North Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Intentionally ignored

by Mike Masterson

Some of you will recall how the whole controversy over our state's wrongheaded permitting of C&H Hog Farms in our treasured Buffalo National River watershed arose when the National Park Service (official stewards of that river) complained loudly and publicly that the state and its Department of Environmental Quality (chortle) had never notified them it was allowing a swine factory into its purview.

Well, thanks to the 2014 master's thesis by University of Arkansas civil engineering student Samantha Hovis, we learn a special committee appointed by former Governor Mike Beebe under Act 1511--comprised of the Department of Environmental Quality's Water Division now-former director Ryan Benefield; a livestock operator and an agriculture grower, both members of the Arkansas Farm Bureau; an agriculture professor; and a Little Rock attorney--apparently made that decision.

What, no environmental, geoscience or what I'd consider genuine water-quality experts?

Hovis writes that this committee did not approve giving notification to the National Park Service superintendent of "possible CAFOs in the Buffalo River watershed."

Oh, really? And so it was written and so it wasn't done. Governmental transparency at its least transparent with the very people responsible for maintaining the purity of the country's first national river.

Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him atmikemasterson10@hotmail.com.

Editorial on 08/01/2015