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A team of outside experts was hired by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team (BCRET) to take a critical look at the research protocols and methods being implemented on C&H Farm. 

This Peer Review team submitted their report on May 19, 2014. This report pointed out certain weaknesses and included specific recommendations for improving the monitoring study. 

The Peer Review Report is followed by the BCRET response which includes explanations for why they chose not to implement some of those recommendations. 

The Report and Response may be found on the Documents and Videos page under the University of Arkansas Big Creek Research Team Documents section.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141028-hog-farms-waste-pollution-methane-north-carolina-environment/

Arkansas Online, October 26, 2014

Intimidation tactics

Threats reported

Mike Masterson



Threats fueled by heated emotions over the hog factory in Newton County have increased of late along Big Creek at Mount Judea. Two volunteer water-quality monitors, one of whom was with two members of the press, reported being harassed in separate instances while stopped along public roads near C&H Hog Farms in the Buffalo National River watershed.
University of Arkansas emeritus geoscience professor John Van Brahana has been working independently with a team of diligent volunteers for more than a year to measure water flow and quality around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo. The creek runs adjacent or very near fields at Mount Judea that are being regularly sprayed with raw hog waste from the factory our state has permitted to keep up to 6,500 swine.
Brahana’s dye testing has proven that groundwater from this area rapidly flows through the fractures created by karst limestone formations just beneath the surface. And that dye already has been discovered in some private local wells.
And now, the respected former professor (who recently had his own car tire slashed while it was parked in Newton County) said he’s been told that two volunteers were recently accosted on public roads by angry men. As a result, he’s reminded those in his group never to travel alone in the area.
“Here’s the story as I perceived it,” he said. “A local, apparently unbalanced and extremely agitated supporter of the hog factory followed a team member (along with a two-person TV crew), blocked their passage in several instances on public roads, screamed, yelled, and demanded they cease photographing.
“The story is similar in style to other confrontations that occurred previously, except this man is reported to be more than just a ‘mouthy’ individual, and based on the perception in the local community, willing to inflict a beating on any who he perceives to have done something he doesn’t like,” Brahana said.
Included in his diatribe, Brahana said, the agitated man warned the volunteer he knew who she was “and where she lived.”
“The threat, ‘we know who you are, and where you live’ reminds us that the ‘burn ’em out’ mentality of those whipped into a frenzy … should be viewed as dangerous, unstable, and are to be politely avoided.” I’m told burning down homes is not a new approach to controlling those neighbors you don’t like in parts of Newton County, and reflects the fear that generates reluctance on the part of the canoe outfitters, other tourist-related groups, and small-operation real farmers have in speaking out about the pig factory.
Brahana implored his team: “No matter what our emotions, we should be nonconfrontational, which we have always been. I encourage all who spend time in the field to fully document these adversarial encounters so we can share these in letters to Cargill and their suppliers along with the local sheriff and the county judge, who, by the way, is a relative of the owners of the factory and directed his staff to [continuously mow around] protesters’ feet as they gathered last year near the Newton County Courthouse.”
Another volunteer was in the process of filing a complaint with Sheriff Keith Slape at midweek after reporting that she, too, was accosted by a man on a county road near Mount Judea.
“I’d just passed an older red pickup truck and then met a spray truck in the road,” she said. “I turned around and started following the spray truck, which then stopped. I also stopped and the red truck sped up and pulled in front of me, blocking my access forward.
“The guy in the pickup got out, screaming at me to not take any photos. I locked the doors, rolled up the windows and backed out. He ran to his truck, turned around, and tried to block me from leaving,” she continued. ” I was barely able to turn around in the road between the barbed-wire fence and his car. He started pounding his fist on my car! It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared or angry.”
Sounds as if Sheriff Slape could well find himself a bit busier than normal if these kinds of needless threats and intimidation continues against law-abiding citizens.
Meanwhile, Brahana urged his volunteers to stand united. “I encourage all of you to keep the faith, and to obey all laws and property considerations. We likely will see more bullying. But what we are striving for is a noble goal.
“Facts are facts,” he added. “Truth … needs to be shared openly with an informed community. Intimidation, fear, and the manipulation of politics for special interests need to be openly discussed.”
Does it ever, professor. Sure hope this factory’s sponsor, Cargill Inc. of Minnesota (and its PR department), is paying attention to what’s unfolding here since it is inexorably linked in the court of public opinion to any consequences.

Buffalo brouhaha

Gone whole-hog


By Mike Masterson

This article was published today at 3:14 a.m.

Legal and political aromas from that misplaced hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed at Mount Judea continue to waft across Arkansas.

U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. ruled the other day that he'll file an injunction against the questionable and cursory manner in which loan guarantees were awarded to C&H Hog Farms.

I'd say the judge is not only insightful but right on the money with his findings in the civil suit. The word hamstringing leaps to mind.

The judge wants the U.S. Farm Service Agency to finally complete the detailed environmental assessment of this factory it should have done initially. The hog factory, supported by Cargill Inc., now must specifically describe potential negative effects on surrounding wildlife habitats including the country's first national river.

Dr. John Van Brahana and his team of volunteers, along with the National Park Service, the National Parks Conservation Association, and other interested parties such as the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, have been learning a lot of late about water flow and quality around and below this factory at Mount Judea.

I'd say this injunction means folks at the Farm Service Agency have one heck of a whole-hog task ahead.

Contained in the suit from some of those groups is the allegation that the agency (a key official of which is married to a relative of the factory's owners) ignored several federal laws when it deemed the hog factory would have "no significant impact" to the environment and national river.

Perhaps it made that assessment from its offices in the federal building at Harrison, located just down the hallway from the National Park Service, whom the Farm Service Agency failed to notify of this farm's proposed existence as it approved the loan.

All part of the unbelievable way all our supposedly responsible bureaucratic gatekeepers quietly pushed this factory through in the state's worst possible location without adequate public notice or hearings. They even failed to notify, or seek input from, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The agency's staff apparently had no problem (alongside the Small Business Administration) issuing $3.4 million in federal loan guarantees so the family that owns the factory could purchase property and equipment in this watershed that draws a million visitors each year who spend more than $44 million.

Judge Marshall found it was abundantly evident that the agency's environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact are defective, according to a news account by reporter Ryan McGeeney. "They're too brief, and there's no chain of reasoning. There's a 'cursoriness' about them," said Marshall.

The environmental assessment featured 600 pages of pre-existing documents, which included the hog factory's nutrient management plan and copies of other existing permits. It's an impressively thick stack that reveals little, if nothing, about potential impact from millions of gallons of raw hog waste routinely applied to land fractured by limestone and chert just beneath its surface.

Hannah Chang of Earthjustice, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, called this factory permitted by our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to raise and nurture as many as 6,500 swine "unprecedented" in the Buffalo National River watershed.

She emphasized that the unprecedented size of this hog factory in the karst-laden environment meant every agency connected with it should have been more diligent in their scrutiny and calculation of possible effects to the watershed.

In McGeeney's story, Chang said: "All [the defendants'] arguments rely on the central idea that they have no discretion, no control and no redress. We will show that's simply not true."

Lawyers for each side were given 21 days to submit final briefs recommending what should be included in the injunction order. It's unclear what effect, if any, the judicial injunction could have on the factory itself, as the owners have been in full operation for about a year in this deeply controversial location.

Then there is the letter sent last week by GOP former Arkansas congressmen Ed Bethune of Little Rock and John Paul Hammerschmidt to leaders in the state legislature.

Both men asked the legislature to review and support proposed reforms to state regulations to allow the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to extend a temporary moratorium on any new large-scale corporate hog operations in the Buffalo River watershed. The commission is to consider extending the ban at its Friday meeting.

As a 13-term congressman, Hammerschmidt, of Harrison, shaped and introduced the legislation that made the Buffalo the country's first national river in 1972.

Meanwhile, I've heard from a French documentarian in Arkansas to produce a special on the effects of big, corporate agriculture on America's politics and environment (including Cargill's involvement in the Buffalo's watershed).

Good to see the French paying attention to the now internationally newsworthy threats to preserving the purity of our country's first national river.

http://kuaf.com/post/new-swine-factory-farm-faces-scientific-scrutiny

Three different teams of scientists are monitoring Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River, to assess if a new industrial swine farm situated upstream is polluting the watershed. One team, led by noted UA Geoscientist Emeritus Dr. Van Brahana, has released a second round of findings. Jacqueline Froelich visits with him in her studio.

Panel looks at pig-farm ban
 
Plan to extend permit freeze as legislators review rules
By Ryan McGeeney
 

 
Members of Arkansas' environmental rule-making body will consider next week whether to extend a six-month ban on certain concentrated animal feeding operations near the Buffalo National River.

The announcement came on the same day that two former U.S. representatives from Arkansas publicly urged the state Legislature to move ahead with their review of the proposed changes.

The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission will discuss whether to extend the moratorium on medium- and large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations within the Buffalo National River watershed for another 180 days, according to a commission agenda published Friday.

The original six-month moratorium, drafted and signed by the commission's administrative law judge, Charles Moulton, was approved in April and expires Wednesday. The moratorium accompanied a petition by lawyers representing the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel to permanently amend Arkansas environmental regulations 5 and 6, which govern permits for concentrated animal feeding operations and the management of liquid animal waste. The changes would only apply to the Buffalo National River watershed, a geographic area that includes about three-quarters of Newton and Searcy counties and about one-quarter of Marion County.

The moratorium would not affect small-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations or poultry, cattle or other feeding operations of any size. It also could not be applied retroactively to C&H Hog Farms, the controversial large-scale concentrated animal feeding operation built in Mount Judea in early 2013, about 6 miles upriver from the Buffalo National River along the Big Creek tributary.

According to the text of the proposed moratorium extension, the moratorium passed in April was intended to maintain the status quo regarding hog farming near the river while state legislators had the opportunity to review the proposed rule changes and voice any concerns to commissioners.

But because the various committees charged with reviewing the proposed changes never managed to do so, Moulton is prepared to extend the moratorium. After the proposed rules were submitted to the Bureau of Legislative Review, they were assigned to the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees. In September, the committees declined to review the proposed changes, instead referring them to joint meetings of the House and Senate's Agriculture and Public Health committees.

Although members of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission aren't required to seek legislative approval to make or approve rule changes within existing law, commissioners risk drawing the ire of lawmakers when they disregard their input, said former U.S. Rep. Ed Bethune.

"Any commission or bureaucratic agency is always interested in what the legislators think on something," Bethune said Friday. "If they do something that's politically unpopular or just nonsense, the legislators are sure to come in and try to undo that. That's why I think it's a wise thing to circulate these rules through legislative bodies and sort of take their temperature."

Bethune, a Republican who represented Arkansas' 2nd District from 1979 to 1985, co-authored a letter to Arkansas Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, and other legislators, urging them to quickly convene the relevant committees and review the proposed regulatory changes. He also urges the congressional members to support the changes.

Calls to Lamoureux were not immediately returned Friday.

Bethune's letter was co-authored by former U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, a Republican who represented Arkansas' 3rd District from 1967-93.

Bethune, who sponsored legislation that ultimately became the Arkansas Wilderness Act of 1984, said that the presence of large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations within the Buffalo National River watershed represented a looming threat to one of the "crown jewels of the Natural State."

"It just pains me to see an operation such as [C&H Hog Farms] go in," Bethune said. "I know they're monitoring it; all that means is that if we have an incident, Arkansas will be the first ones to tell the world of it. It would be a disaster."

Arkansas Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, another of the legislators to whom Bethune and Hammerschmidt's letter was addressed, said he found the proposed changes to regulations 5 and 6 a reasonable step toward protecting the Buffalo National River without retroactively punishing the owners of C&H Hog Farm.

"I'm not sure where the hang­up is in the legislative process, but I expect review before the end of year," Dismang said. "The only problem we have is we're in the middle of budget session right now."

The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission will meet at 9 a.m. Friday at the headquarters of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, 5301 Northshore Drive in North Little Rock.

Prescience revisited
 
30 years ago, wilderness protected
By Ed Bethune Special to the Democrat-Gazette
 
 
There are two types of wilderness. One is in our minds. This inner wilderness--a place of testing--is as old as Moses and we have all been there, for a variety of reasons.

Lately, however, we are driven to this wilderness by images of beheadings, bombings, men in hazmat suits searching for the dreaded Ebola, inexplicable murders, culture clashes, and political ugliness. The cacophony worsens daily, brought to us nonstop via the latest electronic gadget.

Fortunately, there is another kind of wilderness.

In a prescient moment 30 years ago, the Arkansas Conservation Coalition encouraged those of us in Congress to designate 117,500 acres of pristine forestland in the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests as "wilderness." The coalition (The Ozark Society, Wildlife Federation, and seven similar groups) carefully selected 11 areas for protection. The beautiful forests, streams, hills and valleys were to be left alone in perpetuity, just as God designed them.

Their proposal struck me as a good idea because man's incessant urge to develop--generally a good thing--often goes too far. George Fisher, the prodigious cartoonist, used to chide the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service for caring too much about "keeping busy," and too little about preserving nature. He ridiculed their overzealous projects with his famous line, "God would have done it if he'd had the money."

Good wilderness is entirely different from our troublesome inner wilderness, but the two are related in an important way: As the racket of the world gets louder and uglier, driving us to despair and distraction, humankind has a high need for the beauty and constancy of nature. We need it to clear our heads, and we need it to know how things were supposed to be.

Here is how the coalition's good idea became law. On May 5, 1983, I introduced a bill in the United States House of Representatives to create 117,500 acres of wilderness in Arkansas. A hearing was scheduled and many responsible business and civic organizations registered their strong support.

We were off and running, but opposition quickly developed. The usual suspects, the U.S. Forest Service and powerful forest-industry groups, tried to gut my bill. It might have died on the vine, but on Nov. 14, 1983, Sen. Dale Bumpers introduced an identical bill in the Senate, and Sen. David Pryor signed on as co-sponsor. Nothing could stop us after that.

We gathered support with every passing day. Senator Bumpers set up an official Senate hearing in Little Rock and on Feb. 15, 1984, we spent a full day listening to testimony and receiving statements from over 100 people; a few were against our bills, but most were very supportive.

On Oct. 4, 1984, the Arkansas Wilderness Act of 1984 cleared both houses of Congress, and President Ronald Reagan signed it on Oct. 19, 1984. The bipartisan success story deserves a celebration, but there are more important reasons to remember what happened 30 years ago.

We love our nickname, The Natural State, and when challenged to say what we mean by it we proudly point to the Buffalo River, our caves, our rivers and streams, our parks, and our magnificent wilderness areas.

But what would we say to outsiders if we had no proof that we are a "natural?" What if there were no wilderness areas, or what if we fail to protect them? What will we say if the Buffalo River is polluted by runoff from the ill-placed commercial hog farm near Mount Judea?

On this 30th anniversary of the Arkansas Wilderness Act, let us resolve to keep our guard up, forever. Arkansas is a natural--if we can keep it.

 
Judge wants new look at Buffalo River hog farm
Posted 3:16 p.m. Friday

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. undefined A federal judge wants regulators to take another look at the potential impact of a hog farm near the Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas.

Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said Thursday a previous assessment was too brief. That review helped qualify the farm for $3.4 million in loan guarantees from the Small Business Administration. Marshall said he will file an injunction against the loan guarantees for C&H Hog Farms.

The facility is a concentrated feeding operation near Mount Judea. It is allowed to have 2,000 full-grown sows and up to 4,000 piglets at a time.

Environmentalists fear farm waste could taint the Buffalo National River, but studies have shown that hasn't happened.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs' lawyers claim the Farm Service Agency ignored several federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, when it was doing its assessment and issued a "finding of no significant impact" for the hog farm.

Plaintiffs include the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association. They also say the agency failed to consult other federal groups, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, when conducting the assessment.

"It's clear to me that the (environmental assessment) and the (finding of no significant impact) are defective," Marshall said. "They're too brief, and there's no chain of reasoning. There's a 'cursoriness' about them."

The bulk of the federal agency's 2012 environmental assessment was about 600 pages of pre-existing documents, including a C&H Hog Farms' nutrient management plan and copies of other existing permits.

Arkansas Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Eddington told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (http://bit.ly/1wj9qac ) Thursday's ruling will likely have a greater impact on future farms, not C&H which already has its loans and is operating.

"My takeaway is, we didn't do anything to change what's happened with C&H Hog Farms," Eddington said. "We probably just made it a whole lot harder for the next guy who's trying to get a farm loan, regardless of where they are."

The judge gave attorneys for both sides 21 days to submit briefs over what should be included in his injunction order. Lawyers declined to comment after the judge's ruling.


 

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2014/oct/17/hog-farm-got-off-easy-judge-finds-20141/
 
Hog farm got off easy, judge finds
 
Environmental study in for redo
By Ryan McGeeney
This article was published today at 3:56 a.m.

 


A federal judge said Thursday that he will file an injunction against loan guarantees for a Newton County hog farm and require a federal agency to redo an environmental assessment of the farm and its potential effect on surrounding wildlife habitats, including the Buffalo National River.

U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. made the ruling in a civil suit filed in August 2013.

In the lawsuit, lawyers for the plaintiffs, which include the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, alleged that agents of the Farm Service Agency ignored several federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, when it conducted its assessment and issued a "finding of no significant impact" for C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea.

The federal agency also failed to consult with other agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, or with the Buffalo National River park administration when conducting the assessment, according to the suit. The Farm Service Agency, along with the Small Business Administration, then issued about $3.4 million in federal loan guarantees for the purchase of property and equipment.

"It's clear to me that the [environmental assessment] and the [finding of no significant impact] are defective," Marshall said. "They're too brief, and there's no chain of reasoning. There's a 'cursoriness' about them."

Aside from a five-page "executive summary," the bulk of the Farm Service Agency's 2012 environmental assessment consisted of about 600 pages of pre-existing documents including C&H Hog Farms' nutrient management plan and copies of other existing permits.

C&H Hog Farms is a large-scale concentrated animal feeding operation in Mount Judea. The farm, which is permitted to house approximately 2,000 full-grown sows and as many as 4,000 piglets at a time, is the first facility in the state to receive a general permit for the operation of a concentrated animal feeding operation and the management of liquid animal waste.

The farm and the various agencies responsible for granting its owners operational permits have drawn the ire of environmentalists who say the enormous amount of animal waste generated at the facility poses a threat to area groundwater and the nearby Buffalo National River. The river is the nation's first national river and attracts more than 1 million visitors annually and more than $44 million in revenue in 2012, according to the National Park Service.

Hannah Chang, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, described the farm as "unprecedented" in the Buffalo National River watershed. Although there are about half a dozen other facilities that hold permits for liquid animal waste discharge, which are obtained through the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, each of those facilities is permitted to house 500 or fewer pigs.

Chang said that given the size of the facility, the agencies should have been more diligent in their environmental assessment of the then-proposed facility and its potential effects and should be willing to subsequently exercise their power to implement new requirements of the farm's operation.

"All [the defendants'] arguments rely on the central idea that they have no discretion, no control and no redress," she said. "We will show that that's simply not true."

Marshall gave Chang and Barclay Samford, lead defense attorney for the defendants, 21 days to submit final briefs recommending what should be included in his injunction order. It is unclear what effect the injunction may have on the farm itself, as the owners have been in full operation for about a year. Lawyers for plaintiffs and defendants declined to comment after the judge's ruling.

It is unclear what, if any, effect the ruling will have on the operation of the farm itself. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, the agency that issued the farm's operational permits, has maintained that its owners have met every legal requirement and that repeated inspections of the farm have found no major permit violations.

Neither the Big Creek Research team, organized through the University of Arkansas' Agriculture Division and funded through the state Legislature, nor a separate, volunteer-funded research team led by retired university hydrologist Van Brahana has detected an overall rise in nutrients or bacteria commonly associated with animal waste in the Buffalo National River since the farm went into operation.

Arkansas Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Eddington said Thursday's ruling will likely have less of an effect on existing farms, including C&H Hog Farms, than it will on future farming in Arkansas.

"My takeaway is, we didn't do anything to change what's happened with C&H Hog Farms," Eddington said. "We probably just made it a whole lot harder for the next guy who's trying to get a farm loan, regardless of where they are. If they're in the Delta, in the Piney Woods or if they're in the Buffalo National River watershed. That's suddenly become much more difficult, at least until this is appealed."

Earlier in the week, general opposition to large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations in the Buffalo National River watershed moved forward elsewhere, as well. Lawyers representing the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, a liberal lobbying organization, filed responses to public comments on their proposed changes to animal waste regulations in Arkansas with the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, the state's environmental rule-making body.

The proposed changes would include a permanent moratorium on medium- and large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations within the Buffalo National River watershed. The watershed covers about three-quarters of Newton and Searcy counties and about one-quarter of Marion County.

In April, Ross Noland, a lawyer representing the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, filed a petition for third-party rule-making with the commission. Charles Moulton, the commission's administrative law judge, drafted and submitted a 180-day moratorium mirroring the provisions of the proposed permanent change. The proposed moratorium would not affect poultry, cattle or other types of animal farming and could not be retroactively applied to C&H Hog Farms.

The commission held a public hearing on the proposed amendments in June and accepted public comments until July 1. Lawyers were given 90 days to respond to public comments received by the commission, after which Noland filed the responses with the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research for review. Noland said Wednesday that he had originally planned to wait until the proposed rule changes, comment responses and other related documents made it through the review process before filing the responses with the commission, but changed his mind after several weeks of legislative inaction and press inquiries.

The next meeting of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission is scheduled for Oct. 24. An agenda for the meeting has not yet been published.

Metro on 10/17/2014

 

As The Water Flows

Mike Masterson

October 14, 2014

The public outcry to preserve the purity of our Buffalo National River continues to build, as evidenced by an informational event scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday in Fayetteville's St. Paul's Episcopal Church Parish Hall.

A public singalong and rally is slated for Fayetteville's Town Center the next morning. The plan is to create a YouTube video that continues to spread the word about the 6,500-swine-strong hog factory our state wrongheadedly approved in our sacred Buffalo River watershed two years ago.

Saturday's event features five experts including hydrologist and emeritus University of Arkansas geosciences Professor Dr. John Van Brahana. Brahana and his band of volunteers began regularly monitoring water quality and subsurface flow a year ago, largely at personal expense and energy.

Speakers say they'll offer updated scientific findings that validate public concerns about potential contamination of the Buffalo from enormous amounts of untreated hog waste being regularly applied to fields along Big Creek in Newton County. The creek is a major tributary of the Buffalo flowing six miles downstream.

If you've been resting on the sidelines in this important, yet shamefully politicized, matter created by our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough), either weekend event would be well worth showing up for.

Meanwhile, the state's Farm Bureau is said to be lobbying to prevent the existing temporary moratorium against future factories placed in the Buffalo watershed from becoming permanent. The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission is expected to make its final decision when its moratorium expires Oct. 22.

I've always admired the Farm Bureau and the many stances it has taken in support of individual family farms across our state, which only leaves me dazed and confused to see this organization so aggressively and actively championing the cause of this Cargill-supplied factory farm (or others like it) so obviously misplaced in this sacred region of our state. Seems common sense to me that mega-factory farms are a serious threat to replacing family farms as we've known and cherished them in Arkansas.

It's time to let your elected state legislators know your feelings as well as the commissioners. This river and the responsibility for preserving its purity do belong to all the people rather than one family or a multinational corporation such as Cargill.

I've lately noticed a new effort among concerned citizens who are writing Cargill's major Arkansas corporate customers such as Wal-Mart and Tyson, asking for their considerable influence (even behind the scenes) in doing their part to help protect and preserve America's first national river and all it means to our state and nation.

I asked Brahana--who told me he had a car tire slashed while in Newton County--for his top three latest discoveries.

His results steadily confirm what he feared and predicted in letters sent in 2012 to Gov. Mike Beebe and former Department of Environmental Quality director Teresa Marks. Brahana's letters, incidentally, were never answered. Mighty rude considering that Brahana is acting solely in the best interests of the national river rather than the arrogant self-interests that sadly characterize so much of politics today.

First, Brahana told me dye tracings continue to prove how rapidly groundwater beneath this hog factory travels through the Big Creek valley around Mount Judea. The water "moves under surface divides and the hills into private wells and springs" to ultimately wind up in the Buffalo, he said. Thus far the dye already has been discovered in two private drinking wells.

Secondly, present water quality is near the upper limit of what the systems can accommodate. "Adding additional animal waste from the CAFO will overload the entire system and cause long-term problems that will be expensive and take a long time to clear up. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, pathogens, nutrients, algal blooms, excessive biofilms and low oxygen concentrations are but a few of the problems we are seeing." I'm told the untreated waste from 6,500 swine equals that of about 30,000 humans.

Third, Brahana, who is not controlled by the state or fearful of offending political contributors, said his measurements are providing clear insights into how water is stored in the watershed and the ways in which it moves through intervals of subsurface containing chert (flint) layers in the limestone. Such terrain underlies the manure-spreading fields.

"The water enters the rock as recharge from the top, either precipitation or captured streamflow into sinkholes. It gets down to the rock very quickly, a matter of several hours after the rain starts.

"It moves on top of the chert through small 'minicaves' which are major flow paths, and it spreads out downgradient," said Brahana. "This means that where the water and waste will end up are predictable after we have conducted our preliminary research, and that the flow goes to the Buffalo, and the speed of the movement is very rapid, as fast as most surface water."

------------v------------

Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial on 10/14/2014