Brahana Talks
Mike Masterson- Democrat-Gazette, January 28, 2014


Former UA geoscience professor John Van Brahana last week addressed the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission about the need to protect the Buffalo National River's watershed. This political body oversees the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough).

Brahana has invested large amounts of personal time, resources and energy into voluntarily conducting water-quality testings around the controversial C & H Hog Farms at Mt. Judea that was quietly and quickly permitted by the Department of Environmental Quality. He and students have been baseline testing around the factory, critical preliminary studies that I believe should have been required of the factory and its supplier, Cargill Inc.

"We had an eventful meeting in Little Rock. I was able to speak to the commission for the first time. We requested a temporary moratorium. We requested that the general permit be completely revised and I requested that my dye-tracing permit be approved after being tied up since early November (actually, since last summer)," said Brahana.

Let's hope the commission listens to Brahana, whose only agenda is preserving the water quality of the country's first national river.