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Hog farm’s inspection results released
Inspectors note concerns with nutrient plan, waste lagoon in advisory report
By Ryan McGeeney


The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality this week issued the results of a compliance assistance inspection of C&H Hog Farms, the concentrated animal feeding operation in Newton County.

Findings of the inspection, which was conducted July 23, were made available to the public on the department’s website after a report was mailed to Jason Henson, thepresident and one of three co-owners of the farm in Mount Judea.

Ryan Benefield, deputy director of the Environmental Quality Department, said a compliance assistance inspection is not uncommon on new operations that have environmental permits through the state or federal government. Benefield said that although permit holders sometimes request this sort of inspection, department staff members initiated theinspection in this instance because of noted public concern about the farm and its location.

“We committed to the public that we would be overseeing this facility,” Benefield said.

C&H Hog Farms is the first and only facility in Arkansas to hold a federal largescale animal feeding operation water-discharge permit through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. The farm is permitted to house approximately 2,500 full-grown sows and as many as 4,000 piglets at any given time. Henson and his co-owner cousins, Richard and Philip Campbell, contract with Cargill Inc. to provide weaned piglets, which are eventually slaughtered at other facilities.

Although the owners attracted no unusual attention when they applied for and received the permit in 2012, public outcry began to mountin early 2013 when administrators at the Buffalo National River began questioning the validity of the farm’s environmental assessment, performed by the Farm Service Agency as part of a loan-guarantee process.

The production facility is surrounded by approximately 630 acres of grassland fields, upon which the farm operators are permitted to spread collected hog waste as fertilizer. Because several portions of the acreage abut Big Creek, a major tributary to the Buffalo National River, and because of the karst geology of Newton County, environmental activists and business owners have publicly voiced concern that waste from the farm may contaminate the river through surface water, groundwater or both.

In the report, Jason Bolenbaugh, inspection branch manager for the Environmental Quality Department, identif ies six concerns raised by inspectors during their visit to the farm in July.

Three of the issues concerned the accurate labeling of maps contained in the farm’s nutrient management plan, a 263-page document outlining the design and function of the farm, including when, where and how waste will be disposed of during normal operation of the farm. The report cautions Henson that the plan’s overall site map should “include buffer zones around all ponds, streams and drainages,” and that all appropriate buffer zones around other boundaries and waterways be avoided when applying fertilizer.

The report also notes that no copy of the nutrient management plan was immediately available onsite during the inspection. Benefield said he had spoken by phone with Henson, who was not on the farm during the inspection, and that the employee escorting the inspectors was simply unaware of the plan’s location.

According to the report, “no means of managing farm mortality was observed on site.” Farm mortality refers to an inevitable number of dead pigs resulting from a fully-operational breeding operation, in which a large portion of 2,500 sows are birthing litters of 12-15 piglets at any given time.

Although the farm’s original nutrient management plan stated the farm would use a kind of composting unit known as an “in-vessel composter,” Environmental Quality Department spokesperson Katherine Benenati said the department had subsequently approved a modification to the plan, allowing the facilitator to use an incinerator instead.

Benefield said Henson also stated after the inspection that the incinerator was present, but that the employee present during the tour had also not known its location.

Finally, the inspection report noted several signs of erosion in the clay liner that holds the collected hog waste in two large lagoons.

Benefield said that signs of erosion in new waste-containment lagoons were typical and not an immediate cause for concern.

“Part of maintaining the liner is to repair erosion rills as they happen,” said Benefield, referring to small cracks that may appear in liner clay or topsoil. “If left unattended, it could be an issue, but maintained, it won’t be.”

Karl VanDevender, a professor of biological engineering and an extension engineer for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Cooperative Extension Serviceoffice, said erosion in new waste ponds was typical until vegetation is able to take hold and secure thesurrounding soil.

Benefield stressed that a compliance assistance inspection essentially serves an advisory function, helping operators of new facilities to identify shortcomings before they become serious problems.

Benefield said the water division oversees about 6,000 permits throughout the state, employing 17 inspectors to investigate permitted facilities either on a renewal-driven or complaint-driven basis.

Department director Teresa Marks said she anticipated visiting C&H Hog Farms more frequently than other installations that had not received as much public scrutiny, but that nothing about the farm had raised concerns when she and Benefield visited the farm personally earlier this year.

“We are going to respond to any complaints we get,” Marks said. “We will have boots on the ground out there, but we weren’t alarmed by anything we saw out there. We didn’t see any harm to the environment from this installation.”