http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2016/apr/04/letters-to-the-editor-20160404/?opinion

Letters to the Editor

Posted: April 4, 2016 at 5:40 p.m.

State response on

Buffalo River inadequate

I attended a special meeting of the Arkansas Joint House and Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development on March 29 in Little Rock.

Despite the statement at that meeting by Director Becky Keogh of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality that collaborative efforts are "planned" to protect the Buffalo River, cooperation did not show its face in this meeting.

After three hours of presentations by the ADEQ and others invited by ADEQ, the National Park Service and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance were allowed to speak. Listed last on the meeting agenda, neither the park service nor the alliance had been extended the courtesy of notification of this meeting. Both learned of the meeting indirectly and only learned of being on the agenda when the alliance requested a copy of the meeting agenda.

If any true collaboration regarding protection of the Buffalo National River is to ensue, the data and recommendations from the following credible sources need to be included and given more priority than ADEQ appears to be willing to give. Those sources include the United States Geological Survey, National Park Service, Arkansas Fish and Game Commission and the Karst Hydrogeology of the Buffalo National River Study. The study's dye testing studies have demonstrated the highly unpredictable ways water can flow in the Buffalo River watershed. Stakeholders such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and the Buffalo River Coalition needed to be well included as public representatives. Thus far, this collaborative effort Keogh spoke of is nonexistent.

The fact remains that sufficient and robust data from credible sources such as the National Park Service show that three tributaries of the Buffalo River are impaired. Significant and frequent high levels of E.coli in big Creek, where the 6,500-hog factory farm sits, have been found by not only the Park Service but by the publicly funded Big Creek Research Extension Team. The environmental quality agency and that research extension team stated in the March 29 meeting they want to wait and see if these levels of elevated E.coli just go away, despite the millions of gallons of hog waste being applied to fields adjacent to Big Creek.

Both the Park Service and the Arkansas Game and Fish requested that state agency list Big Creek on its impaired waters list due to low dissolved oxygen levels. Aquatic life such as the small-mouth bass require dissolved oxygen for adequate growth.

The Park Service also requested Buffalo River tributaries Mill Creek and Bear Creek be declared impaired.

The Department of Environmental Quality has a duty to list these three streams on the the list of impaired streams. They have not provided plausible reasons for not doing so.

The Buffalo River is not fine when its tributaries are impaired.

Ginny Masullo

Fayetteville

Commentary on 04/05/2016

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016