Arkansasonline

Letter to Editor

Force agency to work

How many times have I heard that over-regulation is costing too much? Regulations don’t just happen. Usually they are in response to a situation revealing the need for them. When industries were disposing of factory waste by flushing it into the nearest waterway, many American rivers became so polluted that some even caught on fire. Regulations were formulated to prevent this naked abuse of our shared environment because they were necessary.

Now industrial agriculture is the leading abuser of our water resources, according to the EPA. In the Buffalo River watershed they do this in several ways: the over-application of liquid manure on fields in amounts exceeding the soil’s ability to use the nutrients, and by storing millions of gallons of liquid waste in open pits. By law, such pits are permitted to leak as much as 5,000 gallons of waste per day per acre of lagoon. Even a relatively small waste pit leaking 1,000 gallons per day could legally leak 365,000 gallons yearly.

We are assured that spraying liquid waste from an industrial-scale hog operation within the vulnerable watershed is “doing no harm.” A group of soil scientists was hired by the state to do water testing, and despite evidence of bias, their data reveal Big Creek, a major tributary located where much of the waste was sprayed, qualified as impaired in 2016. However, the data were not included when formulating the most recent state list of impaired waterways.

The Buffalo was named one of America’s most endangered rivers in 2017. Will it take killing it to finally force our governor to direct an ill-sited factory farm be removed from this sensitive ecosystem? Or will an entire generation miss out on experiencing what America’s first national river once was? Governor Hutchinson, the writing is on the wall. Force the state Department of Environmental Quality to do its job!

LIN WELLFORD