Three grandmothers join forces to appeal ADEQ permit

August 24, 2016

Eureka Springs Independent

Three Northwest Arkansas women have banded together to appeal a recent decision that would allow EC Farms to spray hog waste from C&H Hog Farms, Inc., onto additional pastures within the Buffalo River watershed.

All three had independently attended a public comment hearing in Jasper last March to object to allowing the transfer of a modified permit that would expose more tributaries, springs and groundwater to potential pollutants in a sensitive ecosystem already showing signs of stress. The comments they made at that time give them standing to appeal the decision. Fifty-three comments were recorded, either online or at the hearing, against allowing even more widespread spraying of untreated swine sewage.

Now the three women, all grandmothers, have hired an attorney to guide them through the process.

“None of us has done anything like this before, but we met up afterwards and discovered that we share a common determination to fight for the Buffalo. Someone had to take a stand for the river and it seemed to each of us that it was our turn,” Carol Bitting explained.

Bitting lives on the Little Buffalo River, a tributary to the Buffalo National River in Newton County. For years she has volunteered her services as a biological technician for the Buffalo National Park, conducting field surveys and documenting karst features within the park. She’s also a member of the Arkansas Caves Association, cataloging and measuring numerous caves in the county. Her spare time is spent hiking, biking, paddling the river and enjoying the outdoors with her grandkids.

Dr. Nancy Haller also has a long history of public service. She is a medical doctor who formerly served as Public Health Officer for the Newton County Health Department. In the 1990s she spearheaded the effort to establish the county as an eco-tourism destination, and wrote numerous grant proposals that have helped improve the quality of life for residents of Jasper. Her concern for the Buffalo River stems from her understanding of the pathogens, bacteria, viruses and other substances known to leach into waterways and threaten human heath in areas where confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) dispose of waste by spreading it on the ground. “It already happened once, when too much chicken litter ruined the wells around Mount Judea. That’s when they had to pipe in water from the lake,” Haller points out. “This permit would allow in excess of 6.5 million gallons of untreated waste to be sprayed on fields and pastures south of Mount Judea. That’s crazy!”

Lin Wellford of Carroll County is an active member of one of the state’s first watershed partnership groups and has been involved in preserving and protecting Ozark waterways for more than a decade. An avid kayaker who frequently floats the Buffalo, she worries that spraying waste on additional fields within the river’s watershed will skew results of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team’s taxpayer-funded monitoring efforts on a major tributary to the Buffalo River. The new fields drain into different tributaries that are not currently being monitored.

“People had already started to question whether BCRET’s mission was compromised by the fact that the director of the team is so closely associated with the U of A School of Agriculture,” Wellford said. “Originally the study was supposed to focus on water monitoring to protect the Buffalo National River, but once it began, the title was quickly changed to ‘Proving the Sustainability of C&H Hog Farm.’”

According to the EPA, non-point source pollution associated with agriculture, mostly stemming from the rapid evolution of indoor feedlots known as CAFOs, is now the leading cause of impaired waterways within the US.

These grandmothers agree that agriculture is important to the state and they support the rights of independent farmers to make a living on their land. But they also think that the corporate takeover of farming is turning farms into factories and transforming farmers into contracted operators who have little say in decision-making. “We keep hearing how industrial-scale agricultural is the only way to feed a hungry world, but CAFOs have been shown to be hugely damaging to the environment. How long can we feed the world if we wreck our land and water resources in the process?” Wellford asked.

“And if it turns out that we can’t protect a river that has been set aside as a national park, is any waterway in this country safe?” Dr. Haller added.

The hearing has been set for Dec. 4-5 at the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology building in North Little Rock