Buffalo River Watershed Alliance
Arkansas Times
By
Max Brantley
On June 13, 2019
Gov. Asa Hutchinson used an appearance before the Arkansas Municipal League today to announce that a deal had been struck to remove the C and H factory hog feeding operation from the Buffalo River watershed.
The farmers will get $6.2 million, mostly public money but also from the Nature Conservancy, to take their hog waste away.
The farm has been an enormous controversy since it was approved with little notice during the Beebe administration. The owners, with significant support from the Arkansas Farm Bureau, have resisted efforts to shut it down. Lawsuits and regulatory hearings have dragged on as environmentalists argued that the porous limestone geology beneath the concentrated animal feeding operation allowed hog waste to seep into the water table and that land application of waste had also contributed to runoff that was polluting a nearby stream that feeds into the Buffalo National River, a prime tourist attraction. Coincidentally or not, the river has been marred recently by heavy algae growth.
The deal will include a payment, including state money, to the farm operators, who were under contract to supply pork to one of the world’s largest protein producers, JBSBrazil. The state will get a conservation easement that ends a hog feeding operation on the farm at Mount Judea in Newton County.
The operators, while suing to get a permit for continued operation, had also been investigating other potential sites. One in Franklin County was recently imperiled by the Arkansas River flooding, but a spokesman for Arkansas Pork Producers told me then that an effort to get a permit for a hog farm there had been withdrawn. The agreement today makes no mention of future plans by the hog farmers.
In the recent legislative session, the Farm Bureau narrowly failed in a push to remove hog farm regulation from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and move it to an agency where local farmers have strong influence and without less scientific expertise. The governor had urged a delay in that legislation after it passed the Senate. It was pulled down after it ran into House opposition.
Opponents had developed a scathing attack on the hog triangle created by the farm: The farm sends dollars to Brazil (JBS); JBS sends pork chops to China, the farm sends hog manure to the Buffalo River.
It’s a big win for the governor.
Legalruralism Blog
by Lisa Pruitt
I have spilled a lot of (proverbial) ink on this concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) story since 2013, when I wrote posts like this one (and note its two prior embedded posts) about an industrial hog farm that slipped by regulators to get a permit for siting in the watershed of Arkansas's Buffalo National River, a major tourist attraction and ecotourism revenue driver for the state. These events happened in my "own backyard" (or at least that of my mom, as I no longer liver in Arkansas), which helps my explain my engagement (and outrage). Never mind the many blog posts about the "hog farm" here on Legal Ruralism, I even wrote an academic journal article about this matter, as well as an op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I hadn't been following the matter very closely in recent months, though I knew the industrial hog farm owners, under contract with JBS of Brazil, had lost some recent legal bouts with environmental interests over renewal of permits, including permits for where they could spread the hog manure. So, imagine my delight when the (Republican) governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, made what has been billed as a "surprise" announcement that the State of Arkansas had reached a settlement to pay the owners of the hog farm $6.2 million to close the operation and grant the State of Arkansas a conservation easement. The owners of the hog farm will retain a "fee simple" in the farmland, which sits right on the banks of Big Creek (a Buffalo River tributary), and across that creek from the Mt. Judea School. Most of the funds going to the buyout will come from the state's coffers, but up to a million will be paid by The Nature Conservancy. Perhaps most interesting is that Governor Hutchinson commented today, when announcing the settlement while speaking to the 85th Annual Arkansas Municipal League Convention, commented the permit to the CAFO should never have been granted. That's a dig at his Democratic predecessor, Mike Beebe, on whose watch the permit slipped (or was pushed?) through the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. I've never quite been able to figure out (and as far as I know, no one else has either), whether the primary culprit was an ignorant bureaucrat or one on the take from corporate or business interests. When the hog farm was built--essentially in secrecy--the farmers were to be under contract with Cargill, but Cargill's hog operations were eventually sold to JBS. As I detailed in my academic journal article, the USDA approved loans for the hog farm, but it did so with a particularly shoddy environmental impact statement that did not acknowledge environmental justice concerns (Mt. Judea is the poorest part of a persistent poverty county, Newton County). Here's a quote about what's next, from today's coverage in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, as well as some early backlash against the settlement.
It’s a big win for the governor, though some social media criticism has already broken out about the $6.2 million payment. “Negotiating with terrorists,” was how one environmentalist put it.
The one commenter on that Tweet said, "More of that Republican Socialism. It's only bad when they're helping the poor." Hutchinson has drawn national attention to Arkansas for his advocacy and imposition of work requirements for safety net programs, such as the state's Medicaid expansion.
POSTED BY LISA R. PRUITT AT 7:33 PM NO COMMENTS:LINKS TO THIS POST
LABELS: AGRIBUSINESS, AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, LAW, LOCAL GOVERNMENT, MY HOMETOWN, RURAL POVERTY, THE SOUTH
Springfield News-Leader
OPINION
Loring Bullard, Linda Chorice, Barbara Lucks, John Madras, Todd Parnell, Joe Pitts, Barry Rowell, Beth Siegfried, Tim Smith, Terry Whaley
Published 6:30 p.m. CT June 12, 2019
This is a message to raise awareness, a "wake-up call" of sorts.
Those of us listed below have come together as citizens to express our concerns about a little known action taken by the Missouri legislature in the final week of session regarding factory farms known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), and the authority of locally elected county officials, or "local control." We fear that the action presents a serious potential threat to water quality and quality of life in the Ozarks.
We have all worked for and with water science and advocacy groups in leadership roles and are committed to keeping our Ozarks waters clean forever. Our purpose in sharing this message is to ensure that this threat does not go unnoticed.
Let's begin with the bill, SB 391, that passed and the chilling effect it has on our ability to protect the Ozarks from corporate farms. It bans counties in Missouri from enacting regulations for corporate, often foreign-owned, farms that are more stringent than state regulations. The Missouri legislature has steadily diminished these laws over the past five years to encourage the expansion of factory farms.
Counties in the Ozarks potentially impacted by this bill include Greene and Stone, which had previously passed county zoning ordinances, and Dade and Cedar, which had county health ordinances in place that prohibit or limit the size of CAFOs.
Loss of local control removes the last line of defense for communities that do not want the stench, threats to water supplies and loss of property values that accompany such huge corporate operations.
For those who may not know, CAFOs are large, open-air buildings or feedlots with cattle, hogs, turkeys or chickens jammed beak to tail feather or snout to bottom for fattening up. A CAFO is defined by the number of animals confined, with 1,000 or more cattle, 5,000-10,000 pigs and 35,000-40,000 chickens or turkeys as the norm. Their excrement ends up in open-air lagoons or underlying pits until it is sprayed on or injected into adjoining fields, or transferred for offsite application. Concentrated animal waste is particularly damaging in the Ozarks, where rain, runoff and seepage through shallow soils represent a clear and present danger to the unique Ozarks karst topography of springs, creeks, streams, lakes and water tables. Once a CAFO is permitted, it is not easy to limit its growth and environmental impact or get rid of it.
Just ask our neighbors to the south along the Buffalo National River. In 2012, local families colluded with a major international conglomerate to place a 6,500-pig CAFO next to Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo National River, just six miles from its confluence with the river. This facility was permitted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and continues to spew untreated waste into the Buffalo, despite refusal of the same agency to renew the permit last year. The dispute languishes in the court system and likely will for the foreseeable future.
True family farming has been a valued and respected way of life in the Ozarks since its beginnings. There is no family farming going on here. It is an international meat factory that has caused the beautiful Buffalo River to become clogged with green algae.
Since 2013, politicians in Jefferson City have steadily diluted regulation of CAFOs to attract their business from states that are becoming more vigilant in oversight. During that time period, construction permit requirements have been waived, and the need to demonstrate "continuing authority," or the ability of owners to provide evidence of financial viability to properly manage operations, has been eliminated.
Perhaps most damaging, the Missouri Clean Water Commission, which issues CAFO permits, has been stacked with agricultural interests, thus crippling the last venue for citizen intervention in environmental destruction and corporate avarice beyond local control, which has now been stripped by legislators. What until recently was a requirement that four of seven commissioners be "independent" and representative of the general public has been legislated out of existence.
If Missouri legislators wish to make our state into the largest hog-producing state in the nation, there is not much we can do beyond voting against them. But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical that these same legislators who rail against too much government interference think it is fine for the state to override laws passed by local citizens to protect their own communities?
And if a 6,500-pig confined animal feeding operation can suddenly appear along America's first national river in the heart of the Ozarks, the same could now happen in Dade, Cedar, Stone and even Greene counties with this new ban on local control.
Our Ozarks landscapes and waters are particularly vulnerable and unsuited for CAFOs. We urge people of the Ozarks to make their voices heard. We will aggressively fight the expansion of large corporate farms into the fragile topography and bountiful waters of the Ozarks. We hope you will join us.
Loring Bullard, retired director, Watershed Committee of the Ozarks
Linda Chorice, retired manager, Springfield Conservation Nature Center
Barbara Lucks, former sustainability officer, city of Springfield (retired), now in private consulting
John Madras, retired director, Water Protection Program, Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Todd Parnell, retired member and chairman of the Missouri Clean Water Commission
Joe Pitts, retired director, James River Basin Partnership
Barry Rowell, retired fire chief, city of Springfield
Beth Siegfried, retired educator
Tim Smith, retired Greene County and city of Springfield administration
Terry Whaley, retired director, Ozarks Greenways
Democrat Gazette
Buffalo River Alliance, Arkansas Canoe Club to sue hog farm
by Staff Report | June 12, 2019
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and the Arkansas Canoe Club announced a Notice of Intent to sue C&H Hog Farms, Inc. due to violations of the Clean Water Act, according to a news release from the alliance.
The Buffalo River Alliance claims C&H has illegally discharged swine waste, applied for a permit by misrepresenting facts and operated its facilities without a valid permit, according to the release.
C&H is "attempting to extend coverage of its now-expired General Permit coverage" by appealing decisions of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission and filing suit against the state Department of Environmental Quality, the alliance claims in the release.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality denied a Regulation 5 permit application by C&H after the farm's permit lapsed.
The Buffalo River Alliance and the Arkansas Canoe Club will file suit against C&H in U.S. District Court if the violations are not corrected within 60 days, the release stated.
NW News on 06/13/2019
Mountainous waste
Duane Woltjen, an active member of (and leader in) virtually all environmental efforts across our state, and an advocate for our Buffalo National River, wrote to comment on my column in response to Warren Carter's May 16 guest essay explaining why the Farm Bureau supports the controversial C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea.
Educated as a mechanical engineer, Woltjen stays current with the latest developments with C&H and its 6,500 swine, whose enormous amounts of waste are regularly spread across the Buffalo watershed.
Accordingly, he shared some calculations about how much leaking waste is actually approved for release into the karst subsurface on and around the spray fields.
First, he explained that the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) allows 5,000 gallons a day for each acre of sewage containment ponds. That's cited in the factory's application to the agency. Such a distinction matters because the factory's two ponds contain about 1.232 acres, which equals over 6,100 gallons leaked daily.
"So how much is that if spread across a college football field, which is 360 by 160 feet including the end zones, 160 times 360 feet equals 57,600 square feet," he reasoned. "And 6,158 leaked gallons a day per acre times 365 days a year amounts to 2,247,670 allowable gallons annually.
"If we spread those millions of gallons times 0.1337 cubic feet-per-gallon, that equals 300,470 cubic feet annually. That amount spread over 57,600 square feet totals 5.2 feet deep across a football field. And that's just what's allowable. This means ADEQ would not consider it a violation if the ponds have leaked enough waste to cover a football field to an accumulated depth of 36 feet," since its now-defunct Regulation 6 permit was issued in 2012.
He also wondered whether the department or the C&H operators (who are obligated to "self-report" leakage) even know if their ponds leaked that much or even more. Would it be obvious? If so, how? Records show the last recorded agency inspection of this factory was in 2016.
"Calculations reveal those 6,158 allowable leaking gallons daily will lower the level of the ponds 0.184 inches. With waste constantly flowing in, then withdrawn to spray across fields along and around tributary Big Creek, I'm betting nobody will notice 3/16 of an inch change in a pond level," Woltjen continued. "So pond leakage would be basically concealed from scrutiny."
Reader Patricia Heck wrote a while back to summarize this once-avoidable mess: "Thanks for your efforts to save the Buffalo River from the grasping greed and politics in our society. I love farmers (even those supported by my tax money) but hog farms do not belong above a major tributary of the Buffalo.
"I grew up on a farm and recognize a pig pen when I see one, and I question the motivation of the Farm Bureau and the University of Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service. Has greed surpassed conservation at our Buffalo National River as it has in other national parks?"
Meanwhile, the National Park Service in a new release estimates 1.2 million visitors pumped $54.9 million into the region during 2018.
I'm hoping Asa Hutchinson's legacy will be as the governor who closed this grossly mislocated factory (still operating without a permit) if it's not too late.
------------v------------
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 06/09/2019
Inquiry is nearly finished at JBSBrazil meat giant adheres to orderby GERSON FREITAS JR. BLOOMBERG NEWS | Today at 1:43 a.m
JBS SA is close to completing an internal investigation that stands to give Brazilian prosecutors additional evidence of wrongdoing as part of a leniency deal in a corruption scandal.
The Sao Paulo meat giant and other companies controlled by the billionaire Batista brothers may be ready by September to present results of the independent investigation that has collected about 220 terabytes of data from mobile phones and computers and testimony from more than 600 people, according to Emir Calluf Filho, legal and compliance director at J&F Investimentos SA, the Batistas' holding company.
Concluding the internal review will be another significant step toward normalcy for the world's biggest meat company after a scandal that broke two years ago. The Batista group has sought to restore credibility after brothers Joesley and Wesley admitted to bribing hundreds of politicians and inspectors in a case that sent JBS shares and bonds tumbling and hit Brazilian markets already rocked by the so-called Carwash kickback investigation.
Back then, J&F agreed to pay $2.66 billion as part of a leniency deal to protect JBS and other businesses from charges. It also committed to work with third-party forensic firms to scrutinize past transactions while implementing a compliance program to avoid new illicit acts.
"That's the biggest private investigation ever conducted by a Brazilian company," 39-year-old Calluf Filho said in Sao Paulo. The findings should provide authorities with robust evidence of the wrongdoings unveiled by the brothers, he said. Potential omissions in their confessions are also being investigated.
More than 200 people and companies -- including cattle suppliers, law firms and consultancies -- have been blocked from doing business with the Batistas' empire, and "several" others are facing due-diligence procedures as a result of stricter controls and background checking, Calluf Filho said.
More than 130,000 workers were trained on compliance, and internal accusations soared tenfold to about 200 a month after independent reporting channels were made available. People faced warning, resignation or prosecution because of wrongdoings. Some were relocated after receiving death threats for suspending illicit payments.
JBS has also made governance progress after naming executives from outside the Batista clan for top posts -- including chief executive and financial officers -- for the first time in its 66-year history, Calluf Filho said. Still, family members remain in management and board positions.
The Batista brothers, who spent about six months in jail after the scandal broke, were forced out of day-to-day operations in the company founded in 1953 by their father. Still, a new generation of Batistas -- led by Wesley's 27-year-old son, who bears his name, and his 26-year-old cousin Aguinaldo Gomes Ramos Filho -- is now taking the helm.
"It's a family company, like most Brazilian firms," Calluf Filho said, adding the Batistas are committed to improving the group's reputation. "There's no turning back."
Wesley Batista senior recently became a defendant in an investigation into alleged insider trading in the days before news of the plea bargain deal broke. J&F is yet to reach a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid prosecution under U.S. anti-bribery laws.
Calluf Filho took over as a J&F executive in late 2017 against the advice of friends worried about him getting involved in a company that had been tainted by one of the biggest-ever corruption scandals in Brazil.
"Many people thought I was crazy," he said. "But if you're able to change a company that has the power to transform its sector, you may also be helping to change the country."
JBS shares have more than tripled in value since the lows of 2017. In the past year, the company has been the best-performing global meat stock tracked by Bloomberg, aided by the outbreak of a pig-killing disease in Asia that signals additional protein demand.
SundayMonday Business on 06/09/2019
You may recall the pig-in-a-poke legislation known as Senate Bill 550 introduced by Sen. Gary Stubblefield during the recent General Assembly. The former dairy farmer from Branch was pushed whole hog by our unelected fourth branch of government, otherwise known as the Farm Bureau.
This failed bill I came to call the Superfluous Stubblefield Stinker, sought to replace the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality's permitting and regulatory process for hog factories with a far less-demanding "certification" system overseen by the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. That commission lacked the resources and experience to effectively regulate potential swine waste contamination of our state's water quality.
I especially appreciated that Central Arkansas Water panned the bill in its news release about the bill: "SB550 presents a threat to the health and well-being of the people of Arkansas. If enacted, this bill would completely change the way liquid animal waste disposal systems, which are used primarily by large swine farms to dispose of liquid swine waste, are regulated in Arkansas. Although characterized by supporters of the bill as an effort to achieve greater efficiency in the permitting process, SB550 has the potential to expose some of the state's most important natural resources, including public drinking water reservoirs, to liquid animal waste.
"Currently ADEQ is charged with issuing permits and conducting oversight of [such] disposal systems. ADEQ's process is effective and fair. It balances the needs of swine and dairy farmers with the right of the public to a safe and clean environment. It ensures the involvement of well-trained, knowledgeable professionals with years of experience. SB550 would wipe out the current permitting process and oversight of these facilities and gut current regulatory protections. Public notification requirements would be eliminated. Minimum distance setback from neighbors, streams and lakes could be lost. Subsurface investigation requirements to determine suitability for waste lagoons would no longer be required. Anonymous complaints would not be accepted or investigated, and public reporting necessarily would be deterred. Established, effective enforcement protocol would go by the wayside. As a result, swine farms would operate in a much more permissive environment, and the prospect of liquid animal waste entering the water reservoirs of our great state would become a much greater threat."
Thankfully, Gov. Asa Hutchinson finally sealed an airtight bag around the stinker after it had passed a Farm Bureau-compliant Senate and was before the House. He said the idea of handing such critical responsibilities to an unprepared Natural Resources Commission needed further reflection.
That brings me to what the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission discovered from its dealings with Natural Resources.
Our ace outdoor writer Bryan Hendricks recently wrote how soured Game and Fish leaders have become in dealings with the Natural Resources Commission since a joint meeting May 1. That disenchantment included Natural Resources' reported failure to properly uphold its end of a supposedly mutual project.
Ford Overton, chairman of Game and Fish, was fried to a crisp with the lack of response to helping restore the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, a prime wetlands region for waterfowl hunting. Bayou Meto has been above flood pool for the past three years and the Natural Resources Commission supposedly was the lead state agency for funding its restoration project.
Hendricks wrote that Jennifer Sheehan, the Game and Fish federal liaison, was concerned Natural Resources had yet to contact her for follow-up meetings about the project.
A fuming Overton then wondered if it might be possible to get a different, non-federal sponsor. "Anybody, anybody but the Natural Resources Commission," he said. "They're so unmotivated. They so don't care. The leadership ... doesn't understand it. ... The entities have $140 million invested in an idle project that could be saving a lot of habitat. They don't give a s**t. ... There's no sense of urgency. None."
Attorney Ken Reeves of Harrison, vice chairman and incoming Game and Fish chairman, said the Natural Resources Commission's attitude also has troubled him, reported Hendricks. "I was underwhelmed at the last meeting by their lack of inspiration. They said they were going to pay for the project by selling water to people that don't want to buy water. They've got to figure out how to do their part of this. There's no creative thinking."
And this, valued readers, is the same Natural Resources Commission with which Stubblefield wanted to replace the Department of Environmental Quality when it comes to monitoring and responsibility for conditions at Arkansas swine factories.
Methinks the good people of Arkansas should extend further appreciation to the governor for recognizing this purely political idea for stitching together a supposed Natural Resources Commission silk purse was nothing more than a raggedy sow's ear all along.
BY
ON June 3, 2019
Preservation of life and property is paramount with Arkansas River at historic levels in Arkansas, but questions have also begun about what’s been put into the river by flood water.
One example: Runaway barges filled with tons of fertilizer hit a dam and sunk in Oklahoma
Livestock operations exist along the waterway. They serve as useful sources of fertilizer for farming operations in drier times. Many operate under state permits for waste handling. It’s too soon to know how many were affected, but undoubtedly many were. There have also been overflows from sewage treatment facilities along the river. The various releases at least been diluted by the enormous water flow.
We learned today, that at least one hog feeding operation was inundated by flood waters in Yell County after a levee failed in the Holla Bend area near Dardanelle. Jerry Masters, executive vice president of the Arkansas Pork Producers, said the operators of the 2,400-sow operation had tried but failed to remove all the hogs Friday before the rising water forced them to leave. He said the holding ponds for hog waste presumably were flooded, but it’s too early to assess.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said:
ADEQ is aware that Balloun Farm in Yell County was inundated with water after a breach in the levee along Luther Lake. ADEQ is providing support to the Department of Agriculture to address any adverse impacts and to ensure protection of public health and the environment. At this time, it is undetermined how many of the farm’s 2,400 weaning sows were evacuated before the rising water made the farm inaccessible. ADEQ will expect the operator to complete and submit a facility status report once the water has recessed to the point that it is safe to return to the farm. ADEQ also plans to conduct an inspection once flood waters return to levels that allow entry into the farm.
JBS USA, which contracts with the Balloun farm, issued this statement:
“We are saddened by the flooding that occurred in the Dardanelle community and at the farm after the levee broke early Friday morning. Animal health and welfare is a top priority for JBS USA, and we worked diligently to save as many animals as possible. Our team stayed on site moving pigs to a safe area until law enforcement required them to leave to ensure their own safety. We are still assessing the damage and are grateful to all those who have helped, including our team members, neighbors and local farmers, during this difficult time.”
In a somewhat related development, Masters said he understood a hog farm permit sought by the owners of the C and H Hog Farm in Mount Judea (a subject of long controversy because of its location in the Buffalo River watershed) would be withdrawn. The owners had filed for a permit for a sow farrowing operation in the Hartman Bottoms near the Arkansas River in Franklin County. The application drew concern from some local residents about potential for flooding. Masters said he’d been told the farm property had not flooded last week, though area roads had. The Department of Environmental Quality said it had sent a list of deficiencies for the permit application Coon Tree Farm submitted in late February. It said it was still waiting for an official response from the applicant to address those deficiencies.
Masters remarked to me that climate changes in general, such as warmer temperatures and unusual rain, not just the likelihood of future floods, have left agriculture in “uncharted waters.”
NWAOnline
MIKE MASTERSON: Another viewThe C&H debacle
by Mike Masterson
The executive vice president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau recently wrote a guest essay on this page defending his support for C&H Hog Farms and its misplaced location deep within the environmentally fragile and precious Buffalo National River watershed.
After discussions with those in the know and self-reflection, I have some related thoughts. Imagine that.
To me, Warren Carter embraced a largely unreasonable and overly simplistic position about this large concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
First, he mistakenly interpreted the state's latest effort to terminate C&H's operations at its unacceptable location as a war on farmers and agriculture in general, while flatly ignoring other highly relevant aspects of reality. Hogwash.
The widespread public outcry is by no means a war on farmers or agriculture. It is simply tens of thousands of Arkansans and others wanting to prevent one meat-producing factory from destroying an invaluable natural asset for which our state and country are responsible.
Certainly no one entirely faults the C&H families who raise swine for Brazilian meat processor JBS for the situation, although they do have a hog (or 6,500) in this hunt. Jason Henson, (the H in C&H) has conceded that, in selecting the site, he and his partners completed no studies nor provided other documented consideration to the factory's location in relation to the river.
Seems to me it would have been reasonable and prudent to have considered those factors before purchasing and leasing property for a large swine factory above a major tributary of the Buffalo.
I and others also find fault in this avoidable fiasco with the University of Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service, which either failed to recognize this karst-riddled property as a problem site in initial consultations with C&H, or failed to discuss obvious potential problems. The Extension Service and its offshoot, the Big Creek Research and Extension Team, to me also has been willing to overlook shortcomings at C&H, choosing to defend its unacceptable location.
Finally comes our Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough), which should have been alert enough to determine at the time C&H submitted the application for its general permit in 2012 that this was likely the worst location in Arkansas to allow such a hog factory.
For whatever reasons, the agency spectacularly failed to do its due diligence. Why didn't that agency insist on the geologic and geoscience studies before ever considering a permit in this location, the same inappropriate region it once restricted for this use?
The department thankfully has since attempted to rectify that blunder, or whatever it was, by denying C&H's application for an individual permit. That in itself has now proven difficult because C&H is entitled under the law to due process by appealing the permit denial, and has a sympathetic judge in Newton County.
In his treatise Carter argues that C&H has gotten no citations or notices of violations over its operation. I see that as very much a red herring, since most experts agree a major source of contamination of the Buffalo from C&H results from the sustained application of millions of gallons of hog-waste slurry from its sediment ponds (i.e., phosphorus and nitrogen) onto spray fields in the Big Creek/Buffalo River watershed.
It's clear that land beneath the spray fields has thin, if any, top soil. It is underlain by fractured karst geology. Much of the raw waste applied to that land is easily transported to Big Creek by storm water, or permeates through the subterranean fractured rock and soil to invariably make its way down into the national river. To the state this sustained mess is generally considered permissible "agricultural runoff" and difficult to prove as a "violation."
In addition, it appears to me that Carter may not be aware that C&H's waste sediment ponds, containing about 1.8 million gallons of hog waste, can lawfully leak that waste into the karst beneath the ponds at a rate of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 gallons per day. Simple physics says much of that eventually seeps its way to Big Creek and/or the Buffalo, both down-gradient from the hog farm.
Strikes me, if he and the Farm Bureau wanted to help resolve this matter for the benefit not only of the C&H owners but also the citizens of Arkansas who greatly value the economic and aesthetic attraction of the country's first national river, they would work cooperatively with the environmental organizations, the Department of Environmental Quality, and state and private parties in attempting to negotiate a way in which C&H could receive financial assistance in closing and relocating to a vastly more suitable location.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 05/26/2019
NWAonline
May 20, 2019 at 1:52 a.m.
We take it personally
The recent guest column by Warren Carter of the Arkansas Farm Bureau justifies his ardent defense of C&H Hog Farms by claiming that "it's personal" to him. Well, it's personal, too, for the rest of us who want to preserve the Buffalo National River in its unpolluted state.
Mr. Carter is a master of obfuscation, using diversionary emotional language to make it appear that Bad Old State Government is out to get those struggling farmers who just want to be left alone to raise a few hogs. Mr. Carter conveniently omits that the volume of untreated swine manure that fills those waste lagoons is roughly equivalent to the sewage output of a small city, and that its presence is a clear and present danger to the health of the Buffalo.
Mr. Carter submits that there is no scientific basis for the claim that the concentrated hog waste will harm the Buffalo. It's clear he has not looked at the studies that show the fragile porosity of the subsurface karst geology and its commensurate vulnerability to penetration of deleterious nutrients, hormones and chemicals. The impact of this subsurface pollution, in addition to surface runoff, is potentially catastrophic.
Whether it was intentional or procedurally negligent, the state erred in issuing the original permit. We have some empathy for the C&H owners, but it's hard to look at the way their permit got issued. The Farm Bureau would better serve its members by offering to assist in developing standards for concentrated animal feeding operations placed in locations environmentally suitable for their operations and their waste.
If C&H was shut down tomorrow, it would take half a generation for the porous subsurface karst rock to naturally clear itself. The state is right to pursue shutting down this facility posthaste.
In the meantime, the citizens of Arkansas and all lovers of the Buffalo River everywhere will take preservation of this precious national resource personally. Shut it down!
CHARLES T. CROW
Little Rock
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