maumelle provides much of the drinking water for Central Arkansas.
A temporary moratorium was placed on the Buffalo River watershed after the permitting of a large swine farm caused a controversy that ended after years of litigation and Arkansas paying $6.2 million to C&H Hog Farm's owners in 2019. The state got the land in the form of a conservation easement.
The Buffalo National River, which attracted 1.7 million visitors last year, is a "gem" that shouldn't be the location for a hog farm, said several people who spoke during Tuesday's meeting.
The Legislative Council was established by Act 264 of 1949 to collect data and information upon which legislative decisions will be made during regular session of the General Assembly. The council's members are legislators.
"It started out with a complete ban, or release of the moratorium, with Senate Bill 84," Sen. Johnson said at the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, referring to another bill he sponsored.
Senate Bill 84 is on the agenda for the Agriculture Committee's meeting on Thursday. It would end existing moratoriums and require state agencies to get the approval of the Legislative Council before implementing a moratorium.
"This bill (Senate Bill 290), it goes through the legislative process and Administrative Procedures Act and it defines moratorium," Johnson told the committee on Tuesday. It also sets an expiration date of four years for new moratoriums.
The bill defines a moratorium as "a prohibition on the issuance of permits or any other limitation on agricultural production, including without limitation, livestock and poultry operations, contained animal feeding operations, and the cultivation of crops and orchards."
"It just sets up a legislative process, oversight of the departments and where they have to come before us," said Johnson.
Richard Mays, a lawyer who represented the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance in the long-running litigation against C&H Hog Farm, spoke during the meeting.
"I think that this bill, with all due respect to Sen. Johnson, is a solution in search of a problem," said Mays. "And also I would say that with all due respect to the elevated intellect of every member of the Legislature here in Arkansas that these issues involve a lot of scientific evidence, a lot of scientific knowledge, and they require time and process to go through, and I don't know if you want to burden yourselves with hearing this type of thing."
John Fletcher, another Little Rock lawyer, expressed concern about the automatic revoking aspect of the bill.
"If we get to April 1, 2026, under this bill, and the ALC has not approved these two moratoriums, they will be revoked," he said during Tuesday's meeting. "That is the default outcome as I read this rule. And so I do think that this bill puts these moratoriums at risk. Without any act by anyone, with just the passage of time, these will be revoked. ... Approval by the ALC has to occur or these come off the books."
An amendment adding the Joint Budget Committee in addition to the Arkansas Legislative Council was made in a voice vote on Tuesday.
The bill also lays out the process for any newly proposed watershed moratoriums, which would require promulgating a rule to institute a moratorium and following the procedure under the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act, ยง 25-15-201.
But watershed moratoriums have only been instituted twice and that was by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality under the supervision of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, said Mays.
"Moratoriums are not just placed willy-nilly by anybody," he told the committee on Tuesday.
The bill was returned by the committee with a recommendation that it "do pass" with the two amendments.
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Bill Bowden covers a variety of news for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, primarily in Northwest Arkansas. He has worked at the newspaper for 16 years and previously worked for both the Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette.