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http://www.npca.org/news/media-center/press-releases/2014/cargill-to-buffalo-river.html

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: September 8, 2014
Contact: Perry Wheeler, National Parks Conservation Association, P: 202-419-3712

Cargill to Buffalo River Coalition: 6,500 Hogs are “Good Neighbors” to America’s First National River

Mt. Judea, AR – In a commitment letter to the Buffalo River Coalition and a subsequent op-ed in Minnesota’s Star Tribune, international food conglomerate Cargill responded to extensive public outcry in opposition to the location of C & H Hog Farms near Arkansas’ Buffalo National River by steadfastly committing to the factory hog facility’s ill-sited 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 sent 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, a Confined Animal Feeding Operation should not have been placed directly upstream from America’s first national river to begin with,” said 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?”

Cargill has committed to support “new, leading edge technology for nutrient management,” specifically a Plasma Pyrolysis process, which experts call an untested and unproven technology for handling liquid swine waste. In their response to Cargill’s proposals, 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 6 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,” said Buffalo River Watershed Alliance President Gordon Watkins. “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.”

Additionally, Cargill stated its intention to install synthetic membrane waste pond liners. While liners can provide added protection against waste leakage, published information by USDA 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 – with the potential for permanent damage to the Buffalo River.

“We’re not talking about a what-if catastrophic scenario, though that’s certainly possible too. The National Park Service has expressed concern over the gradual buildup of pollutants in the river,” said Bob Allen, board member of the Arkansas Canoe Club. “Cargill isn’t just jeopardizing our state’s environmental health, they’re jeopardizing our entire tourism economy. Hardly a fair trade for the 6 jobs that C & H supports. In contrast, the Buffalo supports $44 million in spending and 610 jobs annually.”
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 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.

To view Cargill’s commitment letter, visit: http://buffaloriverwatershedalliance.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/Gordon%20Watkins%20TBRWA%20Aug%2019%202014.pdf

To view the Buffalo River Coalition’s response, visit:

 http://buffaloriverwatershedalliance.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/Coalition%20response%20to%20Mike%20Luker%20%20.pdf

Community Groups Petition EPA for Precedent Setting Case on Civil Rights Violations

Decade-long struggle with North Carolina over public health shifts to the EPA as community groups state lax oversight of hog operations violates civil rights

WARSAW, N.C.-The North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help and Waterkeeper Alliance, supported by Earthjustice, filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Civil Rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alleging that North Carolina's lax regulation of hog waste disposal discriminates against communities of color in eastern North Carolina.

The complaint is the latest chapter in a longstanding struggle to address the community health impacts posed by massive amounts of fecal waste from industrial hog facilities. Community members have repeatedly asked the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for stronger protections, but are now seeking help from the EPA, stating that a recent decision by DENR to issue a permit that will cover thousands of hog facilities without adequate waste disposal controls violates federal law and civil rights.

"Rural eastern North Carolinians, especially poor people and people of color, continue to suffer from the horrible conditions brought on by the industrial hog industry" said Naeema Muhammad, Director of North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. "It's the State's job to regulate these operations and make sure that the people and the environment are protected. This complaint is about making sure they do that."
The permit continues to allow industry to flush hog feces and urine into open, unlined pits and then to spray this "liquid manure" onto nearby fields. This practice leads to waste contaminating nearby waters. The waste also drifts as mist onto neighboring properties, causing unbearable odors. The impact is worsened by the growth of the poultry industry in the state and the piles of chicken waste that often sit uncovered on fields for days on end.
These operations are disproportionately located in communities of color where neighbors are forced to endure the smell, water quality impacts and the embarrassment associated with the facilities operating near their homes.

"You can't imagine what it's like to live next to one of these hog operations," said Devon Hall, Project Manager at the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH). "It's hard to enjoy the outdoors and it's embarrassing to invite company over, because the flies and the smells make life miserable. We've complained for decades about it."

"The negative impacts that hog operations have on the environment and neighboring communities is outrageous, and the government is turning a blind eye to those in harm's way," said Larry Baldwin, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) Coordinator at Waterkeeper Alliance. "It's time the State took its responsibility to protect the citizens of North Carolina seriously. After years of working to improve water quality in the eastern portion of the state, I can say that it's time for the state to take action."
The complainants have notified officials at DENR and EPA of the filing and are asking EPA to initiate an investigation.

ONLINE VERSION OF STATEMENT (INCLUDES LINKS TO FILING): http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/community-groups-petition-epa-for-precedent-setting-case-on-civil-rights-violations

Subject: Proposed Notification Procedures for new CAFOs passes legislative review

This morning a joint meeting of the House and Senate Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor heard proposed changes to Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission Regulation 6 to increase notification procedures for new Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) . The changes were the recommendations of a Committee created by Act 1511 during the 2013 legislative session. No committee members ask any questions and the proposed changes passed review. The draft changes will now go back before the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission for final adoption.

Having better public notifications procedures in place as part of the permitting process for new CAFOs will provide citizens with the knowledge to stand up for proper siting and more information on proposed facilities.


The proposed changes can be found here: http://www.adeq.state.ar.us/regs/drafts/reg06_draft_docket_14-004-R/reg06_draft_docket_14-004-R.htm

Cargill staying put
Root hog or die
By Mike Masterson
8/31/14

Cargill Inc., the multinational corporation responsible for placing the factory of up to 6,500 swine in the Buffalo National River watershed, has responded to sustained public outcries by saying it has no plans to abandon its grossly misplaced venture called C&H Hog Farms.
Sounds to me as if the Minnesota-based corporation is vowing to "root hog or die."
In an Aug. 20 letter, Mike Luker, president of Cargill's pork operations, tells Joe Nix of Arkadelphia that the privately owned corporation, after weighing its options in the precious and fragile watershed, has decided to stay put and make some modifications to its current operation.
Nix, by the way, has a long and distinguished history with fighting to preserve water quality in Arkansas, including the water-quality lab he started at Ouachita Baptist University in 1966 where he used undergraduate students to study many of the rivers and lakes in Arkansas through the years with funding from the EPA, Corps of Engineers and numerous others. Nix also was the second president of the Ozark Society, following the Buffalo River's first hero, Neil Compton.
Luker says Cargill will continue to support the farm and its family owners, and reported that changes in "environmental safeguards" (that should have been firm state requirements before a permit was even entertained ... then denied) include the following:
• Lining the factory's odoriferous holding lagoons and settling basins with a synthetic liner (ostensibly to minimize leakage into the groundwater system).
• Covering the settling basins (to minimize the God-awful odors and gas emanations).
• Installing a flaring system to burn off resulting gas emissions.
• Exploring leak-detection technology for these new liners, as well as water-treatment options and technologies, whatever exploring those means.
• Incorporating leading-edge technologies (also whatever that means because those aren't detailed).
Luker contends there will be ongoing open and transparent communication with environmental associations such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society, Canoe Club, and National Parks Conservation Association.
Karst expert and former University of Arkansas geosciences professor Dr. John Van Brahana, who has spent a year with his team of volunteers monitoring subsurface water quality and flow around this factory, said he finds it interesting that Luker made no mention of keeping open and ongoing communication with the National Park Service. It was among the group of relevant entities who were never informed of the initial plans to establish this factory in the watershed the Park Service actually manages and monitors.
Luker says Cargill does not intend to place any additional CAFOs in the Buffalo River basin, nor expand the present factory. Our state finally has taken similar action well after this place was ensconced.
I guess that means the corporation doesn't realize the problem that thousands of Arkansans and others have today doesn't involve the potential for other of its factories to threaten the quality of this national treasure. The objections are that our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) was so relatively quick and quiet in allowing this factory to operate in the sacred watershed in the first place.
In a closing worthy of Cargill's polished public relations specialist Michael Martin, Luker tells Nix: "We also pledge our continuous efforts to explore fact-based and science-based technologies and solutions that further safeguard the area where C&H operates. I realize a solution which satisfies all is probably unrealistic. I do wish to keep the door open for future dialogue and hope you consider doing the same."
I might as well repeat myself for effect here. It strikes me that Cargill could have saved (and still could) an awful lot of hard feelings and an enormous potential PR nightmare from potentially polluting the country's first national river with hog waste had it simply decided this endless battle in the public interest is neither morally nor financially feasible.
 
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson@arkansasonline.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial on 08/31/2014

The following op-ed was written in response to BRWA VP Jack Stewart's article, "Cargill Operation Is Contradictory" in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on August 25.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/273253621.html

Counterpoint: Cargill's Arkansas pig farm is a good neighbor

Article by: MIKE LUKER Updated: August 29, 2014 - 10:50 PM

The contract operation strives to uphold environmental safety standards.



On Aug. 25, “A Cargill pig operation is contradictory” commented on our contract hog farm in northwest Arkansas. I would like to provide readers with Cargill Pork’s perspective.

The farm is owned by three local families who have resided in rural northwest Arkansas for eight generations, farmed the land for half a century and raised hogs for more than a decade. They grew up near the mountain community of Mount Judea, learning to swim in local creeks and fish in local ponds, all the while producing food for others.

Mount Judea is nestled in a portion of the state that forms the backdrop for the Buffalo National River, a treasured waterway that became America’s first national river in 1972. Much of the river’s watershed is part of National Park Service land, and agriculture, including hog farming, has taken place in the watershed long before there was a park. Today, cattle ranches, poultry barns, hog operations and crop fields dot the landscape.

In 2013, with a state-approved permit in hand, the three families of C&H expanded their hog production by building a farm incorporating the latest design elements, including environmental safeguards exceeding state or federal government requirements. The farm houses 2,500 Cargill-owned sows and up to 4,000 piglets. The piglets stay on the farm for about 21 days before being weaned and transported to farms outside Arkansas to be raised for pork.

Objections to the farm surfaced because of its number of hogs and the manure they generate. More hogs lived in the area 10 years ago, albeit spread across 11 farms that didn’t have the benefit of today’s waste-handling technology. C&H is the lone remaining area hog farm, and the family owners earn their livelihoods producing hogs for Cargill.

The potential for hog manure being released into a creek and traveling 6 miles to the Buffalo River, or getting into underground water from use as crop fertilizer, are the concerns. Porous subsurface geology is common in Arkansas and nearby states with large numbers of hog farms, yet the type of catastrophic event envisioned by those who are concerned has never occurred.

Because of these issues, the state allocated resources for the University of Arkansas to monitor water quality in tributaries to the Buffalo River and in the river itself. Additionally, fields where manure is spread on crops are being monitored, and leak detection equipment has been installed at the farm’s waste-holding ponds. C&H is cooperating with the state and university.

The most recent University of Arkansas findings of naturally occurring bacteria in local waterways show no indication that C&H has impacted the river. Additionally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent three days on the farm, and its report indicated that nothing noteworthy was found. C&H has been a model farm for the more than a year it’s been operating.

Cargill understands the importance of being environmental stewards who protect and conserve resources used to produce food. Last spring, our Cargill Pork leadership team embarked on an outreach effort in Arkansas and met with many people and organizations to hear from them regarding concerns about the farm.

We listened, and learned about the passion for the Buffalo River. We came away believing all sources impacting Buffalo River water quality, present and future, must be addressed. We are working with C&H to further enhance the environmental safeguards already in place. Synthetic liners and covers will be added to manure ponds; we have implemented a permanent moratorium on hog facility expansion in the watershed, and we support the state’s approach for making decisions based on science and facts.

At Cargill Pork we believe various uses of land, water and other resources can continue to successfully coexist in the Buffalo River watershed, as they have for generations, and we feel it is equally important for people to have the facts.



Mike Luker is president of Cargill Pork.

 

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/08/25/cargill-chief-credited-for-climate-remarks-urged-to-do-better-in-buffalo-river-watershed

Cargill chief credited for climate remarks; urged to do better in Buffalo River watershed

Posted By Max Brantley on Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 6:47 AM

Jack Stewart, vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, landed an op-ed in the daily newspaper in Minneapolis, base for Cargill, the agri giant behind a mass hog feeding operation in the Buffalo River watershed.

Stewart praises Cargill executive chair and former CEO Greg Page for joining other business execs manmade impact on changing weather patterns and damage to the environment. Then …. the Buffalo River.

Considering this impressive stance on climate change and environmental health, Page may be unaware that one part of the planet, the Arkansas Ozarks, desperately needs protecting from Cargill itself.

Stewart lists the well-known issues of geology and unique qualities of the Buffalo before concluding:

Mr. Page, we appreciate your good sense of environmental health. We and many others applaud you as one of the few corporate executives to raise a concerned voice over the perils of climate change. But thinking “globally” should also be accompanied by “acting locally.”

In light of your environmental sensitivities, please consider the risky business in the Buffalo River watershed. This is not something that can be mitigated; there is too much at stake. Please take positive actions in line with the values you’ve clearly expressed and move Cargill’s 6,500 pigs to another part of the state or country that will not threaten a national treasure.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/272370391.html

A Cargill pig operation in Arkansas is contradictory

Article by: JACK STEWART Updated: August 22, 2014 - 6:50 PM

The CEO speaks of the environment, but the feedlot threatens a national treasure.

It’s not every day in America that a major corporation steps forward and admits that climate change is actually occurring. Greg Page, Cargill’s executive chairman and former CEO, recently acknowledged that changing weather patterns are not only man-made, but are wreaking havoc on the environment. Page was part of a panel of influential business leaders that published a report titled “Risky Business” undefined the first comprehensive U.S.-based look at the economic consequences of climate change.

Page oversees an international conglomerate whose reach extends to almost every agricultural commodity imaginable. Minnetonka-headquartered Cargill provides, processes, trades, buys and sells everything from cotton to pork. Page’s support for curbing the impact of climate change is consistent with the company’s stated environmental policy. Under the “Corporate Responsibility” banner on its website, Cargill says the company is “committed to nourishing the world’s population while at the same time protecting the planet.”

Considering this impressive stance on climate change and environmental health, Page may be unaware that one part of the planet, the Arkansas Ozarks, desperately needs protecting from Cargill itself. Recently, a Cargill-sponsored factory hog farm began operations in an environmentally fragile ecosystem just upstream from America’s first national river, threatening the “crown jewel of the Ozarks.” For those unfamiliar with the Buffalo National River, a congressional act in 1972 was passed to protect and preserve the pristine, 115-mile, spring-fed, bluff-lined waterway for future generations of Americans. More than 1 million tourists undefined many from the Twin Cities area undefined swim, fish, camp and canoe the river each year.

Hog farms are not new to the Buffalo River watershed, but in the past they have all been mom-and-pop businesses. This new farm is a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) of 6,500 pigs. The resulting annual 2 million gallons of untreated feces and urine are first held in leaky, clay-lined lagoons before being spread over fields next to Big Creek undefined the second-largest tributary on the Buffalo undefined and directly across from a public school. The waste produced is equivalent to that of a city of 35,000 people, about the size of Brooklyn Center.

The factory farm’s location makes it perilous to our first national river. Not only is it just a few miles upstream from the Buffalo, but it also sits on top of porous limestone rock known as karst geology. Whatever is spread on the ground seeps through the rock and into the underground water system and eventually into the river. Recent tests by the National Park Service in the vicinity show that counts of E. coli bacteria are 30 times higher than in previous recordings. Even Arkansas’s chief environmental officer, Teresa Marks, acknowledged in a New York Times article in December that pollution is inevitable.

Mr. Page, we appreciate your good sense of environmental health. We and many others applaud you as one of the few corporate executives to raise a concerned voice over the perils of climate change. But thinking “globally” should also be accompanied by “acting locally.”

In light of your environmental sensitivities, please consider the risky business in the Buffalo River watershed. This is not something that can be mitigated; there is too much at stake. Please take positive actions in line with the values you’ve clearly expressed and move Cargill’s 6,500 pigs to another part of the state or country that will not threaten a national treasure.



Jack Stewart is a vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and a national board member of the Audubon Society.

 

Dr. John Van Brahana will be Honored at the Arkansas Wildlife Federation’s 2014
Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards Banquet
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Doors open @ 4:00 PM; Dinner served @ 6:00 PM
The Center of Bryant located at Bishop Park, 6401 Boone Road, Bryant, Arkansas


August 22, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For more than 50 years the Arkansas Wildlife Federation (AWF), Arkansas’ oldest non-profit conservation organization (1936), has been recognizing those who have gone the extra mile in conservation, helping to maintain Arkansas’ natural beauty and protecting the environment. Each year AWF holds the Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards Banquet to honor the recipients who are nominated by the public and three awards chosen by the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC).

Dr. John Van Brahana will be awarded the Harold Alexander Conservation Award and Mike Masterson will be awarded the Carol Griffee Conservation Communicator of the Year Award for their outstanding work in bringing the Buffalo National River to the attention of every Arkansan so that we do not forget the importance of this national treasure.

Other deserving winners include the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, Lynne Slater, Executive Director of HAWK, Potlatch Corporation, Stan Speight, Waste Management, Kathy Rusert, Austin Klais, Nena Evans, and Cutter Morning Star High School EAST Lab. The AGFC awards are as follows: Hunter Education Instructor of the Year award to Mark Corbin, the Boating Education Instructor of the Year to Todd Gadberry and the Commission’s 2014 Wildlife Officer of the Year to Sgt. Brad Young.

This year’s theme will focus on the cooperative land rehabilitation project, located within Buffalo River watershed, known as Bearcat Hollow. Scheduled speakers include AWF’s President Wayne Shewmake and 1st Vice President Ellen McNulty; AGFC Commissioner Ron Duncan; Jim Dixon, Integrated Resources Team Leader (U. S. Forest Service); McRee Anderson, Fire Restoration Project Director (The Nature Conservancy); and Dennis Daniel, State Chapter President (National Wild Turkey Federation).

The doors open to the public at 4:00 PM to allow guests to see all of the winning art from the 2014 “Wildlife of Arkansas” Student Art Contest. After a four month tour to the various AGFC nature centers around the state, the art exhibit featuring 52 pieces representing grades k-12 will be on display for a one-night only gallery showing. The art show is a co-production of AWF and Creative Ideas. Attendees will also have the opportunity to visit with AWF affiliates such as the University of the Ozarks Outdoors club or the Arkansas Tech University Fisheries & Wildlife Society. Other affiliates and vendors will include Wounded Warriors Project, birds of prey, AGFC, and more.

There will also be a live and silent auction including vacation trips within Arkansas and to Costa Rica, and hunting and fishing trips in Africa, Argentina, and Arkansas. Auctioneer, Chris Workman of Workman’s Auction, will also auction off a youth deer hunt as well as a youth elk permit donated by the AGFC. There will also be several door prizes that range from shotguns to handmade blue bird houses and potted trees.

The public is invited to come join this family event and celebration to show appreciation for these conservation champions.

If you are a member of the press and would like to attend, or need more information, please contact the AWF Office. Photos from previous year’s event are available upon request. Information about the 2014 winners also available upon request.

Honoring Brahana
 
By Mike Masterson 

Its good to see the Arkansas Wildlife Federation rightfully honoring Dr. John Van Brahana at its annual Governor's Conservation Achievement Awards banquet tonight in Bryant.A retired University of Arkansas professor of geological sciences and one of the nation's foremost hydrologists, Brahana has spent the past year with equally dedicated student volunteers monitoring water quality around and below the controversial C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea.The professor has devoted his own sustained energies and finances to determine subsurface water flows beneath and around this Cargill-sponsored nightmare that our state wrongheadedly permitted to nurture up to 6,500 swine in the ultra-sensitive watershed of our country's first national river. The state hasn't offered even one cent to assist in his effort to monitor its blunder.

And for Brahana's deserving service, the Wildlife Federation tonight will present him with its highest overall annual honor, the Harold Alexander Conservationist of the Year Award.

Like the federation, I greatly admire and respect this unique man and all those who've joined him to do all they can to keep Arkansans aware of how waste from this factory is flowing underground into and around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo just six miles downstream.

I want the organization to realize how much I appreciate that they kindly chose to present me their Carol Griffee Conservation Communicator of the Year Award for multiple columns about this hog factory. Their honor means even more by my having known and admired the late Ms. Griffee, one of our state's finest, most enterprising reporters.

As I've said before, my craft, especially on the national level, has all but surrendered its once-proud role as the Fourth Estate, society's nonpartisan reporter of truths as the objective questioner of government solely in the public interest.

I'm certain Ms. Griffee, were she still among us, also would be shocked with this abdication of social responsibility under our First Amendment.

Yet again, I digress.

Meanwhile, my encouragement for Arkansans to express their opinions to Cargill about this hog factory apparently prompted many to respond by writing to the multinational corporation's communications director, Michael Martin.

Below are but a few edited examples that readers copied to me:

Ed Brocksmith--"The permit granted for the hog farm near the Buffalo National River was a mistake on the part of Arkansas regulators. Cargill has received a black eye because of this ill-advised decision by [the Department of Environmental Quality]. Further bad publicity is sure to come from this venture between Cargill and the farm in question. I urge Cargill to back away from this project before it's too late and a water quality disaster occurs on this beautiful stream."

Roland Robinson--"To say C&H followed all existing regulations only speaks to the sham the regulations are. Apparently, the director of ADEQ didn't even need to know the permit had been issued. ... To believe the operation of this CAFO will not result in dire consequences is to live in a fool's paradise. ... We're always assured all regulations are met, despite the fact that these kind of corporate operations fly in the face of common sense. Wanna make me a loyal Cargill supporter? Remove this CAFO."

RG Smith--"I used to think, as I drove by the Cargill facility in Springdale: Thank God we have businesses like this, supporting our economy, providing jobs; Cargill is just good folks. Now I think: Cargill, polluter of rivers, enemy of the environment, torturer of animals, indifferent to the public, supporter of corrupt politicians. Shame. Close that farm in Mount Judea, for God's sake, and for your good name."

Brian Thompson--"Regarding possible Cargill options, it seems that you can only choose to: 1. continue to back C&H, perhaps strengthening safeguards and spinning that as best you can, or 2. You can terminate the C&H contract for which I'm sure there are several possible approaches. Contract termination provides a tremendous opportunity for Cargill to do the right thing and harvest all sorts of public relations benefits. Continuing to back C&H would be a PR loser no matter how you manage it."

The Vorbachs--"Mr. Martin: The clock is ticking and every day means a greater problem for the Buffalo River. Please don't wait in your decision ... The reputations of Cargill ... and the state of Arkansas are at stake ... to have a hog farm in the proximity of a National River! What idiots would do a thing like that? ... Please do the correct thing and remove that horrible threat to the environment and to future generations who may never experience the enjoyment of beauty and purity in the Buffalo River. If there has been a significant change to the water quality already, I hope Cargill is prepared to spend the dollars to repair the problems! Common sense and integrity is the only way agriculture can coexist with 'other land usage' in NW Arkansas. Greed and disregard for citizens and the things they hold dear are defined in the name 'Cargill' at this moment. Perhaps your reputation can be saved."

Maxine--"Sir, Some things are more important than money. The Buffalo National River is one."

Share your own opinion at michael_martin@cargill.com.

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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 08/23/2014

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/08/20/cargill-holding-firm-on-hog-farm-in-buffalo-river-watershed

Cargill holding firm on hog farm in Buffalo River watershed
Posted By Max Brantley on Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 6:57 PM
 
Dr. Joe Nix of Arkadelphia, a respected water chemist, is sending to friends and associates a letter he received, dated today, from the president of Cargill Pork about the hog feeding operation it is supporting at C and H Farm at Mount Judea in the Buffalo River watershed.

Those who've hoped for a solution undefined maybe even a retreat from giant Cargill undefined will be disappointed by the letter Nix shared.

Cargill said it would continue to support the farm, which it describes as a model operation. It said it would pursue other environmental safeguards on the farm. It said Cargill had established a moratorium on hog operation expansion in the Buffalo watershed (no mention of other parts of the stye and no mention of how long the moratorium might last undefined a couple of weeks?). It pledged to work for further safeguards, but acknowledged a solution that "satisfies all is probably unrealistic."

Indeed.

Nix said in a note accompanying the letter:

About 6 weeks ago, I had a call from Mike Luker who is president of pork production for Cargill. Apparently, the purpose of the call was to establish contact with me. I have no id who suggested this.

He told me, as he had told others, that they had made a mistake in locating this operation at the Mt. Judea site and that he was charged with finding a solution for the problem. He told me that he would be back in touch with me as soon as they had decided on a course of action. I heard nothing from him even though I called him five times and left call-back messages. No response, so I wrote another Cargill official and complained that I had not heard from Mr. Luker. I got a one sentence reply essentially thanking me for my interest in the project. I replied to this person by saying that I wanted specific answers and I was curious why I had not head from Mr. Luker. I then received another letter from this person indicating that I would hear from Mr. Luker very soon. That answer came a couple of hours ago. You will find it as the very small PDF attachment to Mr. Luker's note. It pretty well states Cargill's position on the project. I urge you to read it carefully! Please send it to others. Then sit back and know how it feels for your state and some of its most valuable resources to be screwed by big business. I best stop here before I get all worked up. Please, Please pass it on to others.

Cargill's letter above was accompanied by this terse note from Luker to Nix:

Dear Joe,

I’d like to personally thank you for sharing your views with me on our contract hog farm in the Buffalo River watershed. Please find attached Cargill’s plan for moving forward.


Sincerely,

Mike Luker,
President
Cargill Pork

The legal challenge to the operation will, of course, continue.