Democrat Gazette

Letter to Editor

The next battleground

Is clean water our next battleground? Without oil, we may have to walk, but without water, no one and nothing can survive.

These days the news is full of water woes. Flint, Mich., may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cities with poisoned drinking water. Algal blooms are making reservoirs unusable in some parts of the country, while mining waste, abandoned chemicals, and tons of excess nutrients imperil our country's water systems everywhere you look.

At the same time, there are powerful special-interest groups in our state and elsewhere ranting, along with their hand-picked politicians, that efforts to protect this most precious of all our shared resources is "government overreach." All the while, they are busy exploiting both ground and surface water resources for their own private profit.

Now that's "overreach." Nobody wants the government to interfere--until they need a bailout!

Next time one of these folks tries to tell you that the government is trying to steal your property rights away by seeking to protect the quality of rivers and the tributaries that create those vital waterways, ask yourself what anyone's property will be worth when our planet's finite supply of clean water has been squandered. We can stand together now to preserve the environment that sustains us all, or we will bequeath a broken world to our children and their children.

LIN WELLFORD

Green Forest

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2016/apr/04/letters-to-the-editor-20160404/?opinion

Letters to the Editor

Posted: April 4, 2016 at 5:40 p.m.

State response on

Buffalo River inadequate

I attended a special meeting of the Arkansas Joint House and Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development on March 29 in Little Rock.

Despite the statement at that meeting by Director Becky Keogh of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality that collaborative efforts are "planned" to protect the Buffalo River, cooperation did not show its face in this meeting.

After three hours of presentations by the ADEQ and others invited by ADEQ, the National Park Service and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance were allowed to speak. Listed last on the meeting agenda, neither the park service nor the alliance had been extended the courtesy of notification of this meeting. Both learned of the meeting indirectly and only learned of being on the agenda when the alliance requested a copy of the meeting agenda.

If any true collaboration regarding protection of the Buffalo National River is to ensue, the data and recommendations from the following credible sources need to be included and given more priority than ADEQ appears to be willing to give. Those sources include the United States Geological Survey, National Park Service, Arkansas Fish and Game Commission and the Karst Hydrogeology of the Buffalo National River Study. The study's dye testing studies have demonstrated the highly unpredictable ways water can flow in the Buffalo River watershed. Stakeholders such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and the Buffalo River Coalition needed to be well included as public representatives. Thus far, this collaborative effort Keogh spoke of is nonexistent.

The fact remains that sufficient and robust data from credible sources such as the National Park Service show that three tributaries of the Buffalo River are impaired. Significant and frequent high levels of E.coli in big Creek, where the 6,500-hog factory farm sits, have been found by not only the Park Service but by the publicly funded Big Creek Research Extension Team. The environmental quality agency and that research extension team stated in the March 29 meeting they want to wait and see if these levels of elevated E.coli just go away, despite the millions of gallons of hog waste being applied to fields adjacent to Big Creek.

Both the Park Service and the Arkansas Game and Fish requested that state agency list Big Creek on its impaired waters list due to low dissolved oxygen levels. Aquatic life such as the small-mouth bass require dissolved oxygen for adequate growth.

The Park Service also requested Buffalo River tributaries Mill Creek and Bear Creek be declared impaired.

The Department of Environmental Quality has a duty to list these three streams on the the list of impaired streams. They have not provided plausible reasons for not doing so.

The Buffalo River is not fine when its tributaries are impaired.

Ginny Masullo

Fayetteville

Commentary on 04/05/2016

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016

Rhetoric over science?
By Mike Masterson

Imagine my relief to hear Becky Keogh, director of the state agency that wrongheadedly permitted that controversial hog factory in our treasured Buffalo National River watershed, assure legislators her staff is hard at work protecting the "healthy" river and its tributaries.
Anyone buying that in light of recent official findings that water quality in three of those tributaries is impaired? Anyone believe this agency has a reason to save face since it approved unleashing millions of gallons of raw swine waste into the watershed?
It didn't seem to matter to Keogh, of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough), that her statement sharply contradicts recent water-quality studies by the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey, as well as by professor emeritus John Van Brahana. All show three tributaries are impaired either by low dissolved-oxygen levels that damage aquatic life, or high E. coli content.
Keogh stood the other day to address a room of spectators and politicos with agendas (lobbyists too, imagine!), some of whom want fewer regulations when it comes to protecting our magnificent Buffalo. Darn near impossible to fathom, isn't it?
Keogh assured members of the Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Joint Interim Committee of what good health the Buffalo is in and that there's simply no need to list the tributaries on the biennial list of impaired waterbodies required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. This, despite studies that prompted the park service and others to request Mill Creek, Bear Creek and Big Creek be included on the Department of Environmental Quality's latest list.
The negative findings documented in those streams were dismissed by the department as having been conducted during a "freaky year." Its vigilant environmental watchdogs (now that's freaky) need a longer period of study, the agency claims, perhaps even five years of data.
Hmmm. Well, Chuck Bitting, natural resource program manager for the National Park Service at the country's first national river, said his office has been steadily supplying the state agency with data for decades. He said E. coli bacteria was detected in Big Creek, which flows along waste-spreading fields for C&H Hog Farms, in a full third of tests during in 2014.
Bitting told reporter Emily Walkenhorst that the park service is obligated to monitor water quality in the park, which annually attracts well over a million visitors who leave over $56 million to boost the economy of the region.
"We want to see the river protected by all means necessary and whatever means are appropriate," Bitting told the reporter, continuing: "We're not here to shut agriculture down, and we're not here to shut industry down."
The park service collected weekly water samples in Mill Creek, the Buffalo's largest tributary, for more than a year and periodic samples for more than 30 years. Bitting said park service data during 2015 from the creek showed elevated levels of E. coli--high enough to place warning signs for those seeking recreation along the creek and downstream on the Buffalo River.
At Big Creek at Carver, the park service used U.S. Geological Survey data to determine that the stream's dissolved-oxygen level is too low. Similar findings exist at Bear Creek near Silver Hill, the fourth-largest Buffalo tributary.
Gordon Watkins, who heads the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, told me he believes there is legitimate concern for worry about the Buffalo's health.
"[The Department of Environmental Quality] wants to fall back on technicalities to avoid including Buffalo's tributaries on the impaired list, while [the park service], one of its most trusted partners for over 30 years when monitoring the Buffalo's water quality, is alerting [the state agency] to imminent threats, " he said. "There was a clear desire by agencies, the legislature, and Farm Bureau (their national president "Zippy" Duvall was the hearing's headliner) to avoid EPA oversight but no suggestion the state turn away millions in EPA grant funds.
"Most disturbing was the amount of effort made to explain away ... concerns. It was obvious [Environmental Quality] wanted to avoid listing Big Creek as impaired because that would require them to identify the sources of the problems and act to correct them. And we know where that would lead," he said, adding he still doesn't know how this meeting came about or who called it. His alliance was on the agenda, but he learned about it only by chance last Friday because he'd not been invited.
P-47s, then jets 
Retired Col. David Fitton of Harrison flew a P-47 fighter during World War II, followed by piloting jets in Korea. We didn't have jets in combat in World War II, even though I wrote last week the decorated pilot flew them then. Just keeping the record straight.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 04/02/2016

Arkansasonline

Buffalo River protected, state agency says

No need to list feeders as polluted, lawmakers told; park official disagrees

By Emily Walkenhorst

Posted: March 30, 2016 at 3:10 a.m.

The Buffalo National River is in good health, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials told the Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Development Joint Interim Committee on Tuesday.

The standards for the river's tributaries are working to adequately protect the river from pollution, department Director Becky Keogh said, despite recent arguments from National Park Service officials concerned that three tributaries to the river are polluted because of E. coli and low oxygen levels.

National Park Service officials have asked the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to list three tributaries to the Buffalo National River on the department's biennial list of polluted water bodies in Arkansas in light of data going back to 2013, but so far the department has declined, given the number of years over which the samples were collected.

The park service has asked to add Mill Creek, Bear Creek and Big Creek, but the department has argued that the data obtained during the "period of record" -- before April 1, 2015 -- don't show that the waterways are polluted.

A portion of Big Creek is where C&H Hog Farms is located. C&H Hog Farms, which is permitted to hold up to 2,503 sows and 4,000 piglets at a time, has been the target of many environmental advocates who believe that the farm has had a negative effect on the river and that the pig manure poses a threat to the water during flooding.

Instead of classifying the streams as polluted, Keogh said the tributaries should be placed on a middle-ground category that would say data is insufficient to classify the tributaries and would prompt the department to consult with other states over new ways of monitoring the tributaries and assessing the results.

"Our preliminary review indicates these three tributaries should be listed as category 3," said Julie Chapman, senior associate director of the department's office of law and policy.

Chapman said data from 2014 showed several times when water quality standards were exceeded but that water samples taken since have shown much better results, including 8 percent of samples showing E. coli issues in 2015, well below the threshold for action of 25 percent.

"It could be that 2014 was just a freaky year," she said.

Looking at the data over a span of five years would allow the department to account for statistical anomalies, she said.

Chuck Bitting, natural resource program manager for the National Park Service at the Buffalo National River, emphasized the number of times E. coli was detected at Big Creek in 2014, which according to the park service was 33 percent of the time.

At the same time, Bitting noted, more than 1.3 million people visited the Buffalo River in 2014 and spent about $56.5 million at area businesses.

"The National Park Service has an obligation to monitor the water quality in the park," he said, adding that the park service has supplied data to the department for decades.

The state has funded a five-year study by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture that research team leader Andrew Sharpley told legislators Tuesday did not yet show significant trends in its first 2½ years. Sharpley is a professor of soils and water quality at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

A five-year ban on new medium or large hog farms in the Buffalo River's watershed is in place until 2019, when the study will be finished. That ban was supported by environmental groups; Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office, which negotiated the temporary ban in lieu of a permanent ban; and legislators.

The department uses five years of data from in-house and several other sources to determine pollution or lack of pollution in water bodies in creating a list of polluted waters. The list is the 303(d) list, which is required under the federal Clean Water Act and is overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Placement on the list -- if the list is approved by the EPA -- can require studies to determine appropriate limits for cities, businesses or others seeking permits to discharge wastewater into a particular body of water.

The EPA has not approved an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality list since 2008, citing disagreements with the department on how the department assesses water quality. But if the department recommended a stream be placed on the 2016 list and the EPA did not approve that list, the department could still require additional water monitoring on those waterways when issuing wastewater discharge permits to new facilities or renewing existing permits.

Several legislators expressed an interest in avoiding more regulation, if possible, and asked department officials if water quality standards generally can be achieved without extra regulation. Keogh and Arkansas Natural Resources Commission Executive Director Randy Young said they could. Young testified before the committee about water programs for farmers that have, among other things, reduced water runoff from farms.

In the future, Keogh said she hopes to work with the National Park Service and other agencies in Arkansas to develop the "Beautiful Buffalo Collaborative," which would establish methods of protecting the river and simultaneously help the department avoid going through the traditional, drawn-out process of creating a Total Maximum Daily Load study and enforcement process like it would with other streams placed on the list.

The collaborative would produce more of an Arkansas approach to the river than one that must go through the EPA, Keogh said.

"We want to see the river protected by all means necessary and whatever means are appropriate," Bitting said. "We're not here to shut agriculture down, and we're not here to shut industry down."

The National Park Service collected weekly water samples in Mill Creek, which is the largest tributary to the Buffalo River, for more than a year and has collected periodic samples for more than 30 years, Bitting has said. Based on the National Park Service's data from 2015, the creek has elevated levels of E. coli. The National Park Service has placed signs along Mill Creek and downstream on the Buffalo River warning people of elevated levels of E. coli.

Downstream of the Buffalo River where it meets Mill Creek is Big Creek at Carver, where the National Park Service used U.S. Geological Survey data to determine that the amount of dissolved oxygen in the stream is too low, leaving it less hospitable to aquatic species. The National Park Service has made a similar determination at Bear Creek near Silver Hill, which is the fourth-largest tributary of the Buffalo River and is downstream of where the Buffalo meets Big Creek.

Metro on 03/30/2016

Earthjustice. org

THE MASSIVE FISH KILL FLORIDA COULD HAVE PREVENTED

By David Guest | Friday, March 25, 2016

The environmental news this Florida tourist season continues to get more horrific.

We reported earlier this month about the polluted water spewing onto Florida’s east and west coasts from Lake Okeechobee, turning blue waters brown and disgusting.

Now, dead fish of all varieties are floating belly-up in the waters of the Indian River Lagoon and the Banana River on Florida’s upper southeast coast. The culprit is a brown algae outbreak sparked by fertilizer, manure, and sewage pollution.

 

The algae explosion robs the water of oxygen, and everything in the water dies. We at the Earthjustice Florida office have spent years trying to get meaningful regulations to restrict this type of pollution, and we’ve had to battle the nation’s largest polluters—and their politician friends—every step of the way.

Now, this failure to regulate pollution has come home to roost in the form of this massive fish kill, stretching for miles on waterways between the Space Coast towns of Titusville and Palm Bay. Tourists arriving in sunny Florida to embark on cruise ships out of Port Canaveral have been met by a nauseating stench and a disgusting sight. Local officials have hurriedly installed dumpsters at boat ramps and waterfront parks so that residents can scoop up the fish and dispose of them.

Long-time fishing columnist Ed Killer, who writes for Treasure Coast-Palm Coast newspapers, put it best: 

“I'm sick of this,” he wrote.

“I'm sick of writing about fish kills.

I'm sick of writing about algae blooms. And discharges. And brown tides, and red tides and toxic bacteria.

I'm sick of writing about barren flats because the sea grass no longer grows there.

I'm sick of writing about politicians who can tell us with a wink they're working to fix Florida's water problems. I'm sick of the back hallways where those same elected officials make secret handshakes and accept cash from special interest groups.

I'm sick of the status quo those special interest groups ensure that pollutes, diverts, abuses, misuses and exploits what once were pristine waters.

I'm sick of receiving press releases from leaders and agencies whose salaries we pay and whom we entrust to protect our waterways, instead telling us to mind our business, keep our mouths shut and stop being activists. I'm sick of those agencies issuing permits to violate laws of common sense, and then turning their back on clear violations of environmental laws and policies.”

 

We couldn’t agree more. Our hearts go out to the anglers, the paddle boarders, the boaters and the families along the Indian River Lagoon and the Banana River. We’re doing all we can to get meaningful regulations to stop tragedies like this from continuing to ruin our beautiful Florida. This type of pollution and devastation is preventable, but we need to insist that our leaders stand up and prevent it. 

Brahana disheartened
A scientist’s plea
By Mike Masterson

I've previously written about our state Department of Environmental Quality's (cough) decision not to honor requests from the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey to include three Ozark streams flowing in the Buffalo National River watershed on the agency's 2016 list of impaired waterbodies.
The request from the National Park Service, supported by hard science, supposedly arrived too late for inclusion to the list required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Those following this sad saga of our state wrongheadedly allowing C&H Hog Farms to spray raw waste from up to 6,500 swine along Big Creek that flows into the national river only 6.8 miles downstream already know of the diligence and volunteer water-quality testing conducted by Dr. John Van Brahana and his team since the factory opened.
Because I and many others consider Brahana, among the nation's foremost experts on the karst terrain that underlies the Ozarks, to be objective and far beyond qualified to conduct such tests in the public interest, I also appreciated the comments he recently sent to Michael Lamoureax, Gov. Asa Hutchinson's chief of staff. I can only hope the governor reads them as well.
Brahana was among many to recently comment publicly on the decision not to follow the request of the Park Service by adding those three streams to its impaired list.
Here's what he told those who make decisions supposedly in the best interests of all voting and taxpaying people our state, a far greater number, I might add, than the campaign-contributing special interests who are fighting to keep this hog factory continually spreading raw waste into the watershed.
"Having just read Charles J. 'Chuck' Bitting's eloquent and moving letter describing facts regarding the decision of your agency to ignore data collected after March 31, 2015, and not list Mill Creek, Big Creek, and Bear Creek as being impaired, I am disheartened and deeply disappointed.
"I am a 25+ year citizen of Arkansas, a research scientist emeritus (water scientist) of the U.S. Geological Survey, and a professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas (karst hydrogeologist), having devoted the last 25+ years to studying the waters of our natural state. I have seen these streams, I have been in the field with some of the scientists who have collected these data, and they have been thorough and accurate and fair. These are meaningful data.
"I feel compelled to add my voice to request strongly that you reconsider this decision, for it flies in the face of Regulation 2. It also flies in the face of the science of data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park System, and it gives the appearance of political favoritism that ignores the natural environment of our beautiful state. It comes at the expense of negatively impacting tourism that contributes tens of millions of dollars to this fiscally depressed region.
"Please place Mill Creek, Big Creek, and Bear Creek on the 303(d) list as required by Regulation 2. Please join all Arkansas citizens in collaborating with science and common sense. Please."
 
 
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 03/22/2016

TROUBLED WATERS: INSIDE THE FIGHT TO PROTECT OUR WATERWAYS

By Earthjustice | Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Arkansasonline

Environment notebook

By Emily Walkenhorst 

Agency sets hearing on manure permit

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality will hold a public hearing April 11 in Jasper on a request by Ellis Campbell, a farmer in Newton County, to apply up to 6.6 million gallons of hog manure from C&H Hog Farms on nearly 600 acres of his farm fields in the county.

Campbell has an existing permit for a former facility on his property to store hog manure and apply hog manure on the land. Campbell is requesting that his permit be changed for only applying hog manure to the land, which he would do with manure from C&H, which is owned by Richard and Phillip Campbell and Jason Henson.

The hearing will be at 6 p.m. in the Jasper School District Cafetorium on 600 School St.

The department also will host a public hearing April 14 in the same location, also at 6 p.m., regarding the department's proposed renewal of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations general permit.

That type of permit is what C&H Hog Farms in Newton County used to establish its facility on Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River. The department intends to keep that type of permit as a part of its operations.

"Coverage under the general permit authorizes the storage and land application of manure, litter, or process wastewater, and mortality management in accordance with a nutrient management plan," according to a news release from the department.

The permit category is scheduled to expire Oct. 31 if it is not renewed, the release states.

Arkansas Times

Arkansas environmental 

regulator dodges climate question

by Max Brantley

March 14, 2016

You may have read news coverage of EPA-critical testimony before Congress last week by Becky Keogh, the Hutchinson administration  leader of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. A couple of points of interest weren't included in news articles.

Keogh, who joined state government from a job with BHP Billiton, a petroleum company, complained about federal environmental rules and deadlines. She suggested the federal agency wasn't cooperative with states. (Speaking of cooperation, Arkansas recently decided to halt any  work toward meeting new federal clean air rules in hopes a court will strike them down.)

You can watch the entire Senate hearing on C-SPAN. Some points to note:

At the 1:21:30 mark, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, questioned Keogh, among others, about climate change.

 Whitehouse: Do carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning cause changes to our atmosphere and oceans that portend harm to people and ecosystems?

Keogh: I think you can find scientists that say both — yes and no.

What do you say?

Well, I am not an expert either, as the other witness indicated.

Whitehouse said every scientific institution he knew of would have answered this question with a "plain and simple, yes."

Keogh also was questioned by Sen. Barbara Boxer on her statement that an EPA official justified mandates to states by saying "because we can."

Keogh said she was disheartened and frustrated by additional EPA requirements on a plan to speed efforts to reduce haze. She elaborates on this at the 1:48 mark of the video.

At 1:58, Boxer asks Keogh

 Can you please send me the name of the person who told you we are ordering you to do this because we can? I want the name of that person. 

Boxer asked Keogh to put the name in writing to her, confidentially. I've asked the state agency whether she has done so.  Boxer also lectured the state officials on the benefits of the EPA in protecting the "health of our people."

Earlier (57-minute mark), Boxer pressed Keogh on the problems of states who get pollution from next-door states. She scoffed at Keogh's suggestion that states could cooperate on problems without EPA intervention.

Keogh's opening statement is at 37 minutes in the video.

NWAOnline

John Van Brahana What lies beneath

Hydrogeologist uninterested in politics steps in to save the Buffalo River

By April Robertson

Posted: March 13, 2016

On family vacations growing up, John Van Brahana collected rocks in the back of the car. It annoyed his kid sister, who couldn't see the value that the budding geologist found.

 

"It seemed silly to me, looked like trash to me," says Mary Ann Graham, Brahana's sister. "But it was an interest of his even as a young boy."

John Van Brahana

Date and place of birth:September 11, 1943, Champaign, Illinois

Family: wife Rosemary, sons Todd and Matthew

Books I read recently: A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren, Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

People who most influenced my life: my 4th grade teacher Mrs. Barbara Hake, who shared her love of geology; Dr. Fred Attebury, my high school teacher and tennis coach; my grandparents Mrs. Lois Thompson, who taught me the importance of education to community improvement and Dr. Roy Brahana, who showed me that sharing wisdom can make a better life for our students; my wife Rosemary, who has taught me more than I will ever be able to repay.

Fantasy dinner guests:Abraham Lincoln, Mary, mother of Jesus, Anwar Sadat and George Orwell.

Concepts I aspire to: Collect your data. Pay it forward. To be enthusiastic, introspective, respectful, employ common sense and be extremely grateful and dependable.

Something you may not know about me: I’m working on a coffee table book about the springs of Arkansas, from Hot Springs to Eureka Springs, to tell how they exist, why and a little history of them.

A phrase to sum me up:caring scientist. I try to see the diverse human heritage, apply the Golden Rule, make use of true wisdom and act on courage to better future generations.

Whenever young Brahana wasn't running his paper route, working at the grocery store or stopping by his grandmother's house for an extra snack, he spent his time -- like many young boys -- soaking up the outdoors through camping, fishing and collecting rocks.

Mrs. Hake, his elementary teacher, introduced him to geology in fourth grade, and it's been rocks, land and water ever since.

"As a kid, you start looking at rocks and fossils and minerals and from that time, I knew what I wanted to do," Brahana says. "Some people you barely cross in a very small interactive path with them, but they can significantly alter your life one way or another if we're open and receptive to it."

Brahana was. In the 60 some odd years since, he spent 30 years as a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and 27 years teaching geology. The dual role required a rich experience of fieldwork and a knack for making it interesting enough to engage students and laymen -- something he seemed to do with relative ease.

"His enthusiasm is contagious," says Evan Thaler, who took two classes (Geology of National Parks and Karst Geology) with Brahana and is now a professional collaborating with him on a project. "Even though I had those classes when he was [on the verge of] retiring, he was still enthusiastic about everything. We were entertained by him and learning. That sets him apart, because the enthusiasm never stops."

"He put his entire heart and soul into his students," says Rosemary Brahana, his wife. "I don't think he could have done a career of 40 years doing that ... it would have him burned out, taken too much of a toll on him" because of the amount of energy and care he put into each one.

From igniting that initial passion for geology to guiding graduate students through theses, dissertations and answering calls for personal help in the middle of the night, Brahana was "a father figure to his students," Rosemary says. "He really was. Students were such a high priority for him that he really did serve as a father figure to a lot of students here in Arkansas who needed that."

Brahana was honored for that over the years when named Outstanding Teacher, Geology Department by Sigma Gamma Epsilon at the University of Arkansas in 1992 and '94; UA Honors Thesis Mentor Award in 2009; and Geology Faculty of the Year in 2009 and 2011. It culminated in the establishment of a Hydrogeology Scholarship in Brahana's name in 2014.

"He's done very well and is well respected," Graham says. "He's a really good person and gives a lot to his family and to people who need his expertise and does a lot of volunteer work now that he's retired."

That affinity for making geology relevant to people's lives has earned him a place in the spotlight as a leader of a water quality study for the Buffalo River, as the political struggle continues over local farms and the effect of their resulting waste on the environment.

"Those are to me the things that have great impact," Brahana says. "If we can get individuals around the table -- all the stakeholders, all the politicians and the special interest groups -- and start our discussion, we need to deal with each other factually."

If they can show up, Brahana says, he'll bring the scientific information.

SEEING THE MOST

Brahana grew up in Champaign, not far from the University of Illinois campus. His grandfather was a math professor there, and though his parents weren't academics, he knew that a higher education was in his future. It was expected.

Loving geology meant deciding on a major at the University of Illinois was easy; his first college class was geology and his first job was lab tech for the Illinois State Geological Survey.

"I was lucky enough to get a job," he says. "It was mostly washing glassware and dishes in the lab, but then I got to do fieldwork that [first] summer and got into groundwater," his lifelong work of studying the resource that is essential to life. Brahana doesn't take for granted that clarity in a career picking him.

"It's my feeling that you need to spend so much time doing the extra things that if what you're doing is not enjoyable -- if you don't love it, if it's not a passion, pretty soon you let things slip away."

Though Brahana is very reputable now -- walk into a geology lab several states over and if you're from Arkansas, they'll ask you about Van -- he'll tell you it's not because of any talent or brilliance in the subject. His knowledge base is rooted in trying to observe as much as possible.

Rather than collecting water samples and quickly running back to the lab, Brahana takes his time in the field to observe the circumstances surrounding water problems, gathering as much evidence to pinpoint the source and uncover a tremendous amount of information.

"Walter Manger, one of the men in our [geology] department, said the best geologist is the one who has seen the most," Brahana says. "So I try to see the most."

The explorer in him led to a lifelong habit of caving, opening up some of the few mysterious places left on earth. Diving into the underground crevices and passing spectacularly shaped speleothems, odd colors and distinct features, "you've got to crawl through mud and water," Brahana says. It's addicting because "some of those caves, you are one of the earliest people to see them. They're full of archaeological information ... so that part I dearly love."

He earned a bachelor of arts and sciences in geology from the University of Illinois in 1965, transferred to the University of Missouri for his master's degree, and somewhere along the way, fell in love with water. His Ph.D., which he earned also at the University of Missouri in 1973, was in hydrogeology. That makes it exciting for him to see more and more microbiologists and other scientists focusing on water--it connects us to the outside world.

Brahana began to see more when the U.S. Geological Survey hired him as a hydrologist in 1971 and sent him on a three week trip to Guilin, China, to study the giant tower karsts of the region.

He memorized 36 phrases in Chinese, connected with a Chinese man he'd been corresponding with, and together they took a train across the country.

"That was an eye opening experience," Brahana says. What he didn't expect was to be not just an observer but a part of the observed, in the pre-Nixon China that wasn't yet open to many American travelers. "We went back into the hinterlands, and [people] came up and would touch me. Supposedly we were the first group of Caucasian people they'd seen."

Meanwhile, he traversed the Mongolian steppes and soaked in the geological features with political and environmental concerns at the forefront of his mind, even then. Coal use was causing real damage. Air pollution, even before cars were the main transportation, was high. People wore masks to breathe more safely.

Later travel for the U.S. Geological Survey took him to the karstified regions in the Bahamas and Caribbean, and each time the experiences he brought back home informed his view on the importance of geological work for quality of life all over the world.

To impart a similar worldview on his sons Matthew and Todd, Brahana brought them along on a number of trips to national parks. He's visited all the formally designated ones in the 48 states, but the most memorable one of all? A 10,000 mile, five week road trip to 12 national parks that took them from Tennessee to Montana and Canada to Arizona and back.

"When his children were young, he took them camping for a month to spend time with them and be outdoors, that was good of him," Graham says. "Every time he came [home to Illinois] if it was snowing, he'd take them sledding and things."

"He was a good dad to them ... good about coming to activities and things the boys participated in on the weekends," Rosemary Brahana says. "On our western trip, Van and the boys took a six week vacation, went north to Wisconsin, across the Dakotas and down the West Coast, visiting national parks, family friends and relatives.

"They had a wonderful time with their father."

Between snacks of Jolly Ranchers and soda pop, Van's boys got to fly a plane in Montana, see theater in the Black Hills, attend concerts and get a front row seat to some of the country's best geology with an expert narrator in tow.

A STREAM OF A CAREER

Brahana has always done a bit of teaching on the side in conjunction with each of his research hydrologist gigs, teaching first at the University of Southern Mississippi, then Vanderbilt University and finally the University of Arkansas. But the common thread of his career is "water and how it moves underground," he says.

It was a part of his very first project with the Geological Survey, which assessed whether the work on the Tenn-Tom Waterway would cause groundwater to implode from the pressure. And it was a huge piece of his time at the University of Arkansas through the Savoy Experimental Watershed, a long-term research site that he helped establish. The Savoy site sits on 5.5 square miles off the Illinois River, and its center is full of various water measuring sensors.

Since his retirement from UA in 2013, Brahana continues to use the Savoy site to guide graduate students through theses and teach high school students during a summer program for geology and engineering.

"When we started the program in 2010 ... I asked him to teach the geology portion, and he immediately said 'Of course,'" says Jo Ann Kvamme, program coordinator for Environmental Dynamics at UA. "He's not paid for it, he just ... takes kids out [to Savoy], teaches them how to collect water samples and what you're looking for and gets them so passionate about it.

"It's contagious, and wonderful to see."

The Savoy center's importance is not just to the students who use it to jumpstart their careers and the high school students who attend a summer program Brahana helps facilitate, but to Van, who found a greater purpose in it.

At the Savoy site, "we were essentially trying to ask some practical questions since I've been here in a region where the land has these open voids, karsts, and [what happens] if you run too many animals on it?" he asks. "If you raise too many animals, the waste products can get in the groundwater."

With some 6,500 pigs raised along the Buffalo River, Brahana began to take notice of the discussions in the agriculture community and the scientific studies conducted by the state to monitor the relationship between the two. From what he could tell, no regulations were being broken, but there was nothing that took into account karst, or what happens to water once it goes below ground -- and how far it can carry.

Brahana believes the impact of area farms on the Buffalo River water quality extends far beyond whether it's drinkable, but whether it's even safe for the average person who flips out of a canoe on a float trip.

He started giving public presentations on the matter and was invited to give a presentation to a group of Arkansas legislators focused on the topic, then was disinvited.

"The things that got me crossways with some of the other groups was that there was not a scientific examination of groundwater quality and the karst especially," Brahana says. "There are some places where the water flows underground very quickly, and it doesn't get cleaned up or filtered in any fashion that is very effective."

While Gov. Mike Beebe was in office, the state presented money for scientific studies, but they didn't extend past the surface of the land, the soil.

"I found that they didn't encompass the things I had experienced, the things I had a lot of experience working with," he says. "I went to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and said, 'I'll help with this and do it on my own time.'"

Since, Brahana's assembled a standout volunteer team for an academic level quality project that will produce the scientific information he believes Arkansas legislators should know before moving forward with regulations on the Buffalo River -- the things he thinks they should take into account for public safety and good water quality.

With him is Joe Nix, professor emeritus of natural sciences at Ouachita Baptist University, geologist Ray Quick, John Murdoch of the Division of Agriculture and Carol Bidding, whose husband is a karst geologist.

"A lot of people want to help [the Buffalo], but he's the one who knows [how]," says Lisa Milligan, UA Geosciences administrative assistant. "He's generous, he's qualified. Any time we find problems, he'll act on it, and things will get fixed.

"I believe it will make a difference."

And for now that hope, those public talks and the experiment is what they hold on to.

"I've had people say 'Why are you spending years on this question with the Buffalo?'" Brahana says. "I'm trying to put science into [perspective] that hasn't had a chance to be addressed.

"By far that's the most important thing we can do ... to preserve our planet."

NAN Profiles on 03/13/2016