The multinational food giant Cargill Inc. of Minnesota was generous enough to donate $50,000 toward promoting better understanding of water-quality issues and improving water quality in the Illinois River of Northwest Arkansas. Yet it has provided nothing to help geoscientist John Van Brahana analyze the water quality around C&H Hog Farms, which Cargill supplies in nearby Newton County’s Buffalo National River watershed.

Last November, Cargill announced it would contribute to the Illinois River Watershed Partnership to help develop a 30-acre watershed sanctuary and educational complex at Cave Springs.

That watershed includes the border region between Arkansas and Oklahoma. The partnership is a collaboration of groups that understandably care about the Illinois and preserving its purity.

Those who’ve followed my opinions over the months already know how the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) took only about 40 days last year to permit the hog breeding factory in the Buffalo National River watershed.

The state allows the C&H operation at Mount Judea to house up to 6,500swine in the karst-riddled county and dispose of their waste in fields along Big Creek, a major tributary of the pristine Buffalo National River.

Cargill is the sole provider and purchaser of the C&H hogs and has previously said that, despite the pervasive honeycombed limestone, it sees no potential problem with C&H hog waste contaminating the Buffalo.

The same state that wrongheadedly approved the hog factory in the most environmentally inappropriate location possible now has approved at least $340,000 in taxpayer funds for a university group (by next spring) to monitor the possible contamination resulting from its own approval.

But Brahana, a geoscientist and former professor at the University of Arkansas, months ago began his own baseline water-quality monitoring program along the Buffalo watershed at his own expense. Since the hog factory began operating last summer, Brahana and a team of volunteers, assisted by two laboratories, have been testing water quality in local wells and springs and will soon begin subsurface dye testing.He’s even volunteered to assist the state-proposed monitoring efforts. But the state declined.

Neither Cargill nor the hog-factory owners have offered to financially assist Brahana’s efforts. Yet it’s a different story when it comes to the Illinois River watershed, the phosphorus contamination of which by poultry industry waste for years has been the source of legal dispute between Arkansas and Oklahoma. Seems to me there must be an inexplicable difference in the way Cargill views ensuring water quality in the Illinois River watershed and that of the nation’s first national river.

Shane Acosta, Cargill’s general manager for the turkey-processing plant in Springdale, said of the Illinois River donation: “Fresh water is one of our most treasured natural resources … and we understand the importance and need for educating people about the life giving liquid we often take for granted. We all have to play a role in conserving resources, and Cargill places a great deal of importance on educating people about what it will take to feed the global population increase … including the proper management of our water resources.”

Do you suppose an equal $50,000 contribution from Cargill would help Brahana and his volunteer team do an even better job of testing the water quality of this “lifegiving liquid we often take for granted?”

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was the developer of the watershed sanctuary project. Cargill’s contribution represented a chunk of the nearly $1 million of the overall cost.

Why, it’s no wonder our state government appreciates these generous folks at Cargill so much.

Meanwhile, Brahana labors on along the Buffalo National River watershed using an unexpected and appreciated donation of $4,000 from the Ozark Society, which can’t help but keep his head above the muck for a while.