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Fayetteville Free Weekly

What’s Up on the Buffalo? Rolling Out the Science
By Lin Wellford | October 9, 2014


So, what is up on the Buffalo River? Many people in Arkansas are now aware that a 6500 head confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) for swine was granted a permit to operate in Mount Judea.

The news sparked a lot of controversy.

In the past year, proponents of C&H Hog Farms Inc. have repeatedly cautioned that we should “wait for the science” before concluding that the Buffalo River might be negatively impacted. A moratorium was placed on permitting additional large and medium factory facilities in the watershed in the meantime.

Yet recently it was announced that the moratorium may be allowed to expire, potentially opening the watershed to more such industrial-scale operations.

There is a lot of scientific work being done on the Buffalo River to determine the facts surrounding this issue. Andrew Sharpley, who heads up the University of Arkansas study commissioned by Governor Beebe, has stated that his study cannot be meaningful without several years of follow-up. So asserting that no degradation of the river has been detected by the UA study is not entirely accurate. There is other scientific work going on that the public needs to be informed about, say Ozark River Stewards and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance who are sponsoring an event to do just that. These organizations point to an extensive two-year study done by the Pew Institute, a non-partisan think tank, looked at myriad aspects of industrial animal production in five states and concluded by recommending a phase-out of this kind of intense animal feeding operation due to multiple negative impacts, not the least of which is the staggering amount of waste generated.

On Saturday, Oct. 18, a free program, What’s Up on the Buffalo? Rolling Out the Science, will offer the latest information on the monitoring and research activities in the Buffalo River Watershed, as well news on the legal challenges, recent legislation and pending decisions related to the issue.

Five speakers include U of A Professor Emeritus, John Brahana, a hydro-geologist and karst consultant. Brahana will reveal the latest results of his studies of groundwater transport in the Buffalo River Watershed. Chuck Bitting, a naturalist and karst geologist, will address how endangered species may be affected by a decrease in water quality. This free educational program will take place at St. Paul’s Parish Hall, 224 N. East Avenue, Fayetteville from 7-8:30 p.m. More information is available at www.ozarkriverstewards.com.

After substantial questions were raised about the permitting process, how closely the rules were actually followed, and about the perils of spraying hog waste on pastures in the Big Creek valley, six miles from the confluence with the Buffalo River near Carver, Cargill spokesmen have promised their company will not build more facilities in the area, but also state that they have no plans to stop sending animals to C&H Hog Farms Inc.

Company executives have admitted to stakeholders that the siting of this facility was a mistake, but they are hanging tough, although conceding that they are willing to require some retrofitting and additional safeguards to what they previously characterized as being ‘state-of-the-art technology.’ In response to Cargill’s concessions the Buffalo River Coalition, comprised of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Arkansas Canoe Club, the Ozark Society and the National Parks Conservation Association asserted on Sept. 8, 2014, that “While our coalition is pleased that Cargill has voluntarily committed to a moratorium on future hog facilities in the Buffalo River watershed, a Confined Animal Feeding Operation should not have been placed directly upstream from America’s first national river to begin with,” according to National Parks Conservation Association Program Manager Emily Jones. “It seems contradictory to acknowledge that expensive, experimental technologies are needed to mitigate a so-called ‘state of the art facility’s’ impacts, while having also stated that no harmful bacteria or nutrients will reach the river – which one is correct and are these technologies going to prevent contamination or create more?”

The 2012 National Water Quality Inventory indicates that agriculture is the leading contributor to water quality impairments, accounting for 60 percent of impaired river miles. Most of this is from non-point source (seepage and run off) pollution, which occurs when rainfall, snowmelt, or irrigation runs over land or through the ground, picks up pollutants such as excess nutrients and bacteria, and deposits them into rivers, or introduces them into ground water. These can ruin even the healthiest and cleanest of waterways over time. According to the EPA, the United States annually spends millions of dollars to restore and protect the areas damaged by non-point source pollutants.

If the true cost of raising animals for food in this manner were calculated to include the cost of cleaning up environmental damage, the price tag might induce sticker shock.

The Buffalo River Coalition was formed to protect the Buffalo National River from this urgent factory hog farm threat. The coalition filed a lawsuit in August of 2013 challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for their inadequate review and improper authorization of loan guarantee assistance to C&H. More recently, the coalition pointed out additional misrepresentations around the permitting of C & H Hog Farms and called on ADEQ to reopen the permitting process. Those calls have been ignored by the state.

Representatives from the Buffalo River Coalition will be on hand at the Oct. 18 meeting at St. Paul’s, and encourage the public to come and learn more about this issue. Area restaurants are contributing refreshments. This is a free event.

Ecologist says more river testing coming for hog farm’s effect on water quality
 

Harrison Daily Times 

 
Posted: Friday, October 3, 2014 6:45 am
By JAMES L. WHITE jamesw@harrisondaily.com  

Faron Usrey, an aquatic ecologist with the Buffalo National River, told about 50 river activists last week that some initial data showed higher bacterial and fecal coliform readings in the area of C&H Hog Farm at Mt. Judea, but he also said those data aren’t conclusive and more study is necessary to determine any negative impact on the river.
“I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room,” Usrey told the crowd.
He said BNR doesn’t hate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and that they produce most milk, eggs and meat consumed by Americans.
However, land managers are charged with protecting national parks so they remain safe for public contact and as places of unique beauty so the public can enjoy them.
Usrey explained that an abundance of moisture this summer meant record numbers of visitors to the river. He said the river generated an estimated $47 million in revenue over the year with the lion’s share of that undefined about $41 million undefined coming from non-residents.
Most nutrients and bacteria in the river are generated from tributaries, not visitors. The BNR began testing 10 tributaries, three springs and nine locations on the river in 1985, but added testing for E. coli in 2009 at the request of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
The original role of the monitoring program was to protect the river by identifying what is man-caused pollution and what is natural.
As an example, he said the 2009 ice storm damaged the sewer system at Marble Falls. Thousands of gallons of untreated human sewage was pumped into Mill Creek and it reached the river within 18 hours.
The BNR uses established limits for pollutants in the river to determine if it’s safe for human contact, Usrey said. But a lot of that monitoring had been done only quarterly due to a lack of resources.
The BNR became concerned about C&H Hog Farm’s effect on the river and began testing Big Creek more often. He said samples from 2009 - 2012 had showed normal levels of pollutants, but those readings were higher in March of this year.
But he also said the spring was wet. Flood waters contain more bacteria and fecal coliform than base flow, so those tests couldn’t prove conclusively that the hog farm was at fault.
Still, he said, tests of the river upstream from Big Creek showed normal levels of pollutants, while samples showed high levels in Big Creek and downstream from it in the river. He again cautioned that those results weren’t definitive because testing hadn’t been done as often as he would like to see.
So, monitoring will be added at the upper wilderness boundary of the river, in the Little Buffalo, in funding year 2015, which begins in October.
If the Little Buffalo tests low and the river above Big Creek tests low, and Big Creek and the river downstream test high, the results could merit serious consideration.
Usrey said that flood waters can wash pollutants downstream, and sunlight kills most bacteria but some can settle on the river bed and be released later with additional flooding.
BNR won’t be able to say the hog farm is completely to blame, but it will issue warnings if necessary and it will be up to ADEQ to actually close the river to visitors.

No more CAFOs
Hogging the spotlight
Mike Masterson


The Arkansas Legislature is in the process of deciding whether to support a petition before the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission that would permanently prevent future medium and large swine factories from setting up in our precious Buffalo National River watershed.
Sounds to me like a no-brainer. If you believe even the single hog factory our state already allowed into this national treasure is one too many, I’d suggest contacting your state legislator and sharing your opinions.
The only folks I see who’d resist this effort to benefit our state and future generations by protecting our national river are special-interest groups such as the Farm Bureau and the Pork Producers. Their argument is to let science see how much contamination might result from C&H Hog Farms before taking any protective steps to prevent other large swine-waste factories into the region.
Huh? This apolitical and bipartisan petition is not about C&H.
Technically speaking, the revisions affected are numbers 5 and 6. If the commission does the right thing for our state, its changes unfortunately wouldn’t affect this C&H factory supplied and supported by Cargill Inc. It would only prevent other, larger swine factories from setting up in the watershed. The commission thankfully did implement a temporary moratorium against future factories in the watershed that’s set to expire before the end of the year.
Afterwards, the commissioners will hopefully be both wise and strong enough to make these protections permanent regardless of what legislators say or do.
The Legislature already has held one committee meeting to decide whether to give its blessing to the regulation changes, or side with the special interests in not supporting the idea. Meetings of four different House and Senate committees are planned for October and November to decide that question, although their decisions are nonbinding on the commission’s decision.
Meanwhile, with the temporary moratorium still in place, Arkansans’ support for making the prohibition against large swine factories permanent has been nothing short of overwhelming. I’m told the public comments on this rule have been the most ever received on a commission rule-making proposal, with over 90 percent in favor of the regulatory change.
Even Cargill publicly vows not to install another of its swine factories in the watershed, which validates what I’ve known about this wrongheaded location from the beginning. This misadventure is operating in the worst possible place. Period.
There also have been numerous comments from respected scientists with studies and data that demonstrate the proposal by the Ozark Society and Arkansas Public Policy Panel to amend the regulations is based on sound science.
As has been widely reported, the easily fractured karst limestone topography of the Buffalo River watershed allows basically uninterrupted flow from the surface to groundwater into streams and rivers. Water-quality testing by the University of Arkansas remains under way along and around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo just six miles downstream. Dye-testing by hydrologist/karst specialist Dr. John Van Brahana and his group of dedicated fellow volunteers already confirmed the nature and extent of this rapid and far-reaching subsurface runoff around the factory. Common sense tells me that any untreated liquid manure being regularly spread across fields in the watershed that doesn’t run off directly into tributaries of the Buffalo very likely seeps naturally into the subsurface and
migrates through preferential
pathways to the tributaries of the Buffalo. In fact, that process has now become established scientific fact.
Earlier studies conducted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) who quietly permitted the factory in this location unbeknownst to the National Park Service, that agency’s own local office and somehow even its nearly former director Teresa Marks, dealt with much smaller family hog farms. In other words, those studies are completely irrelevant.
Under the amended regulations, limited-size “farms” won’t be affected. Smaller swine concentrated animal feeding operations still will be allowed.
For now, though, C&H’s 6,500 swine and the enormous volumes of potent waste they emit unfortunately will continue to exist. The regulation change thankfully would simply prevent further C&H factories from being established near the Buffalo. Pretty simple and straightforward, eh?
So, valued readers, I know many of you are as concerned as I’ve been about the potential threat to our national river from hog waste. If you still feel that way, I encourage you to let your local state representatives know that. Rest assured these elected public servants are hearing plenty from special interests who’d rather not prevent additional large industrial swine producers into this hallowed ground.
 
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Arkansas Times

Proposed ban on new large hog farms in Buffalo River watershed punted today in Public Health

Posted By David Ramsey on Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 10:17 AM

A proposed ban on new controlled animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the Buffalo River watershed was on the agenda in Public Health today, but the committee decided not to take action today, instead taking up the matter in a joint hearing with the Agriculture committee. No date has been set; it will likely be a full-day hearing with testimony from both sides.

The new rules, proposed by the Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Ozark Society, would prohibit the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality from issuing new permits to swine operations in the watershed with 750 or more swine weighing 55 pounds or more, or 3,000 or more swine weighing less than 55 pounds. The ban would only apply to new operations, and would have no impact on C&H Hog Farm, the controversial CAFO near a major tributary of the Buffalo River.

Normally the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality initiates the rulemaking process, but it is possible for a third party to do so. The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission granted petitions from the Panel and the Ozark Society to begin the rulemaking process back in April, which have now gone through public comment.

The rules have to go through review in the Public Health committee, the Rules and Regulations committee and finally Legislative Council. Lawmakers have previously told the Times that they believed the ban wouldn't have trouble getting through the legislature, but it looks like things got stuck in Public Health. One big factor: some thought the Farm Bureau would stay on the sidelines, but they have come out against the ban. A representative from the Farm Bureau spoke against it today.

The joint Public Health and Ag meeting will be a doozy.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/government-scientists-try-to-take-the-stink-out-of-pig-manure-1411093808 

Government Scientists Try to Take the Stink Out of Pig Manure

Efforts to Take the Stink Out of Manure Increase, but Some Say That's a Waste

By MARK PETERS  
Sept. 18, 2014 10:30 p.m. ET

 
PEORIA, Ill.  Terry Whitehead's lab here is stocked with glass boiling flasks, Bunsen burnersundefinedand cans of extra-strength air freshener.

The microbiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture works with pig manure in a quest for something that has largely eluded scientists and entrepreneurs: an affordable way to clear the air in farm country.

In a region where hogs can outnumber people, Mr. Whitehead's research is the ultimate icebreaker.

"First, you say, 'I work with manure,' and they say, 'What?' Then you say, 'Odor,' and they say, 'Thank God,' " says the lanky 57-year-old, who recently attended the North American Manure Expo in Missouri. ("It would be a real waste" to miss it, the event website says.)


Efforts to combat the acrid odor of swine manure, which typically is stored in giant pits, have increased as farms get bigger and suburbs creep closer. The smell can pit neighbor against neighbor, sparking complaints and court battles, not to mention environmental concerns.

Some of the research over the years has been criticized in Congress as pork-barrel spending, but farm funk remains a priority for the Agriculture Department.

An expert in bacteria that grow without oxygen, Mr. Whitehead has been researching swine manureundefinedbottles of which he keeps in his lab refrigeratorundefinedsince the mid-1990s.

He first experimented with an animal-feed additive to attack the smell but found more success with a brown powder made from the South American quebracho tree. He also has drawn on research at Michigan State University on borax, the white powder used in household cleaners.

In the world of barnyard smells, pig and chicken manure are considered top offendersundefinedmuch worse than the common cow pie. Pig-manure storage pits can produce hundreds of compounds, creating a nauseating stew of odors, from the sharp bite of ammonia to the rotten-eggs stink of hydrogen sulfide.

The big challenge is getting any additive to work on the scale of a modern hog farm. An adult pig generates about 1.2 gallons of dung a day, and a single barn in the Midwest can house thousands of animals. Storage pits can hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of decomposing manure waiting to be spread on fields for fertilizer.

"It is so potent that it takes a lot of product to make a difference," says Al Heber, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University.

Bottles of hog manure slurry in an experiment conducted by U.S. Agriculture Department scientist Terry Whitehead. The one on the left is untreated. The darker one on the right has been treated with tannins to reduce odors. Mark Peters/The Wall Street Journal
Farmers say many vaunted products haven't worked. In the 1990s, agriculture giant Monsanto Co. tried developing a spray but gave up after disappointing early tests. In the early 2000s, Mr. Heber tested 35 additives marketed to reduce manure smell. Some lowered the levels of certain malodorous compounds, but none made much of a difference in tests by trained sniffers.

"I get a lot of calls from guys who have a technology that is going to fix all our problems," says Michael Formica, chief environmental counsel at the National Pork Producers Council. But few of the products are up to snuff.

Government scientists last decade found success treating cattle manure with thyme and oregano-plant oils, which also are used in mouthwash and throat lozenges. More recently, Agriculture Department researchers experimented with an enzyme extracted from soybean plants, doing tests in a wind tunnel.

Some think the projects reek of government waste. In 2009, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona took issue with a $1.7 million federal budget item for "pig odor research in Iowa," lumping it with other spending on a rodeo museum and wolf-breeding facilities that he considered unnecessary.

Across the Midwest, swine farmers typically are advised to plant trees around barns to prevent odor from traveling and keep neighbors from seeing a constant reminder that thousands of hogs live nearby. Other suggestions to earn good will include hosting a summer pig roast or giving out holiday hams.

Just outside Iowa City, Iowa, Randy Lackender faced concerns from neighbors about the odors emanating from his hog farm. The 58-year-old farmer doesn't understand why people raise such a stink. "We have always had smells on the farm," he says. "It is a fact of living in the country."

Mr. Lackender nonetheless installed special filters in his barns that use microorganisms to clean the air and tested an additive for his manure pits. The first approach proved overly complicated to maintain, while the other didn't work.

Then he was offered a free trial of a product called ManureMagic from a small Texas company. The "magic" is a patented technology that relies on microorganisms that interfere with the decomposition process and limit creation of the worst-smelling gases, the company says.

Mr. Lackender says his wife estimated that the stench decreased by about 75% in two weeks. "She has a very keen sense of smell," Mr. Lackender says. He says he now buys the product regularly.

Back in his lab, Mr. Whitehead says his use of tree tannins sprang from past research on the digestive systems of cattle and sheep.

He and colleague Michael Cotta, a USDA supervisory microbiologist, knew that cattle that ate the leaves of the quebracho tree experienced changes to the bacteria in their digestive systems. So the pair bought a tub of the tree's tannins from a leather-industry supplier and started to experiment. The scientists added the powder to bottles filled with manure from a nearby farm. They sampled gases regularly from the bottles using a syringe and found lower levels of those that contribute to odor.

Mr. Whitehead and his colleagues have patented their work and last year published the findings in the journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. He says a manure-additive company and kitty-litter makers have expressed interest.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Whitehead unscrewed a plastic bottle filled with the dark slurry of hog waste. A rank odor escaped and began to spread through his lab. He keeps air freshener on hand to prevent it from seeping down the hall.

Though he has been surrounded by the smell of swine manure for years, Mr. Whitehead says, "You never get used to it."

Write to Mark Peters at mark.peters@wsj.com

Taking a Health Hazard Home

New York Times
By STEPHANIE STROM SEPT. 15, 2014
 

Workers at hog farms have the highest incidence of S. aureus, a bacterium that can contaminate food and give rise to illnesses, some life threatening.  

A new study of a small group of workers at industrial hog farms in North Carolina has found that they continued to carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria over several days, raising new questions for public health officials struggling to contain the spread of such pathogens.

Although the bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, is common and does not always cause illness, it can contaminate food and give rise to skin infections and respiratory diseases. Its methicillin-resistant variation, known as MRSA, has wreaked havoc on hospital systems, causing life-threatening complications.

The study focused on hog farms because previous research had found the highest incidence of S. aureus among workers in those settings.

As of 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, there were an estimated 75,309 serious infections from MRSA and an estimated 9,670 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Improved hospital procedures have helped reduce the incidence of infection, officials say, but researchers are now concerned about strains of S. aureus resistant to a variety of antibiotics like tetracycline, ampicillin and ciprofloxacin.

Among the 22 workers tested in the new study, reported in the Sept. 8 edition of the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 10 workers carried antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria in their noses for up to four days. Another six workers were intermittent carriers of the bacteria.

The 10 workers found to carry the bacteria persistently had strains associated with livestock that were resistant to multiple drugs, and one also carried MRSA.

Three more of the workers tested positive for strains of S. aureus that were not resistant to antibiotics. So in total, 86 percent of the workers in the study carried the S. aureus bacteria, compared with about one-third of the population at large, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One of the researchers, Christopher D. Heaney, a professor of environmental health sciences and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the study was the first in the United States to find that persistence of the bacteria in farm workers.

Previously, researchers had thought the bacteria would clear from the noses of hog workers within 24 hours. A study published last year of 29 veterinary students exposed to pig barns for just a few hours found that only 22 percent of them carried methicillin-resistant S. aureus, and none of them carried the bacteria 24 hours later.

European studies found similar patterns, leading researchers to conclude that carrying the bacteria in the nasal passage was probably a result of contamination from hand-to-nose contact or bioaerosols that passed quickly.

“This study, while small, is important because it shows the persistence of this bacteria for the first time in the U.S. setting,” Dr. Heaney said. “If workers continue to carry it over a period of days, they are going to be interacting with their families and in their communities, and the question for public health officials then is whether they pose any greater risk.”

Data for the study was collected by researchers from the University of North Carolina working with the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, or Reach, which works to improve quality of life for low-income residents in eastern North Carolina, home to many industrial pig operations.

Big ol' permit loophole
By Mike Masterson
September 13, 2014

Let's head back down to that Mount Judea hog factory the state wrongheadedly allowed to begin spraying millions of gallons of swine waste on acres that border a major tributary of our precious Buffalo National River.
Joe Nix of Arkadelphia, a prominent water chemist, environmentalist, naturalist, and professor at Ouachita Baptist University who's widely considered the senior watchdog of Arkansas streams and lakes, sent a revelation of sorts the other day.
He described how Cargill Inc. (the factory's supplier and chief customer) and the family that owns and manages it received regulatory approval to operate in the Buffalo watershed with relative ease.
Nix said they achieved their goal by using an odd loophole in the state's "General Permit" that was designed basically to accommodate smaller farms with limited resources rather than mega-factory corporations.
While Nix's point might seem a tad tedious for some, it demonstrates the pretzel twists I believe our state Department of Environmental Quality (cough) performed in order to approve this factory.
I'll start at the beginning. Nix said our state, like others, requires a permit to discharge waste into natural waters in various regions. Ordinary applicants with larger farming proposals may be required to prepare a review of technical aspects of the project. That usually has meant a "Use Attainability Analysis" and/or an "Environmental Impact Statement" could be required, he said.
But the full permit process is expensive and regulative overkill for some very small projects, Nix further explained. "In some cases the water quality standards may be unreasonable since the standards for each region are based on chemical characteristics of a stream in that region which has not been impacted. For this reason, [Pollution Control and Ecology] developed a way for small operations to bypass the expense of a full permit review. This 'General Permit' was intended to help the smaller operator ...
"But unfortunately," Nix continued, "a mistake was made and it can be used for larger operations, too. Cargill and [C&H Hog Farms] took advantage of this and used the General Permit approach to obtain their operating permit. This loophole needs to be closed."
Yes, it most certainly does. As a result of this loophole, the seriously larger operations commonly known as concentrated animal feeding operations who apply under its provisions basically get a pass on jumping through safeguard processes contained in the full permit review.
That's especially interesting, since I've wondered from the beginning of Mount Judea's hog horror why Arkansas didn't demand exhaustive waste-flow dye studies (as well as others) before even remotely considering a hog factory in this treasured area.
Did no one at the agency notice its own permit's loophole at the time? Why not? Who wrote and approved the permit? This Grand Canyon-sized "oversight" smells half-ham intentional to me.
So when Cargill and the factory owners insist they have been legitimately approved under the General Permit and never violated a single permitting regulation, they technically are correct because of the way it's written.
Today the C&H hogs are doing their business in a karst-riddled region where they never should have been permitted. That's about the 60th of so verse of that same song that I and so many others have been harmonizing on since this factory set up shop.
Nix said several weeks back that Mike Luker, Cargill's president of pork production for Arkansas, called him and said he and others realized Cargill had made a mistake in originally locating this factory near the hamlet of Mount Judea and "it was Luker's job to find a solution."
The corporation announced its solution Monday: It was staying put and making some modifications to ensure the factory would not wind up contaminating the Buffalo River.
He also said Cargill would not be placing any more such places in the watershed. And the crowds across Arkansas and America screamed "Hooray!"
Nix responds: "Now we find ourselves with a very large swine feeding operation situated in an area that has karst features below ground and which has the capacity to deliver minimally treated waste into Big Creek and on to the Buffalo River. Yes, Cargill did 'make a mistake' and the only real solution is for one of the world's 10 largest corporations to cancel any contracts, make the C&H owners financially whole, and remove the operation that serves it from the Buffalo River watershed."
------------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 09/13/2014

Hog farm gets corporate support; Coalition expresses disappointment
 
Posted: Tuesday, September 9, 2014 6:45 am |
Staff Report news@harrisondaily.com | 0 comments

In a letter to the Buffalo River Coalition, international food conglomerate Cargill responded to extensive public outcry in opposition to the location of C & H Hog Farms near the Buffalo National River by steadfastly committing to the factory hog facility’s location. Cargill has self-imposed a moratorium on new swine facilities and expansions of C & H in the Buffalo River watershed, along with committing to explore technology to mitigate the effects of their current facility.
In a letter written to Gordon Watkins of The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Mike Luker, president of Cargill Pork said his company had met with numerous individuals and organizations, learning much about “the understandable passion people have for the Buffalo National River in Northwest Arkansas.”
The Buffalo River Coalition is made up of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, The Ozark Society, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Arkansas Canoe Club.
Luker went on to say that Cargill, as a 50-year corporate citizen of Arkansas, shared the desire to preserve and protect the Buffalo.
Cargill, Luker said, had committed to the following actions:
• To line the holding pond and settling basin with synthetic liners
• To explore leak detection technology for the liners, as well as water treatment options and systems
• Cover the settling basin
• Install a flare system to burn off gases
• Continue to investigate new, leading-edge technologies with plans to begin installing and testing new technology for nutrient management before the end of the calendar year
• Cargill has established a permanent moratorium on the construction of any new hog facilities in the Buffalo River watershed or expansion of the existing C & H Hog Farm
In a letter sent on August 28, the Buffalo River Coalition responded by thanking Cargill for its efforts, but calling into question the effectiveness of mitigation and remaining firm in calling for the facility’s removal from the watershed.
“While our coalition is pleased that Cargill has voluntarily committed to a moratorium on future hog facilities in the Buffalo River watershed,” said National Parks Conservation Association program manager Emily Jones, “a confined animal feeding operation should not have been placed directly upstream from America’s first national river to begin with. It seems contradictory to acknowledge that expensive, experimental technologies are needed to mitigate a so-called ‘state of the art facility’s’ impacts, while having also stated that no harmful bacteria or nutrients will reach the river undefined which one is correct and are these technologies going to prevent contamination or create more?”
Cargill, the coalition said, has committed to support “new, leading edge technology for nutrient management,” specifically a Plasma Pyrolysis process, which experts call an untested and unproved technology for handling liquid swine waste. In its response to Cargill’s proposal, the Buffalo River Coalition stated that implementing this program as a solution would turn C & H, Mt. Judea and the Buffalo National River into “a research laboratory for a private company to test a new application for a process heretofore used for medical waste and other solid material disposal.” And that “the Buffalo River watershed is not the place to carry out such risky experiments.”
“Rather than moving the facility to a region without porous karst geology, a school next door or a national river six miles downstream, Cargill has dug its heels in and offered the people of Arkansas and national park supporters across the country mitigation measures that leave the fate of our first national river to chance,” Watkins said in the letter. “This is not the place for an experiment and we shouldn’t be rolling the dice with Arkansas’ crown jewel. There is one solution: remove the facility from the Buffalo River watershed.”
According to the letter, during an early meeting between the coalition and Cargill, the hog producer admitted that, in retrospect, Mt. Judea was a poor site choice for the C & H facility and was committed to doing its part to correct the error. The coalition then accused Cargill of reversing its position, and it had decided to fully support the facility in its current location.
According to the Buffalo River Coalition, while liners can provide added protection against waste leakage, published information by the USD and others indicates that installation must be done with great care and that a method for leak detection is highly desirable. Avoiding damage to the liners due to agitation and sludge removal is difficult. Millions of gallons of swine feces and urine will still pose a significant risk to both surface and underground water undefined with the potential for permanent damage to the Buffalo River, said the coalition.
“We’re not talking about a what-if catastrophic scenario, though that’s certainly possible too,” said Bob Allen, board member of the Arkansas Canoe Club. “The National Park Service has expressed concern over the gradual buildup of pollutants in the river. Cargill isn’t just jeopardizing our state’s environmental health, they’re jeopardizing our entire tourism economy. Hardly a fair trade for the six jobs that C & H supports. In contrast, the Buffalo supports $44 million in spending and 610 jobs annually.”
The coalition has made it clear that it believes the hog farm is located in the worst possible location, atop karst geology, immediately adjacent to a school and the town of Mt. Judea and just a few miles upstream on the banks of a major tributary of the Buffalo National River.
The coalition closes its letter to Cargill by stating: “We will also continue to educate the public about the unacceptable risks posed by the inappropriate location of this swine CAFO and we will encourage Cargill as well as state agencies and governmental bodies to recognize the true costs of allowing this risk to continue. We support nothing short of closure or relocation.”
The Buffalo River Coalition was formed to protect the Buffalo National River from this urgent factory hog farm threat. The coalition filed a lawsuit in August 2013 challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for their inadequate review and improper authorization of loan guarantee assistance to C&H.

Sep 8, 5:11 PM EDT


Cargill rejects calls to move Arkansas hog farm

By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS
Associated Press

Minnesota-based food processor Cargill said Monday that it has no intention to shutter or relocate an Arkansas hog farm, despite concerns from environmentalists who say the operation poses a pollution threat to the nearby Buffalo River.

A Cargill spokesman said the company is committed to installing newer technology at its Mount Judea facility in northern Arkansas - including using synthetics to line the holding pond and settling basin and installing a flare system to burn off gasses - and has already self-imposed a moratorium on expansion of hog production in the watershed area. The Buffalo was the country's first designated national river in 1972, and is a large tourism draw for the state.

At least four conservation groups have raised concerns for more than a year that manure runoff could affect the quality of one of the state's scenic crown jewels.

The farm is located on a tributary less than 10 miles from the river and has some 2,500 sows and 4,000 piglets, all of which are owned by Cargill. The three families who own the hog farm contract with Cargill, which owns the animals.

Mike Martin, a Cargill spokesman, said the hog operation has told the company it wants to stay in the area and that that farmers there have done nothing wrong.

"There's a frustration because there are other things directly impacting the quality of the river: livestock operations and cattle ranches are all over the place, including near the park boundaries, there's cattle standing in the river," Martin said Monday. "There are other things that are impacting water quality, and those aren't being addressed."

Perhaps illustrating the recent tension between the company and its critics, Mike Luker, the president of Cargill Pork, confessed in a letter last month to the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance that "a solution which satisfies all is probably unrealistic."

Environmental groups congratulated Cargill on its self-imposed moratorium, but pledged to keep applying pressure on the company to relocate the operation.

"We assume part of this is about setting a precedent- if they shut this one down, then environmentalists will be clamoring all over the country to shut other operations down," said Gordon Watkins, the president of the watershed alliance.

National Parks Conservation Association program manager Emily Jones said in a statement that while the coalition is pleased Cargill has voluntarily committed to the moratorium, an operation such as C&H "should not have been placed directly upstream from America's�first national river to begin with."

Martin said Cargill and conservationists can co-exist in the area.

"(These families have) been farming for more than 50 years. They have a very good record," he said.

 

Bacteria counts up in tributary system
 
Posted: Monday, September 8, 2014 4:00 pm
 
Faron Usrey, Aquatic Ecologist, with Buffalo National River will present information on monitoring of bacteria of Big Creek and Buffalo National River on Tuesday, Sept. 23 at Boone County Library. The program begins at 5:30 p.m. and the library is located at 221 W. Stephenson in Harrison.
Monitoring of bacteria and oxygen levels has been a long-established practice for Buffalo National River.
Presently Faron is transitioning to routine monitoring of Big Creek and several areas of the river. Thus far, data suggest this year's frequent rain showers have elevated E. coli not only in Big Creek but in many surrounding tributary systems as well. Hear what the latest findings are and how monitoring plans will expand to other tributaries that flow into America’s first national river.