Buffalo River Threatened

Posted on November 18, 2013
Last month the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance hosted a seven-city, educational Whistle-Stop Speaking Tour in Arkansas featuring experts from Waterkeeper® Alliance. The tour began in Fayetteville and ended in Little Rock. Other cities included in this educational tour include Harrison, Eureka Springs, Jasper, Yellville, and Mountain Home. The public was invited to attend these free educational events concerning the protection of water quality in the Buffalo River Watershed.

The threat to the Buffalo is that industrial-sized hog farms are coming to Arkansas. The first is now operating near the Buffalo National Buffalo-River-ARRiver in Newton County. A Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) is a method of mass producing meat by confining large numbers of animals to small spaces. The C&H Hog Farm located in Mt. Judea, Newton County, AR, is contracted to international conglomerate Cargill and is operating with a multi-million dollar taxpayer subsidized loan. It is located near Big Creek, which is one of the major tributaries of the Buffalo National River.

The factory hog farm sits on top of one of the most environmentally sensitive areas of the state in the Ozark Mountains. The 6500 pigs will produce about 1.5 million gallons of manure per year. This along with the wash water results in over 2 million gallons of hog waste per year that will be spread over porous ground adjacent to Big Creek and across from the Mt. Judea public school.

During the speaking tour, Waterkeeper Alliance professionals discussed impending health and economic issues, pollution of air and water, and the threat to the entire Buffalo National River watershed. The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the Buffalo National River Watershed from threats from water and air pollution. It also considers education of the general population concerning water and air quality in the Buffalo National River of the primary importance. It was founded in order to protect the scenic beauty and pristine water quality of the Buffalo National River by opposing and preventing the construction and operation of industrial confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) within the Buffalo River watershed.