Ecologist says more river testing coming for hog farm’s effect on water quality
 

Harrison Daily Times 

 
Posted: Friday, October 3, 2014 6:45 am
By JAMES L. WHITE jamesw@harrisondaily.com  

Faron Usrey, an aquatic ecologist with the Buffalo National River, told about 50 river activists last week that some initial data showed higher bacterial and fecal coliform readings in the area of C&H Hog Farm at Mt. Judea, but he also said those data aren’t conclusive and more study is necessary to determine any negative impact on the river.
“I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room,” Usrey told the crowd.
He said BNR doesn’t hate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and that they produce most milk, eggs and meat consumed by Americans.
However, land managers are charged with protecting national parks so they remain safe for public contact and as places of unique beauty so the public can enjoy them.
Usrey explained that an abundance of moisture this summer meant record numbers of visitors to the river. He said the river generated an estimated $47 million in revenue over the year with the lion’s share of that undefined about $41 million undefined coming from non-residents.
Most nutrients and bacteria in the river are generated from tributaries, not visitors. The BNR began testing 10 tributaries, three springs and nine locations on the river in 1985, but added testing for E. coli in 2009 at the request of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
The original role of the monitoring program was to protect the river by identifying what is man-caused pollution and what is natural.
As an example, he said the 2009 ice storm damaged the sewer system at Marble Falls. Thousands of gallons of untreated human sewage was pumped into Mill Creek and it reached the river within 18 hours.
The BNR uses established limits for pollutants in the river to determine if it’s safe for human contact, Usrey said. But a lot of that monitoring had been done only quarterly due to a lack of resources.
The BNR became concerned about C&H Hog Farm’s effect on the river and began testing Big Creek more often. He said samples from 2009 - 2012 had showed normal levels of pollutants, but those readings were higher in March of this year.
But he also said the spring was wet. Flood waters contain more bacteria and fecal coliform than base flow, so those tests couldn’t prove conclusively that the hog farm was at fault.
Still, he said, tests of the river upstream from Big Creek showed normal levels of pollutants, while samples showed high levels in Big Creek and downstream from it in the river. He again cautioned that those results weren’t definitive because testing hadn’t been done as often as he would like to see.
So, monitoring will be added at the upper wilderness boundary of the river, in the Little Buffalo, in funding year 2015, which begins in October.
If the Little Buffalo tests low and the river above Big Creek tests low, and Big Creek and the river downstream test high, the results could merit serious consideration.
Usrey said that flood waters can wash pollutants downstream, and sunlight kills most bacteria but some can settle on the river bed and be released later with additional flooding.
BNR won’t be able to say the hog farm is completely to blame, but it will issue warnings if necessary and it will be up to ADEQ to actually close the river to visitors.