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Hog farm flub

How’d that happen?
By Mike Masterson
This article was published 3/26/13 at 4:21 a.m.

 
I can’t understand how our state’s Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency (FSA) would even consider approving the C&H Farms proposal for a commercial hog farm near Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo National River.

Yet our government agencies did grant the permit and the FSA even used incomplete and inaccurate information in submitting its environmental assessment report concerning potential pollution to the Buffalo.

That’s the bottom line of growing concern here: The likely seep of potent hog-waste pollution from this farm and its fields along Big Creek into America’s first national river flowing just 26,000 feet downstream.

Wasn’t protecting its purity the very reason for declaring the Buffalo a protected national river? Why does the Department of Environmental Quality even exist if not for such circumstances?

I’m no authority on farm animal waste. Yet all I’ve read about the comparisons between the enormous polluting qualities of swine raised in heavy concentrations shocks even me. These hogs are far more prolific polluters than we people. And we have sewage treatment systems.

The National Institutes of Health says contaminants from swine farm wastes can enter the environment through leakage from poorly constructed manure lagoons, or during major rainfalls that cause the lagoons to overflow. There also is the potential runoff from recent applications of waste to farm fields.

There are many contaminants in swine waste, some of which can damage human health. While lagoons can help destroy or reduce many pathogens, it’s clear to me they’re often not enough to stop seepages that contaminate their surroundings.

As for applying hog waste to fields within a couple hundred feet of the Mount Judea school for up to three months a year, the National Park Service, in rebutting the FSA environmental assessment, said: “We also contend that risking pollution of Big Creek with phosphorus is quite controversial since it flows into America’s First National River.”

The Park Service rebuttal letter also said the nutrient management plan submitted for the farm’s loan won’t protect water quality as written because the hog waste contains too much phosphorus for the amount of land. “How can FSA say there will be no impact to water resources without knowing the baseline conditions?” the Park Service asks.

North Carolina is among the nation’s leaders in industrial swine farms, and its environment is paying a price. A 1995 study by North Carolina State University estimated that more than half the manure lagoons on hog farms there were leaking, adding that even without leaks, manure lagoons are so fragile that major storms often result in overflows.

But the waste is but one part of the problem. There’s also the extremely putrid smell that can cover miles. Farm odors cause stress and negative moods in neighboring residents, according to a 2009 study in the American Journal of Public Health.

I’m equally concerned about the way this proposed corporate farm gained the state permit it needed to acquire the loan from a generous Farm Services Agency. There are lots of questions and red flags flapping over and around this ill-advised project.

For example, in the proposed farm’s Notice of Intent filed with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, it states that the town of Mount Judea is 1.6 miles from the farm’s barn on local roads.

Yet the map accompanying the notice shows a 2,000-foot circle around the farm’s barn with the farm’s waste-dispersal fields touching the banks of Big Creek (widely considered a border to the community of Mount Judea). Which is it? I suspect any pollution from the farm would be following a crow rather than a road.

This is alarming to me, especially since the Park Service says it wasn’t consulted about this farm until after the permit and loan had been approved. That process required the FSA’s environmental assessment form, which the Park Service said contained 45 specific omissions, contradictions and inaccuracies. Who completed and submitted this document? And which federal official accepted and approved it in this form?

I’m wondering why the loan hasn’t already been rescinded and an inquiry launched into the way it was prepared and submitted. If I’d acquired a loan using information that was afterwards shown to be inaccurate, misleading and/or erroneous, the lending agency would be canceling our agreement post-haste and relevant questions would be asked.

What can we do? First, go to the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance website (buffaloriveralliance.org) for many more relevant details than I can provide here.

Then you might email or phone your local legislators. Then you could contact the governor’s office and the Department of Environmental Quality. The USDA Inspector General’s office can be reached at (202) 690-1622.


Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Ozarks at Large March 25 http://www.kuaf.com/content/commission-discusses-swine-farm

News Release

Contact Information: Katherine Benenati / 501.682.0821 / benenati@adeq.state.ar.us

FOR RELEASE: March 22, 2013

ADEQ TO HOLD MEETING IN JASPER ON HOG FARM


The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality will hold an informational meeting in Jasper on May 8 to provide information on a permit issued for C & H Hog Farms to operate in Mount Judea.
The meeting will start at 6 p.m. in the Carroll Electric Cooperative building at 511 E Court St., Jasper. ADEQ staff will make a presentation on the permit and will be available to answer questions.
“In recent weeks, we’ve fielded a number of questions on the facility,” ADEQ Director Teresa Marks said. “We want to visit the community to provide information in person and hopefully answer some questions that have been raised about the operation and how our permitting process works.”
The Department granted coverage in August 2012 to C & H Hog Farms under a General Permit for Concentrated Feeding Operations (CAFOs). C & H Hog Farm, which is under construction, is the first facility that sought coverage under the CAFO General Permit and to date is the only facility that has been approved under the General Permit.
The CAFO permit program was the result of a 2003 lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency that required EPA to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations. States that had delegation from EPA for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit programs were required to either adopt the EPA permit or develop their own permit for concentrated animal feeding operations.
ADEQ held six public hearings in 2011 before adopting the General Permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Such operations include hog farms, dairy farms and poultry farms. A General Permit is a permit that is applicable for a class or category of similar facilities and has specific conditions and requirements that must be met by any facility that seeks coverage pursuant to it.
Information on the facility can be viewed online at www.adeq.state.ar.us. Viewers should first select databases in the blue tab, then select “ADEQ Facility and Permit Summary (PDS).” To pull up the information, viewers can type “C & H” in the facility name and hit search.
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Publication:Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Date:Mar 23, 2013; Section:Northwest Arkansas; Page Number:9


Pollution panel: Improve notices
Hog-farm permit in Buffalo River watershed prompts order
RYAN MCGEENEY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE



Commissioners with the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission ordered Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks on Friday to return in April with a plan to improve public notification of pending permits.

The department’s decision to approve a permit for a 6,500-animal hog farm inside the Buffalo National River watershed has drawn criticism from advocates for the Buffalo National River.

The directive, issued by commission Chairman Stan Jorgensen, came after two hours of public comment concerning a confined animal feeding operations general permit that the Environmental Quality Department issued to C&H Farms in Mount Judea. Most of those protesting the permit addressed the potential dangers to the national river and the failure of the department to adequately notify the public that such a permit was under consideration.

At Friday’s meeting, Debbie Doss, conservation chairman for the Arkansas Canoe Club, summarized the complaints of about a dozen others, each of whom cited being taken by surprise by the issuance of the permit, despite being regularly engaged in public-policy participation.

“If no one here knows what’s going on, there’s something wrong with the notification process,” Doss said.

In 2010, the Environmental Quality Department began developing what is known as the “confined animal feeding operations general permit” under the guidelines of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems program authorized by the federal Clean Water Act. The new permit requires operators to establish extensive retaining systems for animal waste and other byproducts, but also allows operators to discharge waste from animal confinement areas into public waterways in the event of extraordinary rainfall.

Between Feb. 11 and March 11, 2011, the department held six public-comment sessions around the state, during which comments from more than a dozen individuals, organizations and corporations were recorded. However, the review process concerned only the new confined animal feeding operations permit and had nothing to do with specific operations such as C&H Farms. The Arkansas confined animal feeding operations general permit became effective Nov. 1, 2011.

C&H Farms was the first entity to apply for the new permit. Owners of the 670-acre farm, which is along the banks of Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo River, completed a notice of intent to apply for the general permit in June 2012. While the notice of intent was posted on the Environmental Quality Department’s website, no further efforts were made to contact area residents or agencies about the permit application.

Interested parties can sign up to receive e-mail notifications from the department when it receives “notice of intent” applications for several kinds of permits, including permits for hazardous waste, solid waste and wastewater. According to department spokesman Katherine Benenati, an e-mail based mailing list that distributes information on applications for water permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems program was added to the site Feb. 19.

In August, the department issued the state’s first confined animal feeding operations general permit to C&H Farms, having received no public comment regarding the proposal.

Public outcry from environmental organizations and business owners who derive their income from tourism along the Buffalo National River began to mount after Kevin Cheri, superintendent of the river, expressed concern to Marks in a letter dated Dec. 20 over the National Park Service not being consulted during the permitting process for C&H Farms.

Marks responded to Cheri’s letter by explaining the history and process of creating the confined animal feeding operations general permit, rather than addressing specific information related to C&H Farms.

Marks told the commission Friday that during the process of gathering public comment on the state’s new general permit, administrators had no way of foreseeing an operation like C&H Farms.

“The problem is, nobody knew at that time that a [confined animal feeding operation] was going to go into the Buffalo River watershed,” Marks said.

“When that came out, that went on our website,” Marks said, referring to the notice regarding C&H Farms. “And that’s what folks are saying they didn’t get. They feel that that was wrong, and I understand what they’re saying.”

Marks said she felt that despite public objections, greater public notice of the C&H Farms permit would not have changed the department’s decision to approve the permit.

“If you don’t want anything going into the Buffalo River watershed, then you need to look at how you can prevent discharges into the Buffalo River watershed. It’s that kind of issue. It’s not a notice issue,” Marks said. “As long as it’s legal for us to permit there, I don’t know how we would have denied this permit based upon what I have heard, because it’s a permitable facility under current law.”

Jorgensen told Marks to formulate a new approach to notifying the public to permit applications for presentation at the commission’s April 15 meeting.

“This process doesn’t work, not well,” Jorgensen said. “In this situation, for sure.”

After the meeting adjourned, Marks said a new process would likely concentrate on alerting county judges on a monthly basis to all new notices of intent that the department receives for affected counties.

Our Buffalo and the hog farm

Mike Masterson


Those in Northwest Arkansas during the late 1990s likely recall the firestorm of public outcry to the state’s politicized decision (eventually reversed) to permit a landfill on one side of Hobbs Mountain near Durham.

 http://www.wral.com/groups-opposing-plans-for-newton-county-hog-farm/12227474/

ADEQ has granted a permit for a 6503 swine farm (CAFO) near Big Creek, West of Mt. Judea, (Hwy. intersections 74/123) in Newton County, Arkansas. There will be 17 separate hog waste application fields, 11 of these are adjacent to Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River. Total acreage = 630.7 acres. The treatment facility will consist of shallow pits with a capacity of 759,542 gallons, a settling basin with capacity of 831,193 gallons and a holding pond with capacity of 1,904,730 gallons. This amounts to 2,090,181 gallons of manure, litter, and wastewater per year, equivalent to what the city of Harrison produces.

There are several concerns:

Newton County residents were not notified of the request for a permit and were not given an opportunity to comment. The only notification of C&H Hog Farm, Inc. appeared on the ADEQ website, buried with other permit applications. No local newspaper had articles alerting the public to the comment period for this specific farm. This appears to result from a change in rules by the EPA, which since 2011 authorizes ADEQ to administer statewide general permits. Under this system, anyone can apply for a permit to build a CAFO if they follow the permitting procedure and submit plans that meet certain requirements. No environmental impact statement is required and no distinction between geological substrate underlying the soil is made. This, in spite of the fact that there have been sewage lagoon collapses causing pollution of underground water, when caves in karst formation, like the formation underlying the C&H Farm, have collapsed!

Pollution of Air and Water

One of the co-owners has asked us why we are talking about pollution before the fact. The fact is that both water and air pollution are certain. The facility is being constructed to protect against a 25 year rain event. That means an abnormal amount of rain falling in a short time raising water levels above the expected flood that may occur once in 25 years. According to the USGS we had a 50 year flood in 1982, and a 25 year flood in 2008, March 19th. Between 2002 and 2012 there were nine occasions of “flood plain inundations” (extreme rain events). Such an inundation will wash hog waste sprayed on fields into Big Creek. The farm is on porous karst geology, therefore seepage into underground water is also nearly certain. Many in the community depend on wells for household water. Wells will become polluted. ADEQ mentions a monitoring station in Big Creek which would alert officials to polluted water. However, by the time pollution is registered, it may be too late for the species that are currently under study for endangered listing. They can only exist because BNR water is pristine. Once pollutants lodge in gravel bars, ammonia and methane are released which are toxic to fish and mussels.

Average farm mortality of hogs is 10%. C&H Hog Farm has no provision for the disposal of carcasses, which are usually burned, or the resulting ash. Hog farm odors in general are not healthy. Toxic wastes released into air and water can contain viruses, parasites, antibiotic resistant bacteria, hormones, as well as ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide (a neurotoxin).

Health Issues

Twenty five percent of employees working in CAFO facilities report serious respiratory problems in addition to nausea and headache. Increased illness rates in people living near CAFOs include respiratory problems, confusion, depression, fatigue, and gastroenteritis.

Mt. Judea school is only 1/16 mile from the waste application fields. Studies show a 12.4 % increase in children’s asthma in those living ½ mile from a CAFO. The toxic wastes containing neurotoxins as well as the other dangerous substances listed above can have adverse and irreversible effects on brain and nervous system development.

Besides the above illnesses, the public in general is exposed to more drug resistant bacteria. The rural life, prized for outdoor activities, is threatened when homeowners need to protect themselves from air and manure from a CAFO.

Economic Issues

Communities may think there will be an increase in jobs, however once the facility is complete and operation begins, evidence shows that loss of jobs, depressed property values, loss of income for local business and a huge drain on county resources result from a CAFO coming into a rural area. In a CAFO one employee replaces three that would work on a farm. About ten jobs are expected to result from this farm, probably minimum wage positions. Costs of road and bridge upgrades and repairs increase. Decreased home and land value affects tax assessments and therefore county revenues. Cost for gravel road upkeep increased 40% in the study. CAFOs can be eligible for tax-write-offs. And CAFO operations spend less than 20% locally, while small farmers spend 95% locally. Pollution from the CAFO precludes new business, and any cleanup is by the local tax payers.

Land value will decrease. Average property values decrease by 6.6 % within a 3 mile radius of a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) and by 88% within a 1/10 mile radius of such a factory farm.
One hog farm is likely to invite others to locate in the area, as supplies, food and transport will be more economical when scaled up.

Family farms and farm animals are welcome in Newton county. However, this C&H Hog Farms,Inc. is a confined (or consolidated) animal feeding operation of over 6000 swine, only 100 feet in some places separating it from a major tributary of the Buffalo National River. The number of hogs in this one area will about equal the human population of the entire county.

A $38 million dollar tourism industry is being put at risk.


Land Rights

The people of Newton County should not have their air, water, health, and land degraded and devalued by a giant corporation, Cargill. Buffalo National River, the country’s first National River, which belongs to us all, is in danger of losing its extraordinary water quality. As one of the countries highest quality recreational rives, its pristine water is the very thing which attracts over a million visitors each year and allows the variety of birds and wildlife along its banks to exist.


Geology

Unlike Iowa, where Cargill designs its CAFO operations, our karst topography in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas is porous limestone and riddled with caves, seeping springs, and underground waterways. Spreading manure or using holding ponds here does not ensure that the groundwater will be unaffected by waste seepage. Any opening in the soil could be the entrance to a sinkhole or cave yet undiscovered.
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On Monday March 4th the Newton County Quorum Court heard testimony on the CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) planned on Big Creek, a tributary just 5 miles from the Buffalo National River. NPS review of the supporting documentation found 45 areas of significant errors and omissions in the area of environmental impact. Concerns included inadequate monitoring provisions, the threat to the $38M BNR tourism economy, and the impact of Mount Judea Schools.

The second "Battle for the Buffalo River" will have many chapters. We begin here and now.  If we lose the battle to protect water quality, we lose it all. Our wild river will be dead.