Arkansasonline

Environment Notebook

by Emily Walkenhorst

Manure-leak tests to begin at hog farm

Drilling to test for hog manure leakage is set to begin this week at C&H Hog Farms near Mount Judea in Newton County, according to an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality news release.

Little Rock-based Harbor Environmental contracted with Cascade Drilling of Memphis to conduct the drilling, which is expected to start Wednesday and last three or four days, according to the department

The department hired Harbor Environmental as the contractor for the project for $75,000. The company designed the plan and hired Cascade Drilling as a subcontractor.

The research, which is to be conducted on C&H Hog Farms' private land, was requested by opponents of the hog farm -- including the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which filed a lawsuit -- earlier this year after they learned of research done in 2015 that showed what they said was an unexpectedly high amount of moisture beneath one of the farm's manure ponds.

Big Creek Research and Extension Team researchers disagreed on whether drilling was necessary, arguing that any leak would have been detected at other spots the team is already monitoring. The team works out of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and was formed by state officials after an outcry in early 2013 over the state issuing a permit to C&H in late 2012.

Only Harbor Environmental's appointed independent observer, Tai Hubbard of Hydrogeology Inc., will oversee the research after a legal dispute over who would be allowed to attend the drilling project.

The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which opposes C&H's permit, sued the Environmental Quality Department in August, seeking to either allow their own hydrogeology expert to oversee drilling or to disallow the two members of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team the department had permitted to oversee it. The department settled with the group earlier this month, only allowing Hubbard, who was already allowed to oversee the drilling, to monitor the project.

C&H sits on Big Creek about 6 miles from where it converges with the Buffalo River. It is the only federally classified large hog farm in the river's watershed and is permitted to house up to 6,000 piglets and 2,503 sows.

The Buffalo River, the first national river, had 1.46 million visitors last year, the third-highest total since it became a national river in 1972 and the highest since a record count of 1.55 million was set in 2009.