Buffalo River Watershed Alliance
Eureka Springs Independent
Hog farm must go, and can
May 25, 2016
Editor,
It has been three years now since AEP/SWEPCO sent our small town into a tizzy with their injudicious proposal to run a humongous power line through our beautiful community. We successfully fought off SWEPCO’s misanthropic misadventure.
About the same time, the hog farm on the Buffalo National River was approved and built, and continues to exist despite growing evidence it is damaging our state’s most precious and important National Park. People concerned with closing the hog farm have asked the secret of our success in stopping SWEPCO.
First we had the leadership of Pat Costner. Second, we had a community that stood united against it. Third, we had strong evidence against the need for it and fourth, we had great press coverage.
Regulatory agencies’ purpose is not to protect the public, but to enable corporations to get what they want. When it comes to dealing with regulatory agencies, it’s best to start with the knowledge that they will not take any steps to protect us that we are unwilling or unable to force them to take.
I urge those interested in protecting tourism and the environment to contact the governor’s office and the head of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and urge them to close the hog farm as soon as possible to prevent any further damage to one of our state’s most important resources. Governor Asa Hutchinson (501) 682-2345;
Becky Keogh, Director of the ADEQ (501) 682-0959
Please attend the meeting at the UU fellowship on Elk St. Thursday night from 7-8:30 p.m. Dr. Van Brahana will present the latest report on independent monitoring efforts and the growing evidence of impairment.
Doug Stowe
By Marti Oleson and Lisa R. Pruitt Special to the Democrat-Gazette
Everyone loves the Buffalo National River, and everyone supports caring for this Arkansas treasure. Opinions vary sharply, however, on what such care requires.
An industrial hog farm in the Buffalo River watershed currently threatens the destruction of the state's most iconic natural resource and risks a public health crisis in one of Arkansas' most impoverished places. Gov. Asa Hutchinson must act now to prevent further damage to the Buffalo and to protect those living in its watershed. He can do so by ordering subsurface drilling to determine definitively the presence of swine-waste contamination.
The Buffalo has been called Arkansas' gift to the nation, and all of us are stakeholders in this national park. But some communities have more at stake than others. The Buffalo flows primarily through Newton and Searcy counties, two of the poorest in the state and, indeed, the nation. In its 2012 authorization of the concentrated animal feeding operation on Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality failed to acknowledge the depth and persistence of poverty in these Ozarks highlands counties. This poverty, as well as lack of meaningful notice of the permit application, made the siting of the 6,500-hog operation--just across Big Creek from Mount Judea School--a textbook example of environmental injustice. Concerned citizens have since pushed for close governmental oversight of the CAFO.
Now, evidence presented to the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission in April indicates a "possible fracture and major movement of waste" beneath the CAFO's swine waste lagoons. This evidence is from Dr. Todd Halihan, an Oklahoma State University geologist with whom the Big Creek Research and Extension Team contracted to perform "non-invasive subsurface ... visualization." The Big Creek team receives state funds to monitor the CAFO's environmental impact, yet when Halihan's investigation suggested swine waste in the groundwater, it did not disclose it. Halihan's research saw the light of day only though Freedom of Information requests.
Halihan's findings demand a program of subsurface drilling to assess with certainty what is happening to the groundwater. The underground channels and conduits characteristic of the porous karst there can quickly transport E. coli, nitrates, and other toxins far and wide. If swine waste is reaching the groundwater, the health of area residents--many of whom rely on well water--is threatened.
Meanwhile, the CAFO is also undermining the region's economic well-being. The operation's owners initially promised to create local jobs and generate property-tax revenue, but the CAFO has done precious little of either. It pays just $7,000 in annual property taxes and, according to the CAFO owners, has created only eight jobs. Further, by undermining the health of the Buffalo itself, the CAFO is threatening the $56.6 million that ecotourism visitors spend annually, which generates nearly 900 jobs in gateway communities plus substantial sales-tax revenue.
Three years after the CAFO began operating, mounting evidence indicates that it is severely damaging the Buffalo. In addition to the threat of groundwater contamination, the swine-waste application fields along Big Creek are at "above optimum" levels of phosphorus, according to University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension soil tests. Storms churn up and release phosphorus-laden clay as turbidity into the Buffalo.
If the governor visited the confluence of Big Creek with the Buffalo, he would see the damage firsthand, visible as it is to the naked eye. Yet the Department of Environmental Quality appears to be in denial about this devastation, turning a blind eye to all data except that generated by the Big Creek team. But the team has a conflict of interest because it also consults with the CAFO on issues of sustainability. This conflict is well-illustrated by the team's failure to make timely disclosure of Halihan's troubling findings. In refusing to collaborate with those who should be natural allies in stewardship of the Buffalo, the state ignores available, objective scientific data that paint a more complete picture of the damage wrought by the CAFO.
Governor Hutchinson must act now to ensure the well-being of the Buffalo River watershed and its residents. No less than with Flint, Michigan's water crisis, the health of highly vulnerable citizens is at stake, and a governor has the power to protect them. In Arkansas' case, an executive order mandating a program of investigative drilling would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, also helping prevent further ruination of a wilderness gem.
In his comments to the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission last month, former Congressman Ed Bethune cautioned, "if we turn out to be the people who have to report to the world that there's hog doin's in the Buffalo, it's going to be a sad day for Arkansas."
It will be an even sadder day if the governor's failure to investigate creates a public health crisis in the watershed.
------------v------------
Marti Olesen is a 26-year resident of Newton County and a retired public school multimedia specialist. Lisa R. Pruitt is a fifth-generation native of Newton County and the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California at Davis.
Editorial on 05/23/2016
Arkansasonline
Disappointing stance
It's well-known that journalists are trained to be skeptical, but two recent editorials about the hog factory in Mount Judea reveal a flippancy and lack of sensitivity that does not serve the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette well.
"About those hog farms" and "No more hog farms" bemoan the ongoing controversy about the risk to our Natural State's most iconic natural treasure, the Buffalo River, characterizing further discussion about impending pollution as tedious, boring, and useless. It would almost seem that the editorial writers have not visited the Buffalo and lack an understanding of its importance to our distant corner of the state.
If more local landmarks like the Clinton Library, Oaklawn, or Riverfront Park were under threat of destruction, would they be so glib and insensitive? If Central High was on a path to be condemned to the wrecking ball, would they be so dismissive?
At some point, we all will feel a threat to someone or something we hold precious, and that threat will be real and palpable, and perhaps ongoing. In those moments, imagine hearing the words uttered by the Democrat-Gazette--"we're sick and tired of the whole subject, distraction and sideshow. Enough!"--and you get a sense of how callous, disappointing and even childish this position is from our state's most prominent newspaper.
GORDON WATKINS
Parthenon
What about those multiple plumes of suspicious leakage discovered by an Oklahoma State University geologist deep beneath the clay-lined waste lagoons at C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea?
While Dr. Todd Halihan stopped short of calling the substance hog waste, other knowledgeable scientists say the results imply groundwater contaminants "suggestive of waste" have indeed been leaking into the limestone karst beneath the lagoons for at least a year.
Halihan, you may recall, offered in 2015 to help arrange for drilling at no cost to acquire samples of the leakage that would easily either confirm or refute the findings from his equipment, which shows the amount of electrical resistivity underground.
A recent news story by reporter Emily Walkenhorst quoted Andrew Sharpley of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team saying his group sees no need to drill and learn what the stuff actually is. Yep. You read that right.
They apparently are content to remain blissfully ignorant of learning whether the stuff Halihan has documented through science is waste, clay or Nutella. Can't say as I blame them since, if it is hog waste, the Big Creek team would not only look bad for not revealing Halihan's results many months ago, but for not themselves discovering the mess. I'd call such an approach preferring comfortable political science and denial over painfully uncomfortable scientific confirmation.
Halihan conducted his tests beneath the waste lagoons and on several spray fields in March 2015 in conjunction with a contract requested by the Cooperative Extension Service and Sharpley's team. That UA team was established by former Gov. Mike Beebe to monitor environmental effects of the factory on the Buffalo National River watershed. The magnificent Buffalo flows less than seven miles downstream from this factory that spreads raw waste it generates across fields adjacent to Big Creek, a major tributary of the river.
The OSU professor apparently provided the results of his testing shortly after his studies were complete. Afterwards, Halihan is said to have offered to arrange for sample drilling to see whether the suspicious plumes that show up distinctly on the professor's charts are indeed hog waste.
Halihan's offer was declined at the time. I'd have jumped at Halihan's offer to determine the truth and promptly disclosed the results.
Today, well over a year has passed since those tests. Even as a layman, I must assume the plumes have continued to infiltrate the subsurface to possibly enter the underground fractures and fissures that are characteristic of the pervasive karst terrain.
I've seen how Halihan's tests of the area beneath four corners of the factory's dual lagoons reflect significant patches and streaks of purple at the lower ends at depths between 90 and 120 feet. That matters because the color purple on his transects represents the presence of easily conductive wet matter such as waste. In the factory's surrounding spray fields, Halihan's test shows only the single field most recently sprayed with hog waste from the lagoons reflected the same color purple to a depth of about 10 feet.
If the stuff beneath is clay, as Sharpley and his team surmise, why doesn't "clay" show up in the other fields not recently sprayed, and as pervasive around the clay-lined lagoons? Even Halihan said in Walkenhorst's story that he didn't believe his study reflects simply clay.
So what happens now, since Halihan's findings were finally made public the other day at a meeting of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission? Does no responsible tax-paid public servant feel the need to know exactly what Halihan's testing discovered? Commissioners and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) all claimed they didn't know of Halihan's disturbing revelations until that meeting just the other day. Why not?
The question remains: Just when did the Big Creek team know of Halihan's results anyway?
Why weren't relatively inexpensive test drillings performed to settle the issue conclusively?
At this point, I believe public pressure to do right falls squarely on the shoulders of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, Department of Environmental Quality, and our governor. And I know those folks at the University of Arkansas Divison of Agriculture should quickly secure an independent agency to perform the sampling beneath the lagoons. This matter is simply too important to our state and our national river to needlessly settle for assumptions and uncertainty.
If it turns out the plumes are clay or even peanut butter, at least the people of Arkansas will know. Let's suppose science determines all this leaking is from the lagoon's clay liners; wouldn't gravity also say the raw waste those liners were supposed to contain follows on its heels?
By Emily Walkenhorst
Posted: May 15, 2016 at 3:21 a.m.
Opponents of a Newton County hog farm near the Buffalo River have asked the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to shut down the farm near Mount Judea in light of new data, but researchers caution that the data are inconclusive.
Several organizations opposed to C&H Hog Farms recently spoke before the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission regarding research conducted by an Oklahoma State University team on behalf of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team.
The Big Creek team, created to research C&H Hog Farms' impact on its surrounding environment, is funded with Arkansas rainy-day funds and operates out of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The team has operated for three years, and researchers hope it will continue for at least another two.
Research conducted last spring and made available this spring measured electroresistivity of the ground beneath three plots of land on karst terrain near the Buffalo National River. Electroresistivity imaging indicates to researchers how dry or wet the ground below the surface is. Ground that is resistant to electricity is dry. Electricity-conductive ground is wet.
The three plots were all different. One was where C&H had recently spread hog manure on the soil. Another was where C&H had applied manure less recently, and the third was where no manure had been spread.
Electroresistivity was found to be higher where manure had been applied.
The results prompted opponents of the hog farm to tell the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission that the river was potentially in danger of pollution from the farm, and they requested that the farm be shut down until further research can be conducted.
Numerous people, including former U.S. Rep. Ed Bethune, R-Ark., told commissioners of their dismay about the test results. Bethune has opposed the department's permitting of C&H's operation, which is in the Big Creek area about 6 miles from where the creek meets the Buffalo National River.
"If I were a member of this commission, if I were the director of ADEQ, I would be outraged that I did not know about the findings of Oklahoma State University at this site a year ago," Bethune said.
The Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- is a popular tourist spot, with more than 1.3 million visitors in 2014 who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is looking into the information presented at the meeting, chief technical officer Bob Blanz said.
"We're certainly interested in it because it can mean a number of different things, and we just need to find out what that is," Blanz said.
Department officials have spoken with the Big Creek team leader and University of Arkansas at Fayetteville environmental sciences professor Andrew Sharpley but had not spoken to any Oklahoma State University researchers as of Thursday morning.
Researchers have speculated among themselves about what caused the test results. They all agree that no cause can be determined on the basis of only one test.
Todd Halihan, the researcher from Oklahoma State University, where he is a professor of hydrogeophysics and hydrogeology of fractured and karstic aquifers, said the results could be because hog manure itself is conductive, or because microbes could be growing below the ground surface.
Halihan said he is inclined to believe the microbes explanation, but he has no samples of microbes to determine whether they are good or bad. Additional testing could detect that, he said.
The test results weren't distressing, Halihan said. While they detected the presence of manure on the ground surface, they did not show that anything alarming was occurring.
"There wasn't a huge amount [of manure] applied," he said. "We're not looking at a site with a big spill or a massive application over time."
He added that the amount of manure C&H had been applying as fertilizer to the land was "reasonable."
Researchers with the Big Creek Research and Extension Team had a different theory about the test results. They said clay in the upper layers of the ground beneath the hog manure is naturally more conductive.
Halihan disagreed, arguing that clay alone couldn't explain the test results.
But Big Creek team researchers -- including Sharpley; University of Arkansas at Fayetteville associate professor of geosciences Phil Hays; and UA System Division of Agriculture professor and extension engineer Karl VanDevender -- said they are confident that their theory is correct because no other testing done in the area has indicated pollution.
The research team regularly collects samples near the C&H farm, including from a 200-foot trench on the property. The researchers said none of their samples from the trench have caused them concern.
"If there was some leakage, we would pick it up in direct measurements," Sharpley said. "We do not see -- we're looking -- but we do not see anything [that shows that]."
In additional research done near a manure pond some distance from the three test sites, Halihan detected -- through electroresistivity imaging -- in one place conductivity seemed higher than expected given the geology of the land, indicating a potential ground fracture where manure could seep through.
Researchers could address that in two ways, he said. They could drill to see if a fracture exists or they could line the ponds with a protective liner instead of relying on its packed-clay bottoms and sides to prevent seepage.
The department has approved C&H for installing liners, but the farm would have to empty the ponds to install them, Blanz said.
To help with that, officials at EC Farms in Newton County have applied for a permit to increase the amount of hog manure allowed on its land. C&H could then transfer the manure from its ponds to EC Farms, and then install the liners in the empty ponds, Blanz said. That permit hasn't been approved.
As for drilling, the price of doing that would depend on the contractor and the type of sampling done, Halihan said, adding that a ballpark estimate would be $10,000.
The Big Creek research team doesn't plan to drill because it is confident in its test results and in those results being similar elsewhere in the area, said Rick Cartwright, professor and extension associate director for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the Division of Agriculture.
Big Creek researchers said electroresistivity imaging is useful technology, but it must be paired with additional research for accurate analysis. Current additional research doesn't indicate that the manure ponds are leaking, they said.
"We have five different types of direct measurement going on," Cartwright said. "None of them indicate leakage, contamination, movement. The large body of evidence doesn't really support drilling or additional probing at this time."
Buffalo River Watershed Alliance board member Dane Schumacher said a few thousands dollars for drilling isn't much compared with the hundreds of thousands already invested in research.
"It's not clear," she said. "It's their interpretation, and I think drilling needs to be done" to determine whether the moisture in the ground is because the soil is clay or because there's presence of hog waste.
She said taxpayers funding the Big Creek team would want a more thorough examination, especially because the experts disagree with one another.
"Why wouldn't you want to drill to confirm?" she said.
Metro on 05/15/2016
New and critical scientific information about the possible release of contamination from hog waste beneath the C&H Hog Farms industrial facility in Mount Judea was recently brought to light at an April 29 meeting of the Commissioners of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission (APCEC), according to a press release from the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.
The Alliance says information comes from a study conducted in March 2015 that shows a major fissure and movement of waste under the waste lagoons at C&H Hog Farms, a progression that that has now likely been ongoing for over one year. The presence of the concentrated animal feeding operation housing up to 6,500 swine near a tributary to the Buffalo National River has been hotly contested by members of the Buffalo River Coalition, concerned Arkansans and many out-of-state visitors who enjoy the pristine waters of Arkansas’ crown jewel.
“It will be a sad day if what appears to be a substantial discharge of swine waste into groundwater proves to be true and that state agencies and the public were not informed,” said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. “It’s a damn shame that, in spite of ongoing warnings from the public, damage must be done before those in charge of protecting our state resources will take notice."
The study, completed by Oklahoma State University in collaboration with the Big Creek Research and Extension Team (BCRET), involves Electrical Resistivity images recorded at depths of more than 100 feet below the ground. The Electrical Resistivity Imaging (ERI) technology laid bare geological structures in the substrate, such as possible fractures, flow paths, and bedrock. Emails obtained by the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA) under the Freedom of Information Act in January 2016 revealed that members of the state-funded study by BCRET were fairly confident that a “major fracture and movement of waste” beneath the ponds was suggested by the data. BRWA requested and received the raw technical data collected during the ERI testing.
“Reading those emails raised all kinds of flags for us,” said Buffalo River Watershed Alliance Board member Dane Schumacher. “With Arkansas’ crown jewel at stake, why was this information unavailable to the public for a year?”
To clarify the magnitude and meaning of the evidence, independent opinions from two expert geologists were sought. Dr. Christopher Liner, a geophysicist at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville concluded that “the holding pond data implies ground water contamination to a depth of at least 120 ft., most logically from leakage of the hog manure storage ponds.” Thomas Aley, a noted hydrogeologist specializing in natural resource management of karst (porous underground) regions, concurred saying that “the data strongly suggest that there is appreciable leakage downward out of the manure ponds. Such leakage not only introduces pollutants into the groundwater system but in this karst setting may also lead to subsidence or collapse of the ponds.”
“It is certainly alarming that swine waste may have been leaking into the ground and groundwater to a depth of 120 feet or more, with little or no filtration, for more than a year,” said Jack Stewart, Vice President of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. “It is doubly alarming that this potentially disastrous discharge of waste was not brought to the attention of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) or the Commission, until private citizens uncovered the information and made it public.”
In comments made at the APCEC meeting, former U.S. Congressman Ed Bethune said: “Taxpayers were assured that the research would be independent and that the goal was to protect the public interest… Now… we learn that the director of ADEQ and the PC&E Commission were not told about the OSU findings…. In my experience, bureaucracies are unwilling to divulge findings and information that is contrary to the outcome they prefer.... There should be an effort to find out who knew what and when did they know it.”
The permit granted by ADEQ in 2012 to C&H Hog Farms allows for some amount of waste leakage from the waste storage ponds, but the permit was issued with no consideration given to the possible existence of porous karst that allows direct transmission of any leakage into the groundwater, springs and ultimately into the Buffalo River. In fact, environmental assessments that enabled the permit were based on the conclusion that the swine facility site does not exhibit karst hydrogeology, a conclusion that turns a blind eye to the overwhelming scientific consensus and comments of the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to the contrary.
The BRWA has contended from the outset that a thorough environmental assessment of the facility would have confirmed what professional geologists have stated: fractured and porous limestone formations underlie the entire Ozark Plateau, which includes the Mount Judea area. In light of the new evidence of underground hog waste leakage, the Buffalo River Coalition — which includes the Ozark Society, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Arkansas Canoe Club, and the National Parks Conservation Association — is asking that C&H Hog Farms operations are halted until an investigation can evaluate possible damage or risk of damage. In addition, the Coalition requests that BCRET be instructed to promptly and fully disclose to ADEQ and the public any and all evidence that it may now or in the future have of any release or potential for release from the facility.
“We are looking for APCEC and ADEQ to take prompt action, order a thorough investigation, and ensure that corrective and protective measures are implemented before further damage is done,” said Buffalo River Watershed Alliance Board member Ginny Masullo. “The health of the Buffalo National River and certainly Arkansas citizens should benefit from the highest levels of protection. Anything less is just plain negligence.”
May 11, 2016
Lin Wellford – On Friday, April 29, the Arkansas Dept. of Pollution Control and Ecology commission met in Little Rock. I was there to make a formal comment questioning the wisdom of allowing C&H Hog Farms to spread hog manure on an additional 600 acres within the Buffalo River watershed when water tests of tributaries already show some disturbing trends. In under three years all but one of the pastures currently receiving this so-called “nutrient” are now above optimum levels for phosphorus which will run off, feed algae and deplete oxygen.
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA) was there to make a Power Point presentation. What they revealed had us all stunned. For more than a year, the U of A research team has known that there was evidence of a massive movement of waste beneath the facility. It was discovered when a team from the Oklahoma State University was contracted to do Electrical Resistance Imaging (ERI) to determine if there were karst underlying pastures where waste was being spread. (You may recall that two different out-of-state firms proclaimed there was “no evidence of karst” in environmental assessments, to the wonderment of geologists around the region.)
While the ERI team was there, a member asked Jason Henson, who is running C&H Hog Farms, if he’d like to have them test around the waste lagoons. Jason agreed. That test revealed a broad flow channel, as well as a huge accumulation of what is likely waste, some 120 feet deep. I say “likely” because the only way to know for sure is to drill a well down into it.
The OSU team apparently offered to drill such a test well for free. We know this only because members of the BRWA used the Freedom of Information Act to request reports and communications having to do with the Big Creek study since so little data had been forthcoming, and it is a taxpayer-funded study. There is no record of the offer to drill being accepted, by the way.
Charles Moulton, legal council for the commission, questioned Becky Keogh, current head of ADEQ about the decision to drop the Reg. 6 general permit and not renew it for C&H. C&H had already applied to switch to a Reg. 5 permit. Moulton noted that board members had been told in 2011 by Teresa Marks, the former ADEQ head, that the board needed to approve the new, streamlined Reg. 6 permit (the one that made it so quick and easy for a 6500-head hog CAFO to get a permit without the public getting wind of it) because the EPA was adopting a similar permit and Arkansas needed to be aligned with their federal permit. Only the EPA never did adopt it.
So now it turns out, the ADEQ just wants to forget the whole thing. A Reg. 5 permit requires much more stringent site studies and assessment up front than the Reg. 6 one. But once in operation, a Reg. 5 is a lot easier. No more pesky public hearings every time there is a need to make a change in their “state-of the art” facility or their professionally designed nutrient management plan.
I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but it surely does seem that there has been some clever choreography going on here. As taxpayers, we are funding the Big Creek Research and Extension Team. And we’re paying the salaries of the employees of ADEQ to protect our resources.
It’s time the governor steps in and stops this song and dance! If you agree, or want to know more, there will be a free informational program on May 26, at 7 p.m. at the UU Church, 17 Elk Street. Dr. Van Brahana will present data on his independent karst study and Still on the Hill will sing new Buffalo songs. Come early to write letters to the Guv or sign petitions.
Findings raise questions By Mike Masterson How's it possible that Oklahoma State University geologist Todd Halihan discovered likely evidence of raw hog waste seeping deep into the karst-laden subsurface and groundwater beneath the hog factory at Mount Judea without state environmental agencies, the governor and Arkansans learning of it for a year? How could the Big Creek Research and Extension Team from the University of Arkansas and the Cooperative Extension Service retain Halihan, yet fail to post the scientist's results on the team's website until late last month? After all, the only reason it was formed was because former Gov. Mike Beebe ensured public money was appropriated to protect the Buffalo National River watershed from contamination by raw waste created by C&H Hog Farms. So many questions swirl today around this issue that became public at a meeting of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission just the other day. And now the entire state knows Halihan conducted tests in March 2015 to identify what independent experts concur is evidence of fractures and waste leaking into multiple areas as deep at 120 feet beneath two waste lagoons and barns that contain up to 6,500 swine. Since Halihan offered to assist in getting drilling tests done for free to confirm his electrical resistivity imaging studies, why wasn't his offer accepted immediately last year? Has anyone responsible for environmental quality insisted on such drilling? If not, why the heck not? Don't the research team, the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, the Department of Environmental Quality, the governor and we the people who are paying for all this supposed environmental "protection" want to know the truth of what's transpiring beneath this factory? I'd sure like to know. I asked Gordon Watkins, who heads the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, one in a coalition of concerned Buffalo River advocate groups, for his thoughts. He responded: "It's unclear if/how [the Big Creek team] and OSU planned to release the pond data ... since January we've sent multiple FOIA requests for the data to [Environmental Quality], U of A and OSU so they knew we were aware of the problem. "Watershed Alliance board members drove to Stillwater on April 3 to meet with Halihan, and he showed them the images and said he'd already sent them to Professor Andrew Sharpley [head of the Big Creek team]; they again FOIA'd the U of A for the data but were stalled," said Watkins. "We were told the data was too voluminous to email to us and they were in the process of posting it to [their] website. "But we wanted the data for the ... meeting on April 30, so we then contacted Halihan, who sent the data directly to us via email with no problems," Watkins continued. "We posted it on our Alliance website. The next day the same data appeared on the [research team's] site." Oh my, such a coincidence. I'm not nearly skeptical enough to believe the Big Creek folks hurried to finally post the results one day after the Alliance did after having the information, presumably, since March 2015. Neither the research team nor OSU have yet to offer any explanation for what Halihan's findings actually mean, Watkins said. Now, I'm no member of any agriculture-oriented research and "extension" team. But I believe through applying whole-hog common sense, I'll opine as follows on Halihan's findings. If someone gathers the willpower to conduct the inexplicably neglected test drillings in areas identified by Halihan's research, I believe they'll confirm what the findings suggest: lots of raw hog waste infiltrating the karst and groundwater beneath C&H Hog Farms. What would that confirm? That our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) made a phenomenally bad decision by issuing this factory a permit in such a sensitive region. Perhaps no one has drilled there because what they're likely to find also would support what karst expert John Van Brahana and his diligent team of volunteer researchers have been saying for two years now. Now that would be a fine kettle of poisoned fish, wouldn't it? Now that such crucial information has been made public, I again lay the matter of preserving the purity of our national treasure at the feet of Gov. Asa Hutchinson. His predecessor, Governor Mike Beebe, publicly said his biggest regret in office was allowing this hog factory to be permitted in the watershed, adding that he didn't even know it was happening. I'm hoping the governor will closely review these findings, and order testing to either confirm or reject Halihan's findings along with a credible analysis of how much waste already has leaked and the nature of possible damage to the watershed and the Buffalo flowing less than seven miles downstream. It's unimaginable that the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality were not made aware of Halihan's critical findings. How do you feel about these latest developments, Mr. and Mrs. taxpaying and voting Arkansas? ------------v------------ Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com. Editorial on 05/07/2016
Greenwire
Marc Heller, E&E reporter
An Arkansas hog farm that has long been under the scrutiny of environmentalists may be leaking waste into the Buffalo National River, a group aiming to shut the facility said yesterday.
The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance said ongoing tests by university researchers appear to indicate an underground breach in waste ponds at C&H Hog Farm Inc., a 6,500-swine operation in Mount Judea.
The group said it obtained correspondence between federal regulators and the researchers through the Freedom of Information Act that shows some preliminary results.
One of the researchers found evidence of a "major fracture and movement of waste" from testing based on a substance's differing resistance to electricity, known as electrical resistivity, according to an Oct. 16, 2015, email from a U.S. Geological Survey water specialist to a leader at the University of Arkansas' Big Creek Research and Extension Team.
The tests reach as far as 100 feet below ground level, about the depth researchers say they may see evidence of waste moving.
Team leader Andrew Sharpley said their next step was to verify the possible leak and to check whether signs of waste movement are connected to other factors such as changing seasons. The study could last at least five years to ensure accurate findings, he said.
"We want to be sure before we say something," Sharpley said.
The hog farm has given researchers from the University of Arkansas and Oklahoma State University access to the facility for the study.
C&H was involved in litigation related to the Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration. A federal judge ruled in 2014 that the agencies approved a financing arrangement without a proper environmental impact review. The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance was one of the plaintiffs in the case (Greenwire, Dec. 3, 2014).
C&H Farms operates the facility through a contract with JBS USA Holdings Inc., the U.S. component of the largest animal protein company in the world. A JBS spokesman had no comment yesterday.
In general, pork producers are "subject to detailed regulation and are leading the nationwide effort to develop additional, science-based regulations" dealing with concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), said the National Pork Producers Council on its website.
"Pork producers share the concerns of all citizens for the protection of the natural resources and are committed to the best management of their pork operations," said the council.
If further testing confirms an underground leak, the next step would be a cleanup of contaminated groundwater, said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.
Ultimately, he said, the alliance believes the topography of the area -- with fractured and porous limestone formations -- provides a risky setting for CAFOs.
Buffalo River Watershed Alliance is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization
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