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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

Listen to Ozarks At Large: KUAF Radio 

Buffalo National River Park Service Claims

ADEQ Director Becky Keogh gives testimony to US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, titled “COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM: STATE PERSPECTIVES ON EPA REGULATORY ACTIONS AND

THE ROLE OF STATES AS CO-REGULATORS” March 9, 2016

Arkansasonline

On the Buffalo

Leaders of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance have penned a letter to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) that justifiably criticizes that agency's failure to include three primary tributaries of the Buffalo National River on its latest official list of impaired Arkansas streams, despite water-quality studies by two federal agencies that justify doing just that.

The organization, some 1,200 members strong, is headed by Gordon Watkins of Newton County. Their letter to Jim Wise of the agency's water division explains pretty much what I've outlined in a previous column: Big Creek, Mill Creek, and Bear Creek should be included on the 303(d) list prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency due to water-quality data collected by both the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

But the state agency says the deadline for inclusion on its 2016 list has passed and the next one won't be prepared until 2018, although its final 2016 draft isn't even due until April 1. The alliance and many others in Arkansas believe that delay ensures another two years of continued elevated E. coli levels and/or decreased oxygen levels when the evidence is clear those problems already are happening.

"We are concerned that waste from this facility is making its way into the ground and surface water and that it is negatively impacting Big Creek and the Buffalo National River," the alliance writes, noting that the agency has a responsibility to follow up on warnings of water-quality impairment, especially those from the Park Service and Geological Survey.

"Whether or not Big Creek, Mill Creek or Bear Creek are included on the 2016 303(d) list is secondary to the larger issue of impairment of the river. [The Department of Environmental Quality] first and foremost should take heed of the [Park Service] warnings, increase its monitoring of these streams, take all necessary steps to determine the sources of impairment and eliminate their impact on the Buffalo National River.

"It's discouraging to know that, since 2008, [the agency's] recommendations for 303(d) listings have not been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency due to the inability or unwillingness ... to comply with federal standards. This is unacceptable and stands in the way of the state's ability to address and correct impairment of Arkansas lakes, streams and groundwater. [Environmental Quality] should make every effort to bring its regulations into compliance with federal requirements ... so it can properly protect the waters of the state."

The group also sent a letter to agency Director Becky Keogh, dated Oct. 6, pointing out the documented dissolved-oxygen problem discovered on Big Creek. But apparently for the agency, it wasn't early or thorough enough to make its impaired streams list final deadline three weeks from now. This smells more to me like a continuation of more political do-si-dos when it comes to effectively dealing with the Cargill-supplied hog factory wrongheadedly permitted into the pristine watershed in 2012.

Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

Editorial on 03/08/2016

Print Headline: On the Buffalo

Arkansasonline

U.S.: List 3 streams as fouled

By Emily Walkenhorst

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, but so far the department has declined.

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. The department uses five years of data to determine pollution or lack of pollution.

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, but being on the list would mean that the department could continue to require additional water monitoring on those waterways when issuing wastewater discharge permits to new facilities or renewing existing permits.

The National Park Service used its own measurements and U.S. Geological Survey measurements from 2015 as the basis for its request in October that the three tributaries be classified as polluted.

The original request was not for the creeks to be placed on the 303(d) list, but for the department to acknowledge that the creeks were polluted under department regulations, said Chuck Bitting, natural resource program manager for the National Park Service at the Buffalo National River.

Now the park service is asking that the department look at the trends as indicated by the data over the past two to four years when considering the creeks for the 303(d) list, Bitting said.

The park service and the department have been discussing the service's concerns, Bitting said, and may meet again before the department sends its final draft of the 303(d) list to the EPA on April 1.

"We just want to protect our water quality as best we can because 1 million people rely on it," he said, referring to the number of people who visit the Buffalo National River each year.

In 2014, more than 1.3 million people visited the river and spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.

Arkansas Department of Environment Quality spokesman Katherine Benenati said the data obtained for the period of record don't indicate impairment for those creeks, but the department is taking the National Park Service's data into account.

"ADEQ staff is currently reviewing the data and it will also be considered as part of the data record which will be evaluated for the next cycle occurring in 2018," she wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A portion of Big Creek is where C&H Hog Farms is located. C&H Hog Farms has been the target of many Buffalo River 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.

On Tuesday, the 44th anniversary of the federal act certifying the Buffalo River as the first national river, several people asked department officials to be mindful of the significance of the river when considering the three tributaries. They asked that the department classify the three tributaries as polluted.

"You cannot expect to have high water quality on the river if you don't have high water quality in its tributaries," Bitting told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after that meeting.

"We want to protect our visitors from getting an infection from wading, canoeing or swimming in the Buffalo River and its tributaries within the National River boundary," he said.

The National Park Service has not determined a reason for pollutant levels at any of the sites, but Bitting noted that Bear Creek is classified as polluted because of total dissolved solids, which refers to minerals, salts, metals or other matter found in the water.

Mill Creek is a major tributary to the Buffalo River near Pruitt, providing about one-fourth to one-third of the river's downstream flow during the summer, Bitting said.

The National Park Service collected weekly water samples in the creek for more than a year and has collected more periodic samples for more than 30 years, Bitting 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 downstream where the Buffalo River meets Big Creek.

The National Park Service sent its first letter Oct. 6 asking that the streams be classified as polluted on the basis of park service data.

In the letter to the department, park Superintendent Kevin Cheri noted that the Buffalo River downstream of the Erbie low water crossing is designated as critical habitat for the Rabbitsfoot mussel, which is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It also provides habitat for several endangered species: the Snuffbox mussel, Gray bat, Indiana bat and the Ozark big-eared bat. The area also provides habitat for the threatened northern long-eared bat.

Cheri also wrote that the law designating the Buffalo River as a national river requires that the park be managed in "such a way that it conserves the unique scenic and scientific resources and preserves the Buffalo River as a free-flowing stream for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations."

Metro on 03/06/2016

Print Headline: U.S.: List 3 streams as fouled

Eureka Springs Independent

 Federal agencies deny karst evidence 
Becky Gillette
Wednesday, March 02, 2016

A 6,500-hog factory in the Buffalo River Watershed is not located in a karst region, marked with springs and underground streams that could provide pathways for toxic hog wastes to pollute one of the more scenic and popular attractions in Arkansas, the Buffalo National River, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), agencies that underwrote loan guarantees for the hog factory.

In late 2014 the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA), the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association won a court ruling that the SBA and FSA had failed to evaluate potential adverse environmental and economic impacts to the region by providing federal loan guarantees to build the C & H Hog Farm. SBA and FSA were required to redo the environmental impact statement, but once again, the agencies issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).”

The hog factory produces hog waste stored in a settling basin, shallow pits and a holding pond that can hold nearly two million gallons of wastewater that is sprayed onto adjacent fields. The amount of waste created is equivalent to what is produced by a city with a population of 30,000.

Experts in karst topography said water pollution is a grave concern.

“The farm is on porous karst geology, therefore seepage into underground water is also nearly certain,” the BRWA said.

“The conclusion that C&H is not located on karst and that groundwater and surface water contamination is not imminent is absolutely based on flawed science,” nationally recognized karst expert Dr. John Van Brahana said. “Data collected over the past two years by my team and submitted to the agencies puts the likelihood of swine waste from C&H Hog Farms finding its way into the Buffalo National River at 95 percent.  These data were completely ignored, as were similar comments from noted hydrologist Thomas Aley, and the opinions of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey. We have all concluded that the C&H swine operation may have significant adverse impacts, which requires that a full Environmental Impact Statement be prepared.”

Although disappointing, supporters of the Buffalo River said the FONSI is not unexpected. 

“The science used was cherry picked, ignoring anything that did not support the preordained conclusion,” Jack Stewart, vice president BRWA said. “More than fifteen thousand citizens, some of whom were scientists, submitted comments. All of that was ignored. To give you just one example of the inadequacies, there is ample evidence that C&H is built on topography that resembles Swiss cheese – a formation geologists call karst. Yet this finding never acknowledges the obvious fact.”

BRWA members are concerned about potential human health effects.

“People swim, fish, and paddle in the Buffalo River, and may be subject to contact with untreated swine waste,” Dane Schumacher, BRWA board member said. “Well water that people drink may become affected. By denying scientific evidence of karst beneath the C&H operations, SBA and FSA have opened the doors for a wide range of water quality issues likely to be ahead of us. Our coalition remains very concerned about the unprecedented number of pigs, and the amount of pig waste, that has entered the Buffalo River watershed.”

The decision means these agencies have failed to meet their obligations under the law, according to Hannah Chang, attorney with Earthjustice, the public interest environmental law firm that represented the coalition in court. “The likelihood of significant environmental harm to America’s first national river mandates a full Environmental Impact Statement, not a finding of no impact that ignores clear data and hard science,” Chang said. “With so much at risk, we are compelled to consider our next options for legal action.”

It is estimated that 1.3 million people visited the Buffalo National River in 2014 and contributed $65 million to the local economy. Chang said by disputing that seepage of swine waste collected in C&H’s two waste storage ponds and sprayed onto fields will enter a karst system and ultimately flow into the Buffalo National River, the final FONSI erroneously downplays the potential impact of C&H on Arkansas’s tourism economy.

BRWA President Gordon Watkins said federal agencies ignored any data that didn’t agree with the decision upholding the federal loan guarantees. Watkins said the group would move ahead continuing to find legal avenues to stop the hog pollution from adversely impacting the Buffalo River and the people who recreate in it.

“We are discussing the best use of our resources at this stage of the game,” Watkins said. “We have filed a formal complaint with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality against actual issuance of permit. We are asking ADEQ to reopen the permit and allow the public to comment in full like we should have been allowed to do in the first place. We are moving ahead looking for ways we can actually challenge the permit itself. We have to exhaust all avenues as this thing moves along through the legal system.”

Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Pollution comments sought 

Agency preparing list of water bodies needing cleanup

By Emily Walkenhorst

Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials will hear public comments this week about the state's latest proposed list of polluted water bodies that require cleanup under the federal Clean Water Act.

Tuesday's meeting is exactly one month before the department is to submit its final list -- called the 303(d) list -- to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Such lists have sometimes languished after being submitted to the EPA, and bodies of water that the department says are newly polluted or no longer polluted go unaddressed.

Since 2010, the Department of Environmental Quality has submitted three proposed polluted-streams lists, but the EPA has taken no action on them because the agencies are at odds over what the state's water quality standards are or should be.

If the EPA doesn't act on the Department of Environmental Quality's 2016 list, which is up for public discussion through March 11, it would be the fourth list left to idle since the EPA last approved one in 2008.

"It does put us in an odd spot," said Sarah Clem, water quality planning branch manager for the Department of Environmental Quality.

Being included on the polluted list has an impact on a water body's neighbors, including businesses, utilities and individuals.

"It will affect any permits that industry has or wants to have," said Charles Miller, executive director of the Arkansas Environmental Federation, which works with businesses on environmental compliance. "So yeah, there's an impact."

Every two years the department is required to produce a new list of streams that are "impaired" or are no longer impaired, on the basis of department testing and reviews.

A designation of impaired" can trigger a study on the amount of pollutants a stream can have in it and still meet water-quality standards. That study can result in stricter limits in permits for businesses, utilities or others regarding discharging wastewater into a stream. Likewise, removal from the list can prompt the removal of such limits.

Since 2010, the department has suggested adding at least 165 water bodies to the polluted list and removing at least 240 others. Data provided for 2010 don't include a breakdown of which water bodies were added or removed from the list as compared with 2008. Many water bodies are on the lists more than once because some portions of a river or creek may be considered polluted while other portions may not be.

According to Stacey Dwyer, the EPA's associate director for national pollutant discharge elimination systems permits and total maximum daily load, the agency has been trying since 2008 to sort out three things with Arkansas:

• The variation of pollutants in the state.

• The way the state assesses water bodies.

• The way the state has changed its standards.

"It's just a lot of complex issues," Dwyer said. "We want to make sure we're doing it correctly and working with the state."

The Department of Environmental Quality establishes its water quality standards in Regulation 2 with the approval of the department's appellate body, the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The department then uses those standards to determine stream impairment and sends along its recommendations to the EPA, which oversees the Clean Water Act 303(d) program. The EPA approves the list or recommends changes to it.

In recent years, the state has added language to Regulation 2 that has changed or clarified the way the state determines whether a body of water is polluted. Changes include allowing certain water bodies to exceed mineral standards in 25 percent of the tests before being considered polluted, instead of 10 percent; applying standards in lakes at 1-meter depth instead of the surface; and clarifying that mineral levels for certain regions -- known as ecoregion reference stream minerals values -- will be used as guidelines and not standards for water quality. That clarification merely reflects how the department has always used those values, department officials said.

Because of Regulation 2's role in making determinations under the Clean Water Act, the EPA must approve any changes made to the language of the regulation. The previous major Regulation 2 changes were approved by the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission two years ago but have not been approved by the EPA.

As an example, the EPA has wanted the state to maintain the ecoregion values as standards for water bodies in the state, according to Jane Watson, associate director with the water quality division for the EPA in Dallas. If Arkansas officials remove those ecoregion values, it should replace them with new ones, Watson said.

"When a state wants to change an approach to water quality, they can do that," she said. "But from a legal standpoint, we need to have a different set of numbers" or something else.

Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh said ecoregion values would be used as guidelines so as to not unnecessarily hurt cities or industry by using data in a way it wasn't intended. Keogh did not work for the department at the time of the regulation change but said she wants to ensure that standards are not "overreaching or unreasonable."

Some stream standards are unnecessary and unreasonably strict, said Allan Gates, an attorney at the Mitchell Williams law firm in Little Rock. Such standards prompt businesses and city utilities to do extensive research on a body of water to determine an easier-to-meet standard that wouldn't negatively impact the environment.

Gates has represented many industries and municipalities seeking permit changes related to water standards before the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. His latest cases involved the cities of Harrison and Yellville, which wanted to increase the allowable levels of minerals their wastewater utilities were allowed to discharge into Crooked Creek. The city-funded research reviewed by the commission showed no impact from the change.

Gates noted that many people who are concerned about a body of water use the polluted list to get the water body cleaned up. That cleanup likely won't happen until the EPA approves the state list.

"We're working very deliberately with the EPA to make sure the state's standards are being applied in an appropriate manner," Keogh said. "It's all protective of the excellent water quality we have in the state of Arkansas."

Metro on 02/29/2016

Print Headline: Pollution comments sought

The Missouri Clean Water Commission yesterday made official, it's decision to overturn an operating permit for Trenton Farms Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation proposed for the Hickory area of rural Grundy County. 

The commission last Wednesday voted four to two, over-ruling the Department of Natural Resources decision in granting the permit. That followed a two-hour plushearing in Jefferson City regarding an appeal filed by a local organization called Hickory Neighbors United which expressed opposition to the proposed hog farm. 

In its summary available online at the Missouri Clean Water Commission website, the final decision determined DNR failed to meet its burden of proving the operating permit was issued in accordance with current law. Concerns were cited regarding the target area being in a 100 year flood plain and questioning the state regulation whether a permanent organization exists that serves as quote “continuing authority” for the operation, maintenance, and modernization of the facility (CAFO) for which the application was made. 

Last August, Hickory Neighbors filed an appeal, challenging the DNR issued permit. That appeal was the subject of an Administrative Hearing Commission meeting in October. And then that organization, in December, made a recommendation for the Clean Water Commission to sustain the permit. 

The website also includes video of last weeks' Clean Water Commission meeting including presentations and testimony from three attorneys. 

Tim Dugan represented the attorney generals' office after being assigned to defend the DNR decision once the appeal was made. Steven Jeffrey spoke on behalf of Hickory Neighbors United. And Robert Brundage represented Trenton Farms. 

Brundage was once assistant general counsel for environmental affairs for the company previously-known as Premium Standard Farms. 

At the end of the presentations, questions and answers, a motion was made for the Clean Water Commission to sustain the state permit for Trenton Farms. 

But four members voted “no.” One of the Clean Water Commission members voting against Trenton Farms was Buddy Bennett – a former director of Trenton

Municipal Utilities. It was a roll call vote. The count stood two in favor and three opposed when Bennett cast the fourth and final “nay” vote. Other Clean Water Commissioners voting no were Todd Parnell of Springfield, Dennis Wood of Kimberling City, and Wallis Warren of Beaufort. 

Voting in favor of sustaining the permit were Ashley McCarty of Novinger and John Cowheard of Mount Vernon. The seventh member of the commission, Samuel Leake of Perry, was absent. 

Buddy Bennett, now of Oak Grove, was elected chairman of the clean water commission. He received the state appointment in 2012. Now retired, his background includes experience with municipal utilities and waste water systems.

 Post Views: 445

Science ignored

A new assessment

By Mike Masterson

Posted: February 28, 2016 at 1:42 a.m.

Here we go again, circling the same wagons accomplishing nothing while avoiding robust discussion over the real potential for environmental calamity in our precious Buffalo National River watershed.

And for what, I continue to wonder? To defend at all costs one family in Newton County who teamed with Minnesota's Cargill Inc. to convince our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) it was a fine idea to approve the first hog factory in the state's most ecologically fragile region?

It's become a relevant question in light of the state's continuing public expense and political lobbying involved in keeping this misplaced factory running.

It was no surprise the two federal agencies, which guaranteed the loans for the C&H Hog Farms, released their findings the other day. They claim there's "no significant impact" to the first national river as a result of the millions of gallons of raw hog waste held in two lagoons when not being regularly sprayed across fields near Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo flowing less than seven miles downstream. Don't worry, Arkansas! Be happy!

This latest environmental assessment follows the initial version filed by the Small Business Administration and the USDA's Farm Service Agency. U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall on Dec. 2, 2014, found it to be woefully lacking in facts and legally inadequate. Marshall ordered the agencies to redo a complete assessment that documented the potential environmental effects from this factory's location.

So did the U.S. agencies take the apolitical, mature approach and reach out to the Buffalo River Coalition that opposes this factory's location? Did they offer to work with the coalition to address serious and scientifically documented concerns? Did either agency perhaps perform dye testings and other groundwater assessments, since the watershed lies atop cracked limestone that rapidly transports water?

Nope. It seems instead they've tried to save face by piecemealing what little reported science they could locate to reinforce their original inadequate assessment. Is this a great example of science or what?

Meanwhile, the coalition, comprised of five groups opposing the factory's location and represented by Earthjustice attorney Hannah Chang, was unimpressed.

The group said it made sure to alert the two agencies to the known potential adverse environmental and economic impacts to the Buffalo watershed. Yet the agencies' finding of "no significant impact" ignored their science-based data and water-quality studies altogether.

"Perhaps the biggest flaw in the no impact finding is the conclusion that the water quality of the Buffalo River will not be significantly affected," Chang said. "The federal agencies based this conclusion on inaccurate information and analysis that the swine facility site does not exhibit karst hydrogeology, turning a blind eye to the overwhelming scientific consensus and the comments of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey to the contrary."

The coalition said it also alerted the agencies that the Oklahoma State University study that they misinterpreted as supporting their faulty determination had actually found a "major fracture and movement of waste" beneath the site. The finding of no impact overlooks this critical information.

Instead, the agencies' finding rehashes their denial of the hog factory's potential impacts on water and air quality, the quality of life in the community, public health, the health of the children who attend school near C&H, any endangered or threatened species, and the pollution from hog waste in the Buffalo National River, the coalition contends.

"The conclusion C&H is not located on karst and that groundwater and surface-water contamination is not imminent is absolutely based on flawed science," said karst expert and UA geoscience professor emeritus Dr. John Van Brahana, who with fellow volunteers has studied water quality around the factory since it opened in 2012. "The data collected over the past two years by my team and submitted to the agencies puts the likelihood of swine waste from C&H Hog Farms finding its way into the Buffalo National River at 95 percent.

"These data were completely ignored, as were similar comments from noted hydrologist Thomas Aley and the opinions of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey. We have all concluded that the C&H swine operation may have significant adverse impacts, which requires that a full Environmental Impact Statement be prepared."

Chang added: "With this [finding], the agencies have failed to meet their obligations under the law. The likelihood of significant environmental harm to America's first national river mandates a full environmental impact statement, not a finding of no impact that ignores clear data and hard science."

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

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