By Mike Masterson
Posted: January 4, 2014 at 2:16 a.m.
 
The New York Times story of the controversial C&H Hog Farms planted by Cargill Inc. and local owners in the Buffalo National River watershed last fall finally was published in late December.

Reporter John Eligon, the Times’ Midwest correspondent, traveled to Mount Judea and the hog farm to conduct interviews and see for himself the potential for environmental calamity it presents.

All in all, I believe Eligon did a good job of presenting both sides of the contentious matter. At least this travesty allowed by our state’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) is now on record across the nation and the world.

Having reported for metro papers during the Pleistocene Era, I also understand the frustration from waiting for editors to have their turns at justifying their jobs by making their changes before deeming any story fit for their standard of publication. It took Eligon’s piece weeks to make it into the Times.

When it was published, I felt the headline writer (not Eligon) did an extreme disservice by flatly missing the point of the widespread opposition to the state’s first hog factory being plopped in the middle of such a pristine and treasured location.

Instead of accurately reading: “2,500 Swine Join Debate over Farms vs. Potential Pollution of National River,” the headline instead proclaimed: “2,500 Pigs Join Debate over Farms vs. Scenery.” Say what? Scenery? The public concern clearly is over potentially despoiling the water quality in the Buffalo, not affecting the “scenery.”

The dispute, from the time our state’s Environmental Quality Department granted a permit for this factory without insisting upon baseline and groundwater flow tests in this fractured limestone (karst)-riddled soil, has been over the realistic possibility that millions of gallons of hog waste being stored in lagoons and routinely spread on numerous fields adjacent to Big Creek would wind up flowing along that tributary into the Buffalo River six miles downstream.

Special interests predictably argue that’s just fear mongering. I’d invite those folks to review the environmental disasters from just this sort of calamity happening in rivers in states such as North Carolina and Iowa.

So, I was disappointed the Times headline writer chose to take such a wholly misleading approach to explaining the concern over this needless threat to the water quality of America’s first National River. I was even less than reassured by the comment in Eligon’s story from my email friend, Mike Martin, who routinely speaks for Cargill.

“We believe that modern farming and environmental conservation and protecting the environment can co-exist,” he said. “A lot of the fear and concern is based on a ‘what if’ scenario that may never take place.” Can I then deduce that “may never” by definition means such contamination also “may” take place?

That’s been exactly the point. Why risk that very real possibility occurring in this worst possible location?

Eligon wrote that environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration in an attempt to block $3.4 million in loan guarantees awarded to C&H. The suit argues that the agencies failed to properly consider the factory’s environmental impact. The story, however, did not say that the FSA agent who shepherded that loan guarantee through his agency is related by marriage to members who own and operate this factory.

Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks conceded that the public should have been better notified about the factory before her agency approved it. She told the Times she had sufficient confidence in the environmental integrity of the proposal that it wouldn’t have affected the outcome in issuing her agency’s permit. Really now?

How (as the purported leader of preserving all things environmental in our state) could Marks possibly exude such confidence?

But then Marks plopped a chunk of pineapple on this big ol’ slice of verbal ham by actually admitting: “Will there be some of this waste that could reach the Buffalo River? Sure.”

That’s quite an damning admission to make before the taxpayers of Arkansas for someone confidently enjoying the fruits of politically appointed office. Yet not to fear, since this same director who didn’t know her agency was approving the hog factory then said she didn’t think there’d be any environmental harm even if such a leakage scenario came to pass.

Whew, I feel all better about this mess now. How ’bout you?