Buffalo River Watershed Alliance
Hatch Magazine, for the fly-fishing community
This is not where you put a massive, manure-spewing industrial hog farm
by Johnny Carrol Sain - Monday, Sep 12th, 2016
I’d lamented about rained-out local creek smallmouth fishing all summer long. High water had made fish tough to find and often posed a wading hazard. But just an hour’s drive north of my home, the crystalline cool flows of the Buffalo National River resembled something closer to normal summer conditions. Ever since the fly rod — an elegant tool for a more civilized angler — found its way to my hand last fall, I’d dreamed of a trip to the iconic Buffalo River.
The Buffalo is the archetype of Arkansas’s Ozark streams. Limestone filtration makes for moonshine-clear riffles with dazzling aquamarine pools. There are towering bluff lines and abundant wildlife, and within the Buffalo River watershed, and along the creek itself after canoe season and far from the public access points, you can find that most elusive of natural treasures — blessed solitude.
Calm winter evenings feature an aching, cold steel quiet that cuts nearly to marrow. There is a sentiment in the silence, a desolation that speaks with old and nearly forgotten languages. And then you might hear elk bugle from a shadowed hollow, the last flickers of an autumn inferno licking at the loins of a confident bull. The screaming roar rouses Pleistocene memories and vestigial urges in any listening human. It’s an invitation, an enticement to rejoin the primal dance. John Muir heard the mountains themselves calling. You can hear that, too, if you listen. But it’s often by cervid proxy here, along the Buffalo River.
In summer, the river solitude is melodic with the harmony of neotropical songbirds and the hushed movements of secretive creatures. Summer tanagers flash through the canopy with intense singing to match their bold scarlet plumage. Velvet-tailed timber rattlesnakes glide in scaly silence over lichen covered rocks and through the shadowed forest of white oaks and shagbark hickories. Under the stars, a burbling river is accompanied by leopard frogs and Katydids as whip-poor-wills trill in melancholy tones and great horned owls punctuate the night with haunting flutes.
The Buffalo in her lacy green summer dress had been on my mind at least weekly through the autumn, through the dark dead days of winter, and the anticipation grew with each warm southern breath of spring. But June, July and August came and went and the Buffalo remained just a summer dream. Due to all kinds of obstacles laid down by ordinary everyday life, my only summer 2016 visit to the Buffalo came in early September. It was a family day trip with the noon sun blazing down on a hole of water that featured its own parking lot complete with hers and his restrooms.
But just a little Buffalo River is better than no Buffalo River.
Though it’s known far and wide as an epic if hardly formidable float during the spring rains, the Buffalo is an under appreciated smallmouth bass fishery. I’d caught a few dandy fighters through the years, but rumors of 20-inch brownies were the fuel behind my nearly year-long Buffalo River obsession. And this one September trip to the Buffalo has me already looking ahead to summer 2017.
Spoiler: I did not catch a 20-inch brownie. But I did catch a brownie of significance.
As the wife, daughters and granddaughter frolicked in spring-fed creek water, I plied green depths and copper shallows with the fly rod. It was the wrong time of day. It was a public access point. Summer was nearly over. But the 16 1/2 inch tiger-striped bolt of bronze that hit the wooly bugger with a nearly audible thump dissolved all of that. The 6-weight bowed in reverence as the fish lunged for safety in boulders that had rolled from sheer bluffs above eons ago. Once, twice, three times the drag ticked with a nervous energy as I prayed strength for the leader and steadfastness for the hookset.
And then the storm passed. The smallmouth was in the shallows. Ozark light, bent and wrinkled in the water, washed over fierce eyes and golden fins. Current rippled between my fingers as I gently removed the hook and supported the fish in a pebbled shoal. Gills pumped in earnest as she caught her liquid breath. Pectoral fins whirled and her tail took on a slight bend as she prepared to fight for her freedom again. This was when I set her free.
Just a few downstream miles from where I caught my best ever smallmouth, Big Creek joins the Buffalo. Big Creek carves through a large portion of my heritage. It’s headwaters trickle down a hollow directly across the road from my father’s boyhood home and the general store built by my grandparents now owned by my uncle. The creek winds through valleys and flows into the Buffalo River just a few miles from the town of Mt. Judea. The final resting place for my paternal grandparents, an aunt and uncle, countless cousins and other blood kin is the Mt. Judea Cemetery. Big Creek carries more than water to me.
Less than 10 miles from the confluence of Big Creek and the Buffalo, an industrial hog farm spreads manure on pastureland underlain with porous limestone. A limestone foundation, also known as Karst topography, is why the Ozarks are what they are. It’s why the hills are known for caves, sinkholes and limpid water. Its presence guarantees that any liquid poured on the ground will end up in the groundwater and in the creeks. And it’s the reason that Newton County is the poorest of locations for an industrial hog farm.
But that didn’t stop the construction of said farm. And, for various complex cultural reasons as well a simple economic reasons, the people of Mt. Judea and all of Newton County were little detriment either.
The farm houses around 2,500 sows and generates 1.5 million gallons of liquid hog manure annually, and it threatens a county economy that depends heavily on the one million plus tourists visiting the Buffalo River and surrounding area every year. Tourism accounts for 20-30 percent of Newton County’s total economy while number of employee on this farm won’t break double digits. Seems like a lopsided and easily discerned dichotomy. Funny how heavy support from big money tilts the scales.
You can read more about the farm here and its potential (and likely) threats to the environment and people here.
As more than just a fan of river, the region, and the people, I’ve taken an active role in bringing this issue to the public and was involved with a recently finished documentary called “Downstream People.” We’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to help us recoup expenses involved, provide avenues for viewing the video next spring and also support production of new documentaries that tell the stories about connections between a place and its people. Please visit the site, view the trailer, and consider making a small donation to further the cause.
They built a hog farm within the watershed of the Buffalo National River. If they think so little of the irreplaceable ecosystem and pristine wildness of our first national river, what does it mean for the countless creeks and streams in our country without such distinguished designation?
Arkansasonline
Off, and then on Drilling at the hog farm By Mike Masterson Last week, the owners of the controversial hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed changed their minds and refused to allow the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to drill a test hole deep beneath one of the factory's two manure lagoons. It was an unexpected development and a sudden reversal of the agreement between state officials and owners of C&H Hog Farms. But then, only days later, the owners changed their minds again and said they would allow drilling to proceed. On, then off, then on again. I imagine a light switch. So for now, unless this changes, or the driller can't make it, the Department of Environmental Quality says it will proceed with its plan to drill but a single hole beneath one of the lagoons to hopefully determine what's created the large, wet plume 120 feet beneath one corner of the lower waste pond. C&H owner Jason Henson changing his mind about cooperating after the state had arranged for a drilling contractor sounded to me like those hog factory folks saying they didn't want to participate anymore since the initial drilling plan changed in a way they didn't like. Why would Henson (the H in C&H) decide after weeks of cooperating with plans for the exploratory drilling to suddenly decline permission, yet several days later give the go-ahead again? Like many others, including the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, I can only guess. Could he have been concerned with what the testing might reveal, perhaps what the Oklahoma State University geologist whose March 2015 tests discovered the plume suspected: leakage from the lagoon? Something certainly had to have changed to cause Henson to suddenly pull his cooperation. The primary change I see was that the Department of Environmental Quality had revised its drilling plans to eliminate as exclusive "observers" two members of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team from the University of Arkansas' Agriculture Division. Under the agency's plan, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, whose sole interest lies in protecting the Buffalo watershed, also wasn't allowed an observer. Many have come to view the agriculture-oriented Big Creek team as sympathetic to the factory owners, particularly since part of its advertised mission is to explore how a large swine factory can co-exist with a fragile environment like the Buffalo's watershed. In other words, while it was widely assumed by the public that the Big Creek team would annually be paid $300,000 in tax funds over five years to aggressively monitor the hog factory's discharges to prevent the Buffalo's contamination, the "extension" part of the team's mission apparently was to assist the factory owners' efforts in helping make a success of the misplaced factory. Had the state proceeded with its misguided plan to have only Big Creek observers at the drilling tests, I'd have been more uncomfortable than ever about the way this intrusion into our precious river's watershed has been oddly championed by state regulators from the day the state wrongheadedly issued the permit three years ago. I can't overlook that it was the Big Creek team that employed this Oklahoma geologist who (acting on his own volition and using electronic technology) discovered the unidentified plume beneath the lagoon. Yet it was this same Big Creek team who then inexplicably chose not to reveal his disturbing discovery to the Department of Environmental Quality or the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. It wasn't until months later that the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance made the possible leak known during a commission meeting. With credibility and public trust suffering already, the department and the Big Creek team must realize it won't bode well for them in the public eye should this plume turn out to indeed be raw hog waste. Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo, flows at the bottom of the hill and into the Buffalo less than seven miles downstream. The Department of Environmental Quality responded to Henson's earlier denial of access by slapping C&H with a "Notice of Technical Incompleteness" regarding its permit. That meant C&H either had to allow the agency and its contractors onto the site to conduct the test, or would have to fund its own monitored testing. And its application for a permit was put on hold. However, with permission now restored, the state said that when the drilling is complete, the deficiency notice will be moot and the factory's permit application will be reviewed. I can't help wonder what our Gov. Asa Hutchinson is thinking of this multifaceted mess today, particularly since any consequences to bad decisions at this stage will unfold solely on his watch. The Alliance echoed my sentiments by saying our state is investing so much public money, time and energy when it's apparent to all with common sense that this factory "has no place in the sensitive karst terrain of the Buffalo River watershed." That, my friends, summarizes the on-again, off-again, on-again controversy. ------------v------------ Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com. Editorial on 09/11/2016
Downstream People - A Documentary
Help support this film by director Andy Sarjahani by following the link above where you can view the trailer for this revealing look at the environmental justice issues surrounding the C&H swine CAFO.
Arkansas Times
Richard Mays, the Heber Springs lawyer, tells me that the C and H Hog Farm at Mount Judea has relented and will cooperate with a plan to do drilling to test whether hog waste from the factory feeding operation is leaking into the Buffalo River watershed. Mays received a copy of a letter from the Department of Environmental Quality, dated Wednesday, that confirmed the farm had authorized access to the property for drilling as outlined in a compromise agreement that would include an independent monitor. The drilling will begin Sept. 19, if a driller is available. We reported last week that, despite an apparent agreement on monitoring, the hog farm was resisting access. As a result ADEQ began a review of the farm's permit to operate because it is supposed to allow access to regulators. Once the drilling study is conducted, the letter said, that proceeding will become moot.
A federal judge has agreed to bar consultants from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and a group opposing a Newton County hog farm from observing drilling at the site next week to determine if waste is leaking into a tributary of the Buffalo National River.
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance Inc. announced Friday that it will withdraw its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Little Rock that sought to allow an alliance scientist to be present during research at C&H Hog Farms near Mount Judea.
The settlement stipulates that neither the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance nor the state-hired Big Creek Research and Extension Team will have an observer present during drilling. Instead, an independent observer experienced in karst geology will monitor the drilling and report to all parties.
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance filed the legal action after the Environmental Quality Department rejected the alliance's request to have its consultant present during drilling.
Alliance attorney Richard Mays of Heber Springs said the group was satisfied with the agreement.
"It's not perfect, but it has achieved what we hope will be an objective and impartial assessment of the situation," Mays said. "It's about as good as we can get."
Kelly Robinson, a spokesman for the state's environmental department, did not return a telephone message seeking comment Friday afternoon.
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance asked for a hydrological consultant to observe drilling at the farm after electronic resonance images done nearly two years ago showed what they said was an unexpectedly high amount of moisture beneath one of the farm's manure ponds.
The images indicate the "likelihood" of a release of hog waste beneath the farm, Mays said.
The Big Creek Research and Extension Team did not report its findings of potential leakage to the environmental department, and the alliance only learned of the results after filing a Freedom of Information Act, Mays said.
"We believed there was a cozy relationship there between [the team] and ADEQ," he said. "We felt that there should be an independent observer there, or we should have one of our own, too."
The Environmental Quality Department hired Harbor Environmental of Little Rock to do the drilling and initially allowed two members of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team -- a division of the University of Arkansas System Agriculture Division -- at the testing, which was scheduled to be done Aug. 8 but was postponed. The alliance filed its lawsuit Aug. 24.
Mays' suit stated that the prohibition of the alliance's observers violated the rights of the alliance and its members to "due process and equal protection of the laws under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments."
C&H Hog Farms opened in May 2013 after the Environmental Quality Department approved its permit in late 2012. The farm sits on Big Creek, about 6 miles from where it converges with the Buffalo River.
The farm is licensed to house up to 6,000 piglets and 2,500 sows. Since it began operations, the farm has been the target of environmental groups that say the farm threatens the integrity of the river.
Research conducted by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team has not found the facility to be polluting into the river. Research will continue for at least another two years on the site.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson helped negotiate Friday's settlement, the alliance said in its news release.
"There was no point in continuing the suit," Buffalo River Watershed Alliance President Gordon Watkins said. "We had two options. One was if there was going to be other observers there for ADEQ, we should be allowed to observe. The other was to have no observers."
Drilling is expected to begin at C&H Farms on Wednesday, weather permitting, Watkins said.
He described Friday's negotiated settlement as a "small part" of the ongoing situation with the hog farm.
Watkins said water tests done in Big Creek have shown low dissolved oxygen levels, which is indicative of water being too warm, too many bacteria, organic discharges or untreated sewage.
He said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been asked to consider declaring the Buffalo National River an "impaired stream" because of the low levels.
Mays said the alliance will monitor the results of the drilling tests to determine if the hog farm is leaking.
"If they screw up, we will be the first to point it out," the attorney said.
The Buffalo River, the first national river, had 1.46 million visitors last year, the third-highest total since it became a national river in 1972 and the highest since a record visitors count of 1.55 million was set in 2009. That year, visitors spent an estimated $62.2 million at local businesses, directly supporting 750 jobs and secondarily supporting 219 others.
State Desk on 09/03/2016
Print Headline: Pig farm foes pull suit over drilling
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance this week reached a settlement with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality on testing for pollution from the C and H Hog farm at Mount Judea in the Buffalo River watershed. But the farm is resisting the testing and that's prompted a state enforcement action. The alliance asked yesterday for dismissal of the lawsuit it filed seeking an injunction. The Alliance reported last week that it had been having difficulties getting responses from ADEQ, but reported the agency had finally gotten in contact Aug. 25. The Alliance had objected to having only the Big Creek Research and Extension Team observe drilling research. The team, including University of Arkansas representatives, has come to be viewed as more sympathetic to agricultural interests. The Watershed Alliance wanted to have its own expert on hand to watch drilling for samples to see if hog waste has leaked into the ground water. The state is paying for testing. With the settlement, neither the Big Creek Research Team nor the Watershed Alliance would be allowed to observe the testing. Instead, an independent consultant would monitor the test. The consultant, from Indiana, was hired by the drilling contractor. Richard Mays, the Heber Springs lawyer who filed the suit, said the Alliance had checked the consultant and was satisfied with the choice. He said this was a better outcome. But, a few minutes later, Mays wrote me to say things have "gotten interesting."
Right now, however, the hog farm owner, Jason Henson, is refusing to allow ADEQ to go onto the site to conduct the investigation. ADEQ has issued a Notice of Technical Deficiency in C&H's permit application, which requires C&H to allow ADEQ and its contractors on site, or alternatively orders C&H to do the investigation under the supervision of ADEQ. ... That is the big news. There may be any number of reasons why C&H doesn't want ADEQ to do the investigation. One may be that they know or strongly suspect that there is a release [of pollution] and are hoping to avoid the investigation. Henson has a sympathetic supporter in some of the BCRET team members, and he may be hoping to get them admitted to the site to help in affecting the results.
LOG CABIN DEMOCRAT
Posted: September 2, 2016 - 10:45pm
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance Inc. announced Friday it has settled a lawsuit, filed by it in U.S. District Court in Little Rock on Aug. 24, against the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality over the presence of observers at drilling that is planned by ADEQ at the C&H Hog Farm in Newton County to investigate whether there is an ongoing release of hog wastes under the farm’s waste management facilities.
Evidence of a possible fracture and release was discovered during studies on the hog farm conducted in March 2015 by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team (BCRET), a group of scientists appointed by the University of Arkansas Department of Agriculture, and funded by the State of Arkansas. However, that evidence was not revealed by BCRET to ADEQ.
It was only after the Alliance obtained that evidence through a Freedom of Information Act request, and reported it to ADEQ in April 2016 that the public became aware of it.
BCRET has maintained that no additional studies are necessary to prove or disprove the existence of a release.
In July, ADEQ decided to drill into the subsurface at the hog farm to determine whether hog wastes are present.
ADEQ had initially planned to allow observers from BCRET during the investigation of the site, but not from the Alliance. The Alliance claimed that members of BCRET had a conflict of interest in the results of the drilling because BCRET had known about the evidence of a release for over a year and not reported it to ADEQ.
The Alliance filed the suit in U.S. District Court against ADEQ and the Hog Farm, claiming that it has a recognizable environmental and economic interest in the investigation as an equal stakeholder in the investigation with ADEQ, BCRET and the Hog Farm, and as such, it was entitled to have an observer present during the investigation.
After negotiations with ADEQ and Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office, the parties have agreed that neither BCRET nor the Alliance will have observers present during the drilling. Instead, an independent observer who is a geologist experienced in karst geology such as in the area of the hog farm will be present to monitor the activities and report the activities on the site to all of the parties.
In addition, samples will be taken of soil and water present beneath the hog farm during and after the drilling process, and those samples will be divided between several laboratories to obtain analysis of chemicals that may indicate the presence of hog wastes. Those analyses will be compared to determine consistency of results.
“The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance filed this suit because we felt that we were not being given the same opportunities to participate in the investigation and the same access to information as the other organizations who are considered stakeholders in the investigation,” Alliance President Gordon Watkins said.
Based upon verbal assurances from ADEQ legal counselor and the governor to Richard Mays, attorney for BRWA, that BCRET will not have a representative on site during the investigation, and the provisions of the revised Work Plan for the investigation which limits observers to the impartial observer hired by ADEQ’s contractor, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance has agreed to withdraw its suit.
“We are pleased that ADEQ plans to move forward with its investigation with regard to groundwater contamination beneath C & H’s waste storage ponds for permit ARG5900001.Our goal has been achieved, and there was no point in continuing the suit,” Watkins said. “There are other aspects of the investigation that we are not happy about, such as the number of borings that will be drilled during the investigation. A greater amount of information, and, therefore, greater confidence in the results would be obtained if at least three borings were done. However, we have no control over that.
“On the whole, we feel that this settlement on the information that will be available is fair and reasonable, and hopefully will protect the interest of the public in obtaining transparency of the investigation process and results. We thank the Governor’s office for intervening in the interest of equality of treatment and transparency.”
The Alliance said it wants to make clear that the issue in the lawsuit was but a small part of the investigation into whether there is a release of hog wastes from the C&H facility, and the settlement was without prejudice to the Alliance’s right to file subsequent suits should the need arise.
“We will continue to fight to rid the Buffalo River watershed of the threat of potentially devastating pollution that is presented by the presence of the hog farm,” Watkins said.
By Emily Walkenhorst
Posted: August 25, 2016 at 5:45 a.m.
Link
Opponents of a large hog farm near the Buffalo National River have filed a federal lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the hog farm, asking a judge to allow a scientist consulting for the opponents to be present during research at the farm.
The research, which is to be conducted on C&H Hog Farms' private land in Mount Judea, was requested by opponents of the hog farm -- including the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which filed the lawsuit -- earlier this year after they learned of research done in 2015 that showed what they said was an unexpectedly high amount of moisture beneath one of C&H's manure ponds.
C&H owners agreed to allow the Department of Environmental Quality to conduct the research, which consists of extracting samples from the ground through drilling to assess the integrity of the liners under the hog manure ponds.
The department hired Harbor Environmental of Little Rock to do the drilling, consulted with the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance about what it would like to see done during the project, and allowed up to two members of the state-hired Big Creek Research and Extension Team to be present during the drilling. The department rejected a request from the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance to have present its consultant, Bert Fischer, a University of Tulsa geology professor.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the alliance alleges that the Department of Environmental Quality, by allowing other stakeholders to be present at the drilling but not the representative for the alliance, has violated the rights of the alliance and its members to "due process and equal protection of the laws under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution" that the alliance is entitled to as a stakeholder in the Buffalo River.
The drilling might be done only once, alliance attorney Richard Mays said in an interview Wednesday.
"So we want to make sure that it's done the right way," he said.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. of Little Rock.
Mays said he decided to sue when he didn't hear from the department after his Aug. 4 letter and an email sent Tuesday.
Department spokesman Kelly Robinson said Mays' letter was considered a "comment" on the project that the department would respond to later. She said department officials, including Director Becky Keogh and Caleb Osborne, associate director of water quality, were traveling Tuesday from meeting with natural resources officials in Missouri on an unrelated project.
"Director Keogh has taken into consideration Mr. Mays' request to go on site at C&H Hog Farms in the Mt. Judea area as well as any requests," Robinson said in an emailed statement. "All requests to go onto the site will be considered.
"The activity will begin as soon as a driller becomes available. ADEQ anticipates this as soon as possible, with the understanding that there are many variables that will impact our time frame."
Those variables could include rainy weather and scheduling conflicts, Robinson said.
The drilling was originally scheduled to start Aug. 8 but has been postponed indefinitely.
The Department of Environmental Quality signed a contract with Harbor Environmental for $75,000 to do the drilling and lab work.
C&H Hog Farms first opened in May 2013 after having its permit approved by the department in late 2012. It has been under fire from environmental groups and others for more than three years for what they say is the risk it poses to the Buffalo River.
The facility sits on Big Creek about 6 miles from where it converges with the Buffalo River. It is the only large hog farm in the river's watershed and is permitted to house up to 6,000 piglets and 2,503 sows.
Research conducted by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team, which operates out of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, has not found the facility to be polluting into the river. Research will continue for at least another two years on the site.
arkansasonline
Metro on 08/25/2016
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