Arkansas Advocate

Bill targeting watershed moratoriums passes Arkansas Senate committee

BY: AINSLEY PLATT - APRIL 1, 2025 8:10 PM

A bill that could strip away an environmental permit moratorium intended to protect the water quality of the Buffalo River watershed passed out of a Senate committee Tuesday.

Senate Bill 290, sponsored by Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, passed the Senate Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee on a voice vote, with audible dissent.

The bill has gone through multiple revisions since it was introduced and has sparked strong opposition from environmental groups in the state that said removing the permit moratorium could again allow another facility like C&H Hog Farms to open up shop in the watershed, endangering the Buffalo National River. The state of Arkansas spent $6.2 million to buy the farm and shut it down in 2019, after years of efforts led by groups such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.

Unlike previous versions of the bill, the latest version would not immediately strike the moratorium that is currently in place, but would instead require the Department of Energy and Environment’s Division of Environmental Quality and the Department of Agriculture to go through the rulemaking process again for the rules that contain the moratorium if the bill goes into law. The effective date for the bill, if passed, is Jan. 1, 2026, and agencies would have 90 days from that date to get approval for a moratorium.

The rules containing the moratorium would then go back before the Arkansas Legislative Council or the Joint Budget Committee after agencies approve them through their usual rulemaking processes. The council, according to Johnson, would be granted greater leeway to reject the moratorium once it goes before them under his bill.

Moratoriums would expire four years after their effective date under the bill, requiring agencies to resubmit them for consideration and requiring legislative council approval every four years.

Sam Dubke, a spokesperson for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the governor would not support legislation that did not protect the river.

“Governor Sanders appreciates Senator Johnson’s leadership and dedication to Arkansas agriculture, but she is opposed to legislation that does not protect the Buffalo National River,” Dubke wrote in an emailed statement. 

Dubke did not say whether Sanders would sign the bill in its current form if it makes it through both chambers of the Legislature.

Multiple people spoke against the bill before the committee, urging lawmakers to protect “the jewel” of the state of Arkansas. 

Little Rock resident Richard Johnson said the moratorium needed to remain in place, citing pollution hazards posed by swine CAFOs, or concentrated animal feed operations.

“They tend to pollute way beyond their footprint,” Johnson said.

Mark Lambert, who represented Arkansas Farm Bureau, expressed support for the bill, saying that it was a “right-to-farm” issue. The bill wouldn’t take away any protections for the watershed — an assertion opponents of the bill pushed back against.

Committee members questioned why moratoriums would receive a “different threshold” for making it past the legislative council compared to other rules. Johnson said it was to return oversight to elected officials, and described the Buffalo River watershed moratorium, which has been in place for 10 years, as a slippery slope that could lead to other moratoriums. 

“This is oversight of executive branch departments,” Johnson said. “The moratorium is something that’s an outlier also, in my opinion as an agricultural producer, because that’s not allowing an agricultural producer to even apply for a permit. … This is telling a producer that he can’t even attempt to use his property in the way he wants to, and this can be expanded beyond just CAFOs.”

The only other watershed-based moratorium is for Lake Maumelle, a primary source of drinking water for the Central Arkansas region.

Johnson said everyone agrees that people don’t want CAFOs in the Buffalo River watershed and he didn’t think a producer would put one there in the first place.

However, there is a long history of swine farms within the watershed beyond C&H Hog Farms — something the DEQ said explicitly in its response to the Farm Bureau’s comments on changes to Rule 6 last year that would have made the moratorium permanent.

“The potential impacts of swine farms, including farms large enough to be considered CAFOs, on the Buffalo River have been an ongoing concern in Arkansas, and the Division (or its predecessors) have taken action to mitigate the impacts of existing farms in that watershed,” the division wrote last year. 

“In 1992, APC&EC Regulation 5 was adopted to address how liquid waste from swine farms should be handled. Also in 1992, the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology (the Division’s predecessor) issued an administrative notice regarding its intent not to issue permits in the Buffalo River Watershed. Following … that notice, Arkansas participated in the Buffalo River Swine Waste Demonstration Project, which was initiated in 1995, to improve swine manure management in the Buffalo River watershed.”

Beth Ardapple, a Newton County farmer, called out a “false narrative” that farmers were opposed to a moratorium when she spoke against the bill. She said the Buffalo River has served as an affordable vacation spot for Arkansans for decades and that it needed to be protected. 

“I have great respect for my CAFO friends, people who own CAFOs. They love the land as I do. It’s simply that the science doesn’t support having the CAFO in the Buffalo River watershed,” Ardapple said.

Marti Olesen, the vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said her business on the river would not survive if a CAFO returned to the area and polluted the river. 

“There is no other Buffalo River in Arkansas; it’s a national treasure,” Olesen said.

John Ray, a self-described environmentalist, said that one was not against farming if they supported protecting the state’s natural resources. Fishing and hunting businesses in the area were supportive of a permanent moratorium, he said, and tourism on the Buffalo River supports hundreds of jobs for concessioners, lodges and others who cater to those who enjoy the river each year. 

“These things are not going to change every four years, and there is no slippery slope when it comes to these kinds of large CAFO moratoriums,” Ray said. “This moratorium in the Buffalo River has been in place for over ten years; there hasn’t been an avalanche of moratoriums on hog CAFOs in other areas of the state.”