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In search of leadership

Beebe’s druthers?

On that hog farm

Mike Masterson



Iwondered how Gov. Mike Beebe feels about the risk that waste from the industrial hog farm at Mount Judea poses to the environment of the country’s first national river, a pristine tourism attraction and economic boon for decades.
After all, he is our governor. And after all, he is dealing with his appointee in Teresa Marks, who heads the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, which permitted this controversial hog factory in the Buffalo National River’s watershed. And he is a politician who’s proven himself adept at getting things corrected and accomplished in the public interest (even behind the scenes over a telephone). Am I right?
His aide, Matt DeCample, responded for Beebe: “If the governor had his druthers, the permit would not have been issued. However, the applicant followed all state laws and procedures and the governor or ADEQ can’t make arbitrary decisions to deny an applicant who follows the rules.”
DeCample explained that the best way to change this kind of unimaginable threat to a state treasure from happening again “is to strengthen restrictions for areas of particular concern, such as the Buffalo River watershed. However, such action needs to be legislative. ADEQ cannot change those rules on its own.”
How’s that for artfully wordsmithing one’s way around a superheated issue that isn’t going away?
So there you have it. The Buffalo National River watershed can be put at risk of potential contamination from God-awful hog waste because our elected legislators have failed to protect it through responsible lawmaking. And there’s not a thing the governor or anyone in power can do, regardless of his druthers. No calls to Cargill? Wal-Mart? No come-to-Jesus chats with his own Environmental Quality director? Nothing?
And it now appears Marks may not be the only relevant member of her agency not to know it had permitted C&H Hog Farms Inc. until it was a done deal. The employees based in the agency’s Newton County office at Jasper also were unaware until it was a done deal.
At least that’s what Don Nelms of Jasper, a former congressional candidate and successful Fayetteville businessman, said Jasper department employees told him the other day. He said they explained that they hadn’t known about the farm before their agency permitted it. “I was shocked to hear that,” Nelms told me.
If Nelms is right (and he usually is), it leaves me squealing yet again in the hazy realm of downright flabbergastion over the way this farm was smoothly guided through so many opened gates.
Nelms said he also found it hard to believe the contained animal feeding operation (supplied by the multinational corporation Cargill Inc.) would be permitted in the Buffalo National River watershed without the agency director, or the staff based in that county knowing it was being considered. And if they didn’t know, why not?
My own suspicions have been that this mega-hog factory was kept quiet and off the public radar as much as possible by powers that be until it was fully smoked and served. Not even one public hearing in either Jasper or Harrison beforehand? Really?
Isn’t it convenient when those in positions of public responsibility can simply plead plausible deniability, ignorance and/or blame others in the heat of controversy when the obvious right thing hasn’t (or isn’t) being done? And isn’t ours a fine example of ensuring accountability and embracing plain ol’ common sense in so many matters of public concern?
Speaking of common sense, Newton County’s quorum court fired off a response to the Fayetteville City Council’s April resolution against placing this hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed. The Newton County body, which I understand has at least one member who’s a co-owner of the farm, said it resented the “interference in the livelihoods of these families by the city of Fayetteville and other entities.” The premise of the objection is basically that anyone who lives outside Newton County should have no say about this national river, even if they and their families and friends enjoy it.
Tim Slape of Compton, who pushed for the court for its response to Fayetteville, offered what some from there might see as a brilliant argument when he was quoted in the Jasper weekly paper: “What I’d like to ask the quorum court to do is consider drawing up a resolution that states we’re against Bikes, Blues and Barbecue.” The reason, he said, is that the increase in motorcycle traffic passing through Newton County for the event puts an added stress on the county’s law enforcement and first responders.
Yet again, I find myself at a loss for words. Does that means if Slape had his druthers, he wouldn’t want bikers stopping in Newton County businesses en route to Fayetteville because he compares possibly contaminating every citizens’ national river with microbes from hog waste with bikers stressing local police?
Hmm. Well, valued readers, I believe I’ll just rest my case at the way this hog farm mess has been mishandled from the top down.
 
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

http://mikemastersonsmessenger.com/scientist-offers-cafo-karst-tests/

Updated: Groups Working To Prevent Hog Farm From Polluting Buffalo National River
 
Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on June 7, 2013 - 2:43am

Could a proposed hog farm not quite 6 miles from Buffalo National River contaminate the river?


Editor's note: This updates with comments from Cargill, clarifies that farm is operating.

An industrial hog farm that could produce more than 2 million gallons of manure and wastewater annually over porous karst geology roughly 5 miles up a tributary from the Buffalo National River was permitted based on erroneous information, according to a coalition opposing the project.

The "confined animal feeding operation," or CAFO, is proposed to handle upwards of 6,500 hogs a year. It is located close to Mount Judea, Arkansas, and near Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River.

“The ideal thing is to stop it. And the reason being, it’s in absolutely the wrong place, both in terms of being close to the national river, but even worst than that, it’s on karst formations," Jack Stewart, a spokesman for the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said Thursday during a phone call.

Karst geology is composed of easily dissolved rocks, such as limestone and dolomite. Via sinkholes and underground caves in the geology, groundwater can flow miles very quickly. In the National Park System, karst geology is perhaps mostly visibly connected to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, but it can also be found along the Buffalo National River and at Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri.

For many who love the Buffalo National River, the farm run by C&H Hog Farms came as a great surprise earlier this year, according to Mr. Stewart. Though he said there's evidence that the project has been in the works for some time, possibly as long as five years, it only came to light this past January after construction had begun. Under the permit the operation applied for, he explained, there was no requirement that the state publicize the project's permit application in newspapers, and it never was mentioned in the local paper.

On Thursday, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association, and the Ozark Society sent notice to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Association that they will be sued unless they ensure that loan guarantee assistance provide to C&H Hog Farms complies with all legal requirements.

The groups assert that the loan guarantee to the hog facility hinges on a flawed environmental review process that violates the law and does not follow USDA’s own regulations.

Earlier this year the superintendent of the Buffalo National River sent a letter of his own, running 11 pages, to the Arkansas executive director of the Farm Service Agency citing nearly four dozen concerns the Park Service had with an environmental assessment conducted in connection with the hog operation's permit application. In opening that letter, Superintendent Kevin Cheri said his staff had reviewed the EA and found it to be "very weak from an environmental point of view."

Additionally, he doubted that the Farm Service Agency had followed its own regulations in compiling the EA, particularly in how it "related to the public communication standard." Somewhat to that point, Superintendent Cheri noted that while the EA identified the National Park Service as a cooperating agency in the matter, "Since we never received word of the document, this is clearly in error."

Among the additional concerns cited by the superintendent were:

* National Environmental Policy Act regulations were not followed in the EA's preparation;

* The EA failed to back up with evidence its contention that no endangered species would be harmed by the hog farm;

* An endangered species, the Gray bat, roosts in caves at Buffalo National River and could be adversely affected if pollution from the hog farm enters Big Creek;

* The EA did not study how the hog farm might lower property values resulting from their proximity to the hog farm or the loss of "income to the people who use the Buffalo River as a source of income for ecotourism";

* While the EA states that the operation would not impact public health, "We feel that FSA utterly failed to consider the impact of the swine waste on the residents of Mount Judea, the people living downstream on Big Creek, or the people recreating within Buffalo National River. We feel that the FSA statement is completely false because 'Public Health' was not adequately analyzed."

On Friday, a spokesman for Cargill, an international food conglomerate that has contracted with C&H Hog Farms for piglets, said the operation was properly permitted and engineered above and beyond state requirements.

"We're as concerned as everybody else is, we don't want to see any adverse impact to the Buffalo River or any other waterways," said Mike Martin. "We believe that with the type of engineering that was done to ensure that there wouldn't be an environmental impact from a release of manure, by preventing a release of manure from this particular farm, that the environmental safeguards that are in place, first of all they're state-of-the-art, and second of all, they go well beyond anything that's required."

In a 25-page response to Superintendent Cheri's letter, Linda Newkirk, the Arkansas executive director of the Farm Service Agency, rebutted each of his comments while also noting that she shared his "concern for protection and preservation of the Buffalo National River and all natural resources in the State of Arkansas."

In a footnote to her response, Ms. Newkirk's staff wrote that "Superintendent Cheri's letter is fraught with conjecture and innuendo and unsubstantiated conclusions which the Farm Service Agency need not respond, but will as best possible based on the Environmental Assessment ("EA") prepared by Agency personnel and a Finding of No Significant Impact ("FONSI"), both of which are supported by extensive information and documentation contained in the EA file prepared by State and Federal Agencies and previously provided to Superintendent Cheri by the Agency."

Furthermore, Ms. Newkirk's response pointed out that the notices of the draft permit application were published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on February 10, 2011, and April 18, 2011, that six public meetings were held, and that no one appealed the decision to issue the permit.

While the Park Service is considered a cooperating agency, her staff noted, there was no obligation to contact the Buffalo National River because the hog farm's location is more than a quarter-mile from the park's boundaries and is not visible from it.

As to Superintendent Cheri's contention that the EA did not adequately consider public health impacts from the hog farm, the FSA staff pointedly replied, "NPS is oblivious to the EA process and its statement in Paragraph 26 is without basis and reckless at best. Based on the ADEQ and NPDES Analysis and Permit as well as the CNMP, there is nothing to indicate that the proposed operation will significantly affect public health and safety, based on NEPA requirements."

In a biting conclusion, the FSA staff wrote that:

The Superintendent of the Buffalo National River, National Park Service, does not understand the Class II Environment Assessment process as used in the case of the C & H Hog Farms project and has failed to take the time to have someone explain it to him, despite the fact that he has had two (2) years to do so. Both the public and applicable cooperating agencies at Federal, State and local levels have received properly published notices, public meetings and the opportunity to contest the permit issued by ADEQ and Class II assessment by the FSA. The project has been properly planned, documented, coordinated, analyzed and permitted in accordance with State and Federal law and complies with NEPA and the EPA, so as to protect the American public, the citizens of Arkansas, and the Buffalo National River.

Back at Cargill, Mr. Martin said hog farming has been done for generations in northwestern Arkansas, seemingly without harming the river.

"There were many more hogs in that immediate area, historically, than there are now. There were just more farms that hundreds of hogs on them rather than having 2,500 sows in one location," he said. "And so, when those farms existed and didn't have the same type of environmental safeguards for the waste lagoons and for dealing with the waste and nutrient management plan, that didn't seem to be a concern.

"There seems to be more of a concern because there's 2,500 sows in one location, as opposed to many more thousands of sows that were spread out over about nine to 11 locations that historically existed in that area. We find that kind of baffling as to why the previous farms that were largely unregulated in terms of being older farms and not having the same requirements that farms do today for environmental compliance, were somehow not as impactful in the view of some people," he said.

Opposition to the hog farm goes beyond the groups that notified the USDA and SBA of their intent to sue if the permitting process was not reviewed and corrected. A. Keen-Zebert, PhD, a geoscientist, Arkansas native, and professor of geosciences at Murray State University maintains a website tracking the hog farm.

A University of Arkansas geosciences professor also has written state officials to point to the unsuitability of karst geology for this sort of operation.

"Although many of the regulations of the NOI (Notice of Intent) appear to have been met ... the heart of the regulations -- the questions of nutrient loading and waste leakage -- are weak and incomplete and do not give confidence that the NOI plans are adequate for preserving environmental quality," wrote John Van Brahana. "My personal perception is that this document does not satisfy the requirements. Coupled with what was perceived as an air of secrecy and a less-than-obvious need for rapid or immediate action, the response of ADEQ in dealing with this project has reinforced the overall feeling that the proposed C&H Hog Farm is a highly risky water-quality endeavor in a fragile, lovely location."

The Buffalo River, designated in 1972 as the very first "national river," flows through the Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas. The underlying karst geology has riddled the park's landscape with more than 300 caves. The river and its surrounding forests and campgrounds draw more than 1 million visitors a year, many who come expressly to paddle the river. The tourism results in a $38 million economic boost to the region annually, according to NPCA.

In a press release, Emily Jones, a senior program manager in the NPCA's Southeast Region, said the Buffalo National River must be protected "from the waste and pollutants spewed from an atrociously misplaced industrial facility.”

Among the problems with FSA's environmental assessment, the coalition said, was that notice of the EA was never published in a local newspaper in the vicinity of Mount Judea, and no public comments were received. The Park Service, the groups added, wasn't notified of the EA until two months after roughly $3.5 million in loans were guaranteed by FSA and SBA to the C&H operation.

Robert Cross, president of the Ozark Society, said he too learned of the hog operation only months after its loans were guaranteed.

“I then read the EA in detail. In my many years in industry and academia I have never seen such irresponsibility and negligence in carrying out a task having so much importance to the primary stakeholdersundefinedthe American public," said Mr. Cross in comments carried in the press release. "Although 600 pages long, it is all virtually meaningless and obviously prepared with the thought that there would be no review. I do have faith in the American justice system in that FSA and SBA will be called to account as a step to stopping the hog farm in the fragile ecosystem of the Buffalo National River.”

Mr. Stewart also said Thursday that another flaw of the plan is the proposal to spray hog waste onto fields near Mount Judea schools. "There are studies that have shown that asthma rates increase dramatically around these CAFOs," he said.

The coalition's release also said the hog waste, rich in phosphorous, could be washed downstream in storm runoff and lead to algae growth and other ecological impacts in the Buffalo River. "With this facility sitting atop extremely porous ground, the risk for contamination of the Buffalo River is exceptionally high, and this risk is at odds with the protections required for a national park," the coalition said.

“We believe that FSA and SBA violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Buffalo National River Enabling Act with their loan guarantees to C&H,” Marianne Engelman Lado, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest law firm representing the groups, said in the release. “FSA also egregiously violated their own regulations requiring local public notice and proceeded through its entire environmental review and decision-making process with absolutely zero public input.”

The Buffalo battle

MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE


More than a generation ago, Arkansas residents and elected representatives joined hands to protect and preserve one of the last free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states. In 1972 the Buffalo River, the crown jewel of Arkansas, was designated America’s first national river. The pristine spring-fed waters that wind though the Ozarks are an environmental wonderland and the heart and soul of the Natural State.
For 40 years the Buffalo River has been essentially pollution free. But recently a state agency granted a permit that threatens its waters and the livelihoods of thousands of Arkansans. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality approved a factory hog farm on one of the river’s major tributaries. The C & H Hog Farms, a 6,500-pig facility (and its accompanying manure and urine), sits atop porous land in Newton County that drains into Big Creek and several miles later into the Buffalo. The hog farm is contracted by Cargill, a huge international conglomerate.
How did we get here? It’s a question that leaves all of us scratching our heads … even many elected officials. The permit was granted without notifying surrounding landowners, county residents, county officials, the Arkansas Department of Health, or the National Park Service. ADEQ simply placed a notice on its website for 30 days and another in the back of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The permitting process flew under the radar and Arkansans didn’t discover what had happened until nine months after the fact. Every state that surrounds Arkansas calls for local notifications and allows public hearings before granting a permit, but for some reason that did not happen here.
The impact of a factory farm of 6,500 pigs is very real. Even best management practices and an operator concerned with environmental impacts can’t prevent animal waste from leaching through the limestone geology or spilling over holding ponds. C & H is proposing to dump additional phosphorus-laden waste onto fields that already have all or more than they need. This could cause significant amounts of phosphorus infiltration to groundwater and possibly runoff. And based on soil maps, seven of the 17 C & H fields are occasionally flooded by Big Creek and its tributaries throughout the time period phosphorus would be spread and applied, an issue obscured by C & H’s permit application.
C & H Hog Farms will produce over two million gallons of manure each year. That’s 8,500 tons. In other states, year after year there are disasters:
In July 2009, a manure holding pond ruptured in Illinois, sending 200,000 gallons into a nearby river. The spill traveled almost 20 miles downstream, killing close to 110,000 fish.
In 2010, an Indiana hog farm operator sprayed 200,000 gallons of hog manure onto a field during rainy weather. The runoff killed 40,000 fish in two nearby rivers.
In 2011 in Iowa, a breach in a hog manure holding pond leaked into a nearby river, killing fish five miles downstream.
Imagine any of those scenarios happening in the Buffalo River watershed. As a national river, the Buffalo is entitled to the highest level of protection, and we shouldn’t risk contamination.
Cargill and the people behind C & H Hog Farms have a right to make a living, but so do the people who live and work in the Buffalo River region. In 2012, direct tourism expenditures in Arkansas totaled $5.7 billion.
The Buffalo National River is an anchor for tourism in the Ozarks where over a million people visit each year. They spend money in our stores. They rent our vacation homes. They eat in our restaurants. They fish and float our river. Last year the Buffalo River generated $38 million in revenue and created 528 jobs. In contrast, C & H Hog Farms will create only 10 jobs while generating tons of pollution and putting those other 528 jobs at risk. Tourism is a clean, locally sustainable industry that imports wealth and leaves behind no residue.
Because of this dire threat to our river and our state, we have joined forces to protect the Buffalo River and preserve the legacy passed down to us by our parents and grandparents. The Ozark Society, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance are working together to correct a grave mistake.
Hank Bates, a Little Rock environmental attorney and a member of our coalition, recently sent a letter to ADEQ Director Teresa Marks challenging the permit based upon the hog farm’s nutrient management plan and its many holes and inaccuracies. At a public meeting in Jasper, Marks said she would revoke, modify or suspend the factory farm’s permit if it contained significant omissions of relevant facts. There is no doubt that this is the case.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that Mr. Bates supplied to ADEQ , Director Marks recently responded by essentially ignoring the law and refuting nothing. Respected hydrologists and geologists recognize the risk to our treasured river and support our position. ADEQ seems to want to sweep this under the rug and move on.
In May, our organizations also sent a notice of intent to sue to the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its $4 million loan guarantee to the factory farm. The USDA action may violate the Endangered Species Act. The watershed is home to over 300 species of fish, insects, freshwater mussels, and aquatic plants, including the endangered snuffbox mussel, the endangered gray bat, and the endangered Indiana bat.
Listing all of the failures and misrepresentations surrounding the permitting process would take many pages. One thing is absolutely clear, though: The actions of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and USDA’s Farm Service Agency have threatened the livelihoods of thousands of Arkansans and the river’s fragile ecosystem.
The Buffalo River is a regional and national treasure as well as a vital part of our economy. There are thousands of square miles in other parts of the state that are much more suitable for factory farms.
We remain confident that this messy situation will soon be resolved expeditiously, based on the facts. The permitting process was inadequate. It did not receive proper public input. More importantly, it did not take into consideration the public health of area residents, the almost certain pollution of Arkansas’s crown jewel, and the economic threat to the region’s multimillion-dollar tourism industry.
Michael Dougherty is president of the Buffalo River Chamber of Commerce and member of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.

Written by

FRANK WALLIS

Arkansas’ chief enforcer of environmental law has its hands full in Baxter and Newton counties.
A war of press releases, public commentary and rebuttals continues over a large new hog farm in the Buffalo National River watershed that some believe is a threat to the ecosystem of the Ozarks.
Little Rock attorney Hank Bates, whose clients include the Ozark Society, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association and the Arkansas Canoe Club, expects to meet today with Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks.
That’s just a sampling of those opposed to C & H Hog Farm Inc. in Newton County. The latest undefined Dr. John Van Brahana, a retired professor of geosciences for the University of Arkansas undefined explained his opposition Monday on university letterhead stationery.
The hog farm fight is just one on the north Arkansas front for ADEQ. The agency has filed a lawsuit against the six-county Ozark Mountain Solid Waste Management District, which includes Newton County, seeking a judge’s order to district directors to bring the NABORS landfill in north Baxter County into compliance with environmental and financial-assurance regulations.
Citizens for Clean Water complained Wednesday about a lack of action by ADEQ for cleanup of the Damco Inc. waste tire storage site in north Baxter County. The facility is approved to store 880 bales of tires containing 100 tires each. A recent inspection shows it contains 4,000 bales of tires.
Brahana’s complaint, directed to ADEQ director Marks, is couched in the the professor’s understanding of subterranean karst geology known as the Boone Formation underneath Newton County. The professor complains that underground water, including any from the hog farm, can move through porous karst formations as quickly as water flows above ground.
“I know of no active karst consultant who recommends that a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) be sited on karstified limestone, particularly up-gradient from so sensitive a natural resource as the Buffalo National River, with its direct-contact use by canoeists, fishermen and swimmers,” Brahana wrote.

The farm sits less than six miles from the Buffalo River, near its confluence with Big Creek.
Brahana’s letter was circulated on the Internet this week as an attachment to still another letter to Marks from Bates on behalf of the Ozark Society, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association and Arkansas Canoe Club.
Meanwhile, 30 days have passed since most of Bates’ clients, represented in Washington by law firm Earthjustice, sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Farm Services Agency because of the hog farm’s alleged threat to endangered species.
ADEQ granted a permit in August 2012 to C & H partners for concentrated feeding of up to 2,500 gestation sows and up to 4,000 piglets under roof, and storage of more than 2 million gallons of of manure, litter and wastewater. The mix is to be diluted and dispersed by liquid spray applicators over a 630-acre area, according to a 260-page permit application posted to ADEQ’s website.
The following statement is a common thread in press releases from organizations opposed to the farm:
“The C & H facility’s loan and guarantee were issued in the summer and fall of 2012. Because of a failure to notify local residents, however, the community in and around Mount Judea did not find out about the facility’s construction until this year. The lack of adequate public notice is just one of a number of egregious failures on the part of the state and federal government to ensure that this facility will not have detrimental impacts on the exceptional natural resources of the Buffalo River watershed.”
ADEQ claims to have held six public hearings in 2011 before adopting the general permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations that enabled C & H Hog Farms to borrow money through the Farm Service Agency to build and operate.
On May 15, Bates published a litany of alleged omissions, errors and misrepresentations in a nutrient management plan ADEQ approved for C & H Hog Farm based on what Bates says is an inaccurate soil test furnished by livestock feed vendor Cargill Inc. Bates says C & H’s plan to apply phosphorus-laden farm waste onto nearby fields already rich in phosphates will pollute Big Creek and the Buffalo and should mandate ADEQ to revoke the C & H permit.
Seven days later Marks responded by letter and roundly disagreed with Bates claims.
“A review of the data provided to ADEQ shows the correct soil type was provided and entered into the (phosphates) index spreadsheet,” Marks wrote.
Perry Wheeler, a spokesman for the National Parks Conservation Association, said Wednesday that Bates’ meeting today with Marks will be private, to discuss issues generally.
He said there’s no plan for a press release following the meeting.

County With Controversial Hog Farm Tells Fayetteville To Butt Out

Animal Waste Threatens America’s First National River, Public Health, and Arkansas Tourism

Geologist wants hog farm suspended, writes letter to ADEQ