Buffalo River Watershed Alliance
Act now to seek help for creek, Buffalo River
In July 2018, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality released a proposed list of impaired water bodies in Arkansas. Although the list is comprehensive and they used good science to develop it, the categorization of some identified impaired waters is faulty.
Two segments of Big Creek and two segments of Buffalo River are listed as Category 4b. This is wrong and needs to be corrected. Designation as 4b and not 5 on the Draft 2018 Impaired Waterbodies list allows for alternative, voluntary water management plans (like the Buffalo River Watershed Management Plan) to be used as state-led management approaches. The department identifies the the Buffalo River management plan as the "alternative plan in place" to justify the inclusion of the impaired segments in Category 4b. This approach fails to protect Big Creek because it lacks consideration of point-source and permitted facilities like the C&H Hog Farm.
C&H is expressly excluded from regulation in Category 4b. The waste from thousands of hogs at C&H is spread on farm lands adjacent to Big Creek, leading to nutrient loading, including phosphorous, which is contributing to pollution and algae build-up in Big Creek. Big Creek is a tributary of Buffalo River.
In the Buffalo River watershed, four problem areas were identified as impaired, including three for bacteria and one for dissolved oxygen. Of the assessment areas with bacterial problems, two exceeded federal limits for E coli. Inclusion as Category 4b means the state is not required to develop "total maximum daily loads." Simply put, that is the maximum amount of a specific pollutant allowed to enter a water body.
Development of total maximum daily loads helps target how much of a reduction is needed to declare the water fit for designated uses like recreation. That seems like an important piece of information, particularly for the Buffalo, which draws people from all over the country for swimming, fishing and paddling.
The Buffalo River Water Management Plan is not required by Arkansas regulations to implement water quality standards within a reasonable period of time. Without more proactive, stringent and enforceable measures, the water quality of Big Creek and Buffalo River will continue to deteriorate.
The management plan cannot address point-source contamination (like C&H). It is voluntary and has no investigative or enforcement authority. It prioritizes six specific tributaries, which do not include Big Creek or the impaired segments of Buffalo River.
It is imperative for Arkansans to make our voices heard. Tell the Department of Environmental Quality to include Big Creek and the impaired sections of Buffalo River in Category 5. Please take a few minutes and send your comments today, because the comment period ends Sept. 10. Don't miss this opportunity to help protect our precious natural resources, including the nation's first national river. Written comments should be sent to the Water Quality Planning Branch, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Office of Water Quality by email at WaterbodyComments@adeq.state.ar.us.
Tracie Pape
Bull Shoals
Defend Buffalo River
I am grateful for the articles, editorials, and letters this newspaper has published recently on the need for action to defend and preserve our precious Buffalo River.
The Department of Environmental Quality says there will be a period for public comment, but has not yet announced the date. I wish to suggest one quick and easy step we can take now. Start practicing by sending a brief letter to Caleb Osborne, Associate Director of the Office of Water Quality, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, 5301 Northshore Drive, North Little Rock, 72118.
You might also send a short but heartfelt note to the Voices page in hopes of keeping this vital matter high on the public radar.
BARBARA JARVIS
Little Rock
By Mike Masterson
Posted: September 8, 2018 at 2:35 a.m.
I get it that some readers out there hope the blue-sky day will dawn when I’ll not write another word about the ongoing disgraceful contamination of our majestic Buffalo National River.
But it has long been my nature to keep hammering on important and relevant matters with a truth mallet for as long as it takes for the system to resolve them. Our country’s first national river is both important and relevant.
Having been born in the Ozarks and enjoyed the Buffalo as a teenager and since, I consider our state’s greatest attraction being steadily polluted because of political deals and special-interest lobbying a crime. This matter also deserves continual and national media attention well beyond what it has received.
I recall visiting with then-gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson about the potential dangers to the Buffalo from contamination by millions of gallons of raw waste generated by the factory our very own Department of Environmental Quality (cough) wrongly allowed to set up shop five years ago on fractured karst terrain just 6 miles upstream.
Hutchinson politely listened to my concerns that evening then said that as governor he would do everything in his power to protect the Buffalo. I believed him then because, well, I wanted to see him taking a justifiably firm stand against the forces that put their special interests ahead of what is best for all Arkansans and the nation.
And just look where things stand now with our river found contaminated with filth and dangerous pathogens. It’s happened just as geoscientists for years have predicted it would. About 15 miles of the Buffalo have been declared impaired by contaminants, presumably stemming from the results of excessive animal-based fertilizer.
Add to that the now similarly impaired Big Creek, a major tributary for the river, that flows alongside the spray fields for C&H Hog Farms. The portion of the algae-choked Buffalo that is obviously contaminated stretches below the point where Big Creek enters its flow.
No one can’t rightly say they weren’t cautioned by geoscientists, geologists and hydrologists that this was inevitable if the hog factory remained on a precarious fractured subsurface above the creek and the precious river. Professor emeritus John Van Brahana (bless the man’s caring heart) and his team of volunteers were the only ones to conduct subsurface water flow dye testing around the factory (C&H wouldn’t let them on their property).
Tests showed the dye they injected into the ground coming out miles away, traveling downhill through openings and cracks beneath surrounding hills at a speed they’d never anticipated. Their dye even showed up in the Buffalo 12 miles downstream. And that was a few years back!
But surely the governor’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) is ignoring extensive lobbying by the Farm Bureau and others to work diligently at pinning down the exact cause of this pollution that further threatens the river with each passing day. Doesn’t the agency devoted solely to ensuring a quality environment demand to know the source of this pollution from animal fertilizer? Rule out C&H?
Why, no, they’re not really interested in discovering the source, they say. After all, several groups are continuing to monitor the situation for us, as if observing the steady demise of our national treasure is an acceptable reaction at this point. And the Farm Bureau still insists all goes swimmingly with the factory. Have these people gone hog wild or what?
Isn’t such flagrant denial slightly akin to, say, police asking neighbors to monitor a nearby home as it’s vandalized each day, but not wanting to know who’s committing the crime because they then might have to publicly identify the vandals (from a prominent police supporter family), and stop them, thereby consuming a ton of crow?
In this instance, based on timing, location and, yes, science over “raging environmentalists’ emotions,” as some rabid factory supporters like to say, all signs indicate the source likely being tons of the factory’s hog waste being steadily applied to the overloaded fields along Big Creek. So why don’t we identify the cause and bring this poisoning to a halt rather than allowing residual phosphorus (called Legacy P) to continue accumulating for another year or more as the debacle over a denied permit continues in the courtroom?
Scientists, even those contracted by the state, say this contaminant can take up to a century to finally clear from the subsurface cracks and fissures. Yet we fiddle and hem and haw while continuing to allow it right beneath our noses.
In an ideal world, a permit to operate should never have been granted to this factory without extensive — and I mean detailed and exact — water flow and subsurface studies by an independent contractor (not someone with direct ties to agricultural interests) being completed. That hasn’t come close to occurring five years later.
But even in an imperfect world, I would have hoped our state’s elected leadership, Legislature and governor included, would have listened to the loud, clear warnings, revoked the permit in this location and used a rainy day (or a sunny or partly cloudy) day fund to make these factory owners financially whole to set them up in an appropriate location, and done everything possible to protect our only Buffalo National River.
After all, even Hutchinson’s predecessor, Mike Beebe, upon leaving office, said his biggest regret was ever allowing the hog factory into the sacred Buffalo River watershed. And still the threat remains and our state’s greatest attraction is now contaminated. All for what?
I urge every Arkansan to take five minutes to express your comment in writing over the Department of Environmental Quality’s justifiable decision not to grant a new Regulation 5 permit to this grossly misplaced factory to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality at 5301 Northshore Drive, North Little Rock, 72118 (with copies to the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission at the same address); and the governor at 500 Woodlane Ave., Little Rock, 72201; or complete a comment form at www.adeq.state.ar.us.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Address the hog farm
Arkansas has been reading about this CAFO in the Buffalo watershed for going on five years, with many thanks to a columnist in this paper, Mike Masterson. But ... it's still there. Why? I think three truths about human nature are at fault.
First, ignorance. Most of us are ignorant of many things; who has time to become well-versed in all the issues facing us, let alone this issue? Of CAFOs in Arkansas and the U.S., how many of us can speak intelligently about how many there are, how they are growing, who owns them, what percentage are owned by and exported to China (which accepts the hogs, but leaves the pollution in the U.S.), etc.? Who can speak intelligently about how much money is funded through lobbying to keep this situation as it is? Who of us in Arkansas has driven by the hog factory in Newton County and smelled the air? Who has observed the changes in the waters this factory drains into?
Second truth of human nature: habits of thinking. We habitually think of farmers as people who own a few acres, who love the Lord, go to church, and care about animals and the land. We don't think of them like Smithfield (owned by a Chinese company), Tyson, etc., who contract with large industrial farms for the feed, and contract with CAFOs for their product, and who pass the pollution issues on to the least able to do anything about it.
Third, indifference (perhaps the worst of these three truths about human nature). I recently participated in a few question-and-answer sessions with candidates for state office. The question of this hog factory in Newton County, or the plans for another in wine country, never came up, and when I brought it up, I could sense the indifference to this question in the room.
I'm asking you not to be ignorant and indifferent to this issue. Make it an issue ... it's nonpartisan, and needs to be addressed.
RG SMITH
Rogers
Preserve our treasure
The Buffalo River is a true treasure and gem that must be preserved. I grew up in Dust Bowl Oklahoma where there were few streams, and no lakes or rivers. The few streams were weak, muddy, and flowed only occasionally. The only bodies of water were stock ponds that were muddy and polluted. On my first visit to Arkansas, up Highway 71, I was astounded by the streams and greenery I had never seen in Dust Bowl Oklahoma.
I have lived in Northwest Arkansas for 50 years, and our family has floated the Buffalo many times in those years. As the nation's first national river, it is truly a national treasure and we absolutely must not risk the pollution to the Buffalo by a financially motivated hog farm if that, in fact, is the cause, which certainly seems to be a possibility.
Designated by Congress in 1972 as the nation's first national river, it is a true treasure not matched anywhere else in the country. As stewards, we have an obligation to preserve this treasure for future generations to enjoy.
I have difficulty understanding how the Department Of Environmental Quality can overlook the stark evidence of pollution closely associated with the operation of C&H. Is there something not visible here?
BILL UNDERWOOD
Fayetteville
Uphold permit denial
A huge, toxic algae bloom has now polluted 17 to 30 miles of Big Creek, the Buffalo River, and even the White River, and become a health hazard. Recently I attended a meeting of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to decry our so-called environmental quality department's actions in allowing C&H Hog Farms to continue operating despite the agency's denial of its permit. C&H has appealed that decision, which will be tied up in court for who knows how long, and meanwhile is permitted to keep polluting without restriction. The result is that a significant number of people, including children, have already been afflicted with rashes and worse ailments after swimming in the river, and residents say there are now far fewer tourists.
Clearly this pollution is killing tourist trade as well as fish and wildlife. Now I read that C&H owners applied to create a new, even larger factory farm of 10,000-plus hogs near tributaries of the Arkansas River and the town of Altus in the heart of Arkansas wine country, another major tourist attraction.
An owner of C&H approached me at the meeting and tried to convince me that the algae bloom is due to tourist activity and sunscreen application; I had to laugh.
Scientists have been saying for years that the Buffalo River valley's highly permeable karst geology is absolutely the wrong place for factory farming and the application of millions of gallons of hog feces on the land. Please, please write and phone the governor, your representatives, the Department of Environmental Quality, and the pollution control commission to demand that they uphold the C&H permit denial (a new comment period is now being opened) and deny any future permit for another horrific factory farm.
NANCY BAXTER
North Little Rock
Wildlife not the same as hogs on a farm
A small note of observation of a retired le- gal opinion from a non-Arkansawer regarding a claim that there is no to very little difference of damage done by the “several thousand hogs” compared to the “millions of deer, elk, bear and feral hogs” pooping in the same watershed to the Buffalo River.
First of all, now the secret is out about Arkan- sas wildlife and the “millions” we harbor here.
Secondly, I believe there is a slight density issue at stake, as I am pretty sure those “millions” are not pooping all within sight of each other.
But then, it’s just another grey area when it comes to legal matters, and by “it,” I mean facts.
BILL ROBINSON Bentonville
Arkansasonline
Environmental Workbook
by Emily Walkenhost
Appeal of permit for manure tossed
An appeal over an approved permit modification for land application of hog manure as fertilizer was dismissed by the Arkansas Court of Appeals last week.
Attorneys for Ellis Campbell of EC Farms argued that the appeal filed by three Newton County residents was not timely because it occurred more than 30 days after the lower court’s order.
A Newton County circuit judge upheld the department’s decision Jan. 10. The appeal was filed Feb. 12.
Both parties agreed that the 30-day requirements be- gan Jan. 11, but EC Farms argued the deadline to appeal was Feb. 9 and the appellants said that day was Feb. 10, a Saturday.
Including Jan. 11, Feb. 9 is the 30th day.
The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal with no written brief.
Carol Bitting, Lin Wellford and Nancy Haller appealed the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission’s decision to allow EC Farms to modify its permit to accept manure from C&H Hog Farms’ for land application without opening the request to public comment.
EC Farms modified its permit through a minor modification process, which does not require a comment period, rather than a major modification process, which does.
Studies ignored Swine factory By Mike Masterson Widely respected hydrogeologist Thomas Aley, president of the Ozark Underground Laboratory in Protem, Mo., completed in May his investigation into the suitability of issuing a new Regulation 5 animal liquid waste permit to C&H Hog Farms. Aley's extremely detailed study concluded absolutely not, while emphasizing the original permit for this 6,500-swine factory in 2012 shouldn't have been issued without extensive testing. This constituted a critical mistake without extensive water and safety studies being demanded by our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) into the factory's unsuitable karst-riddled location only six miles upstream from the now impaired Buffalo National River. As a subsurface water flow specialist, Aley has over 50 years' experience examining karst hydrologies of the Ozarks through dye tracings to identify recharge areas for springs in and near the Buffalo. Most of that involves groundwater conditions in the Boone Formation, the geologic unit that underlies C&H and most of its waste-disposal spray fields. Our treasure has been deemed impaired by contamination from phosphorus, nitrogen and pathogens caused by excessive nutrients from fertilizers such as animal waste. Aley estimates that 65 percent of the water that reaches the Buffalo from areas underlain by the Boone Formation has passed into and through the karst aquifer. "So problems on the land mean problems in the river," he said. Surface water can quickly enter the groundwater system by infiltrating soils or cascading through sinkholes and losing streams, much as what happened in 2015 when huge amounts of phosphorus and nitrates were recorded in a major storm event as running over from two spray fields into adjacent Big Creek, a major Buffalo tributary. There's no telling how much has soaked for five years into the karst subsurface to linger for decades and head inevitably toward the Buffalo. Normally dry streams can feed appreciable amounts of water into the groundwater system in localized areas. And while surface water enters groundwater from thousands of points, most of it discharges from a limited number of springs, Aley explained. There is a major heavy-flow spring Aley calls Hidden Spring because it's concealed in the channel of the Buffalo River. Its exact location is unknown. "It is a very important feature of the river," he told me. Unfortunately, he said, the National Park Service has not had the recharge area for this spring delineated and not a single groundwater trace has been conducted to it. But that doesn't mean this spring is hiding the location of its obvious recharge area, which lies squarely in the Buffalo River's water quality impairment area, "and it looks like it's telling our bureaucrats there's a problem in its recharge area." Aley said the likely source for much of the water from Hidden Spring is the Big Creek Basin. And the factory sits smack dab in the center. Lots of things seep into the karst groundwater of north Arkansas, Aley said. "Prudence ... dictates that great care be exercised anytime a large amount of water pollutants are stockpiled on the ground or held in a waste storage pond. "There was a period in the karst regions of the Ozarks (late '50s to early '70s or so) when engineers were designing and building sewage lagoons for towns, industrial facilities, and some agricultural facilities," Aley continued. But that poor strategy "lost support when a number of the lagoons also lost support and either developed serious leakages or collapsed into sinkholes." "There were multiple lagoon collapses. A sinkhole collapse in the lagoon for the city of West Plains sent 50 million gallons of sewage through the karst groundwater to Mammoth Spring, Arkansas' largest spring," Aley continued, adding the lagoons that failed typically had clay liners made from local materials, like the two ponds at C&H. "Those with reasonable learning curves figured out that waste lagoons and storage ponds in karst areas were risky propositions," he said. "Unfortunately, the manure lobby is not a fast learner." Regarding our Buffalo, he said, should the C&H waste ponds fail, those tons of contamination would drain into the groundwater, then into one or more springs. It's unknown whether it would discharge from a nearby spring on Big Creek because the Big Creek Research and Extension Team (our state's paid monitor) hasn't done groundwater tracing to reveal locations potentially affected by the waste pond collapses, Aley said. If it did go to the spring, the raw waste would flow down Big Creek into the Buffalo. He surmised the vital Hidden Spring also is a likely destination. There, the manure would head straight to the river, creating a disaster. But that's unknown because the basic and critical technical work shamefully has not been done. The peer review panel recommended water balance calculations for the inadequately lined holding lagoons, Aley said. But the Big Creek Team didn't do that either. So, Aley concludes, no one knows if, or how much, they leak because it's unknown how much waste goes in. ------------v------------ Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com. Editorial on 08/26/2018
By RICHARD MASON Special to the Democrat-Gazette
Posted: August 26, 2018 at 2 a.m.
My favorite Broadway play is Les Miserables, in which Jean Valjean sings "Who am I?... I'm Jean Valjean ... 24601!" It's his confession that he is the escaped prisoner.
After writing my column for several months, it seems I need to explain: Who am I?
For exercise, I walk and jog the 167 Bypass in El Dorado. It's around three and a half miles. During the summer I'm tired and sweaty when I finish. Since I do the same route four times a week, most folks know it's me, and I get a lot of waves.However, last week I was plodding along, and as I finished the access route toward Calion Road, I heard whining mud tires, and I knew a pickup was about to pass. I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a black pickup, which was slowing down as it approached. When he got right beside me, going less than 10 mph, I was nearly blasted off the road by an air horn. You bet it bothered me, and I'm glad I don't have heart problems. It was that loud.
But then I started thinking about the air horn blast. Does the guy pull up beside every walker or runner and blast away with his air horn? I don't think so, or he'd be arrested for harassment. So I guess the guy wanted to air honk Richard Mason. Was it because I am opposing the hog farm on the Buffalo, or maybe because I have tackled the bill to let forest companies have a free go at harvesting the national forests, or maybe because I oppose coal-fired plants that put mercury in Arkansas fish? I don't think so.
Maybe he's the writer who sent me an email calling me "a toad-licking liberal" or the guy who said I am the worst columnist of the sorry lot on the Perspective pages which, from his email, puts me to the left of Nancy Pelosi. But after spending six years as a member and one year as chairman and designated environmental member of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission where at times the meetings were one step away from having my arm tied to another member's and each being handed a knife, I can handle the air horn. So being called a toad-licking liberal just got a small grin. Actually, that would look good on a T-shirt.
Not all my emails are negative. I want to thank the other folks who have contacted me with positive responses. They outrank the negatives by 20 to 1. However, if you are going to stick a label on me, here are the details of my toad-licking liberal side.
I have spent thousands of hours in Arkansas' woods, paddling up Champagnolle Creek to fish around the big cypress trees, frog gigging, running a trap line, and heading out on several thousand squirrel hunts, all of which ingrained in me an appreciation of Arkansas' natural setting. I readily join or lead the fight when Arkansas' natural heritage or wildlife is threatened.
Does that make me a toad-licking liberal? Of course not; the majority of Arkansas folks aren't for letting the Buffalo National River be polluted by a hog farm, or seeing our national forests become company tree farms and the size of our national monuments reduced. So I don't believe the air-horn guy is anti-environmental. He and his mud tires probably spend a lot of time near the Ouachita River. He may have forgotten that I and a host of others fought the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and two very prominent Democrats to keep the Corps from making 28 river-killing bend cuts. That fight took months until our group of anti-bend cutters--Republicans and Democrats--finally prevailed.
On top of that, I'm a free-trade no-tariffs person, and the idea that we don't have a balanced budget and keep running up the national debt is horrible. Those traits are bedrock Republican, or at least they were. And I have voted for a Republican president and local Republicans. Does that make me a Republican? No, but it doesn't make me a Democrat either.
I'm opposing several Republicans because of their detrimental environmental policies, but I would be hounding a Democrat just as strongly. There are many things in politics that are wrong-headed short-term fixes for special interests, and the Democrats have had their share. However, today we have a party that is hell-bent on destroying the environmental progress made by a bipartisan Congress. Republicans have had a lot to do with all of the environmental bills that were passed, and many bills and regulations were Republican-initiated.
Calling someone a liberal because they oppose the destruction of our forests, wildlife, streams and rivers is just plain wrong. When a person does that they are saying you can't be a Republican if you support things like removing the hog farm from the Buffalo National River watershed. Or if you criticize a congressman for a wrong-headed bill that would gut the Endangered Species Act you can't be a Republican. And criticism of the administration makes you a liberal, and you are subject to degrading name calling and air-honks.
Of all the things in Arkansas that should be bipartisan, it's the Buffalo National River. But is it? Have we sunk so low that those who call themselves Republicans will stand back and ignore the destruction of our national river to keep from being called a toad-licking liberal? It will be a sad day for our state if the silence of thousands of Democrats and Republicans causes the demise of our river.
For the last several years, we have all but stopped talking about issues and have tried to label everyone running for office as either conservative or liberal. You can't be a conservative Democrat or a liberal Republican. What happened to bipartisan voting on issues?
Let's stop calling all Republicans conservatives and all Democrats liberals. Wouldn't it be great if we once again had campaigns where the best interests of our country are front and center instead of seeing who can trash the other candidate more? Let's stop the name-calling, and just call us Americans.
But if you still want to label me, tag me with what's in my heart, it's the love of a natural Arkansas and its wildlife. Am I a damn tree hugger? You bet I am.
Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email richard@gibraltarenergy.com.
Editorial on 08/26/2018
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