what's New This Page contains all Media posts

Minnesota Public Radio

Twin Cities environmentalists join fight over Cargill's Arkansas hog operations

Environment Elizabeth Dunbar · St. Paul, Minn. · Aug 15, 2014

 
Minnesota-based Cargill has been taking heat from conservationists, including some in Minnesota, for one of its contract hog farms in Arkansas.

Some of the anger over the facility comes from the fact that it's located on a tributary just six miles from the Buffalo River, an area they gets special protection from the National Park Service, much like the St. Croix on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

Jack Stewart says the Buffalo River, with its clear water surrounded by spectacular cliffs, is the Arkansas version of the Boundary Waters.

"It's our treasure," he said. "It belongs to all the people of the country."

Stewart, vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance in Arkansas, has rallied other activists concerned that manure runoff from Cargill-owned hogs could foul the river. They've gotten Minnesotans to join their campaign and send letters to Cargill, asking the commodities giant to relocate the operation.

Stewart, who was in the Twin Cities recently to encourage action, says people here should care about where a Minnesota company is operating.

"There are plenty of other places in Arkansas which would probably welcome the facility," Stewart said. "You know the people of Mt. Judea, about all they have, really, is an abundance of clean water and beautiful scenery. We don't think that, since it's a national river, that Arkansans should have to fight this battle alone. We need to band together when our national treasures are threatened."

The message has resonated with members of Minnesota's chapter of the National Audubon Society. About 840 Minnesotans have sent letters to Cargill, said chapter director Matthew Anderson.

"We've got an agricultural heritage as a state so we understand things like runoff and pollution and the impact it can have, and we know that we can do better," he said. "We value the companies that we have the most pride in, like Cargill, and we want them to continue to live up to the pride we invest in them."

So far, Cargill officials say they have no plans to move. The farm is owned by three local families, and Cargill owns the animals, said spokesman Mike Martin.

"The farm families have done nothing wrong," he said. "The concern is about a what-if scenario that may never take place, and the engineering on this farm goes well beyond anything that's required for environmental safeguards either by the federal government or the state of Arkansas."

Martin says Cargill is listening to the concerns and has reached out to opponents to see if there's a way to add more safeguards at the farm to quell their fears.

The controversy has been big news in Arkansas, not just because the farm is near a nationally-designated river. It's also the first hog farm in the state to require a new permit Arkansas officials adopted for large feedlots known as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit.

After the farm began operating, opponents pushed policy makers to prevent more feedlots of its size from being constructed within the Buffalo River watershed, said Ryan McGeeney, who covers northwest Arkansas for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

There's now a moratorium, and the governor appointed a study group to monitor water quality, but McGeeny says state officials aren't talking about moving the existing farm.

"There's no one in official capacity saying that that's likely to happen or that that is even being considered."

At the center of the controversy is the geology in the region the hog farm calls home. It's karst, which is characterized by features like sinkholes and places where water can seep quickly through porous limestone. If that water is polluted, it can impact groundwater and surface water more easily than other places.

That's an issue that should be familiar to Minnesotans, because karst also covers much of southeastern Minnesota, where hog and dairy farms are common. Back in 2000, local opponents of a proposed large dairy farm in Fillmore County challenged the project, and it was built elsewhere.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the farm is the first in Arkansas to require a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit for large feedlots but is not the largest hog farm of its kind in the state.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/14/cargill-arkansas-farm-operations

Twin Cities environmentalists join fight over Cargill's Arkansas hog operations

Elizabeth Dunbar Elizabeth Dunbar · St. Paul, Minn. · Aug 15, 2014

 
Minnesota-based Cargill has been taking heat from conservationists, including some in Minnesota, for one of its contract hog farms in Arkansas.

Some of the anger over the facility comes from the fact that it's located on a tributary just six miles from the Buffalo River, an area they gets special protection from the National Park Service, much like the St. Croix on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

Jack Stewart says the Buffalo River, with its clear water surrounded by spectacular cliffs, is the Arkansas version of the Boundary Waters.

"It's our treasure," he said. "It belongs to all the people of the country."

Stewart, vice president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance in Arkansas, has rallied other activists concerned that manure runoff from Cargill-owned hogs could foul the river. They've gotten Minnesotans to join their campaign and send letters to Cargill, asking the commodities giant to relocate the operation.

Stewart, who was in the Twin Cities recently to encourage action, says people here should care about where a Minnesota company is operating.


Jason Henson, president and co-owner of C&H Hog Farms in Mt. Judea, addresses members of the press Monday during a tour of the farming facility on May 6, 2013. Ryan McGeeney/NWA Media
"There are plenty of other places in Arkansas which would probably welcome the facility," Stewart said. "You know the people of Mt. Judea, about all they have, really, is an abundance of clean water and beautiful scenery. We don't think that, since it's a national river, that Arkansans should have to fight this battle alone. We need to band together when our national treasures are threatened."

The message has resonated with members of Minnesota's chapter of the National Audubon Society. About 840 Minnesotans have sent letters to Cargill, said chapter director Matthew Anderson.

"We've got an agricultural heritage as a state so we understand things like runoff and pollution and the impact it can have, and we know that we can do better," he said. "We value the companies that we have the most pride in, like Cargill, and we want them to continue to live up to the pride we invest in them."

So far, Cargill officials say they have no plans to move. The farm is owned by three local families, and Cargill owns the animals, said spokesman Mike Martin.

"The farm families have done nothing wrong," he said. "The concern is about a what-if scenario that may never take place, and the engineering on this farm goes well beyond anything that's required for environmental safeguards either by the federal government or the state of Arkansas."

Martin says Cargill is listening to the concerns and has reached out to opponents to see if there's a way to add more safeguards at the farm to quell their fears.


C&H Hog Farms, the controversial large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operation, seen in the foreground on June 3, 2014, sits less than a mile from the Mt. Judea School District, shown at top. Ryan McGeeney/NWA Media
The controversy has been big news in Arkansas, not just because the farm is near a nationally-designated river. It's also the first hog farm in the state to require a new permit Arkansas officials adopted for large feedlots known as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit.

After the farm began operating, opponents pushed policy makers to prevent more feedlots of its size from being constructed within the Buffalo River watershed, said Ryan McGeeney, who covers northwest Arkansas for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

There's now a moratorium, and the governor appointed a study group to monitor water quality, but McGeeny says state officials aren't talking about moving the existing farm.

"There's no one in official capacity saying that that's likely to happen or that that is even being considered."

At the center of the controversy is the geology in the region the hog farm calls home. It's karst, which is characterized by features like sinkholes and places where water can seep quickly through porous limestone. If that water is polluted, it can impact groundwater and surface water more easily than other places.

That's an issue that should be familiar to Minnesotans, because karst also covers much of southeastern Minnesota, where hog and dairy farms are common. Back in 2000, local opponents of a proposed large dairy farm in Fillmore County challenged the project, and it was built elsewhere.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the farm is the first in Arkansas to require a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit for large feedlots but is not the largest hog farm of its kind in the state.

Tale of two letters

On the Buffalo

Mike Masterson (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Tue, Aug 12, 2014)


For valued readers who mistakenly believe all public reactions to my columns about the state’s unbelievable decision to permit a hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed are roses and light, I invite you to meet the e-mailer named “Salty Dog.”
The dog showed up the other day obviously to lead me back on the proper path in my intractable zeal in advocating for the purity of our precious stream.
“You can write all you want,” Salty admonished. “But like the people have explained to you, your hardheadedness is not going to change the fact the permit was issued and the farm is in operation, like it or not … It’s time to move on to other news and use my dime for something more profitable!!
“Get something else straight, that is not your river,” the canine of brine continued. “You did not create it or have anything to do with the location and maybe there is a better use for it!! Thanks for getting out of the rut you are in.”
Ouchy! Salty verbiage. But now you can appreciate the functioning level of those who argue for me to leave well enough alone whenever our state bureaucrats issue dictates.
While I’m on letters, Duane Woltjen, a high-functioning board member of the state’s respected Ozark Society, wrote one of his own to Cargill’s guru of public relations, basically pleading with the multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation to remove this factory it sponsors at Mount Judea from the precious Buffalo watershed as soon as possible and clean up the millions of gallons of waste that remain in its two lagoons.
He tells Mike Martin he’d waited until some “irrefutable facts are on the table concerning the presence of the C&H hog concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on Big Creek.”
Woltjen, also a board member of the Ozark Regional Land Trust and co-founder of Fayetteville’s Natural Heritage Association, said he’s examined the 264 pages of the original application asking our state’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to place the factory in this wrongheaded location. He’s also studied geological maps where Woltjen says, “the fact this [factory] is built and spreading manure on karst directly connected to the Buffalo River is clearly revealed. Karst (fractured limestone) conditions here have been known for many decades.”
He tells Martin that respected hydrologist and karst expert Dr. Van Brahana and his team of volunteers recently proved what a state-sponsored research team from the University of Arkansas still hasn’t, and without using ground-penetrating radar, test wells, USGA gauging stations, runoff weirs, etc. Brahana has shown how groundwater flows “from the Big Creek’s main stem basin over three miles under the surface hills and terrain to appear in the Left Fork. I don’t need any more proof of the fact that nutrients spread on the former end up in the latter and will unavoidably eventually appear in the Buffalo.”
“I read the engineering design as reported in the ADEQ application and was amazed to see ADEQ approved holding ponds that by design can leak as much as 5,000 gallons per day per acre of pond,” his letter continued. “Now, in view of Dr. Brahana’s dye-test mentioned above, I leave it to you to analyze where that leakage will go. A little calculation reveals 5,000 gallons a day from these ponds will lower the fluid level in the pond just a little less than 3/16 of an inch.” C&H is required to report leakage, which they have no realistic way to detect, he adds.
Woltjen then tells Martin that C&H’s management of the nutrient application (sprayed hog manure) is based on phosphorus levels found in the uppermost four inches of soil, and grasses won’t always absorb all the phosphorous, leaving the pollutant to seep into groundwater.
“It is not rocket science to see that the application of these nutrients in the slightest excess of plant absorption is the culprit in the nutrient-poisoned wells of American farmland, and likewise it is obvious who is most culpable,” he writes.
Woltjen sharpens his point, saying Cargill and the family that runs C&H supposedly successfully jumped through all the state and federal administrative and regulatory hoops in creating this factory in this worst possible location to nurture up to 6,500 swine. However, not all the crucial hoops were raised in that process, he says, which “will be proven in court.”
He concedes that everyone involved has a right to make a living. “Unfortunately, the handling of manure for virtually all CAFOs has contaminated rivers, lakes and groundwater wherever it has been tried. No person or corporation had a right to do that … .
“Cargill has a unique opportunity here to become a corporate hero instead of a corporate villain,” Woltjen tells Martin. “Please remove C&H from the Buffalo National River watershed?”
If you ask me (ol’ Salty Dog probably is gagging at this point), it’s only a matter of time before contamination tracked to hog waste winds up in the country’s first national river and yet again, the many thousands who value this treasure will be asking why Cargill didn’t act back when knowledgeable people were pleading with it to do the right thing.
 
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email
him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read
his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Ecologist steps up Big Creek study
Focus on water quality near hog farm
RYAN MCGEENEY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE



As Faron Usrey wades into the Buffalo National River at its confluence with Big Creek, armed with a small, plastic sample jar and a tiny sealable bag, he knows he’s not going to be able to capture everything he’s looking for.

Usrey, an aquatic ecologist with the Buffalo National River, has been collecting data in this way for more than 18 years. He employs a number of tools undefined some designed to help calculate the volume of water flowing through a stream, and others that detect dissolved oxygen, electrolytes and other components.

Much of the job comes down to getting waist-deep in the river, which in itself can sometimes be a limiting factor.

“Most of the spring, I haven’t been able to get a discharge measurement here [at Big Creek], because it’s above my waist undefined it’s unsafe,” Usrey said. “If we can’t get it by wading, we don’t get it at all.”

But establishing a thorough characterization of river conditions near Big Creek has become a focus point, not only for Usrey, but for park administrators and much of the state’s scientific environmental community at large.

In 2012, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued an operational permit to C&H Hog Farms, a large-scale, concentrated animal-feeding operation near Big Creek, about 6 miles upstream from its confluence with the Buffalo National River.

In 2013, as public concern over the possibility of high concentrations of nutrients and bacteria associated with hog manure ending up in the river grew, Gov. Mike Beebe commissioned a research team from the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture to establish soil- and water-quality monitoring stations in the surrounding area.

While UA’s Big Creek Research Team has focused on the creek and the land immediately surrounding C&H Hog Farms, Usrey has been focused on changes in the Buffalo National River itself, beginning with its confluence with Big Creek and continuing downstream.

Although national park staff members have gathered data on certain water-quality characteristics for more than 30 years, refocused efforts on establishing “base line” data for levels of dissolved oxygen and E. coli in the river downstream from Big Creek didn’t begin until March 2013. Dissolved oxygen is necessary for supporting fish and smaller aquatic life, and can be suppressed when large amounts of phosphorus enter a water body. E. coli is a bacteria commonly associated with animal waste.

“Dissolved oxygen seems to be driving everything,” Usrey said. He said dissolved oxygen is typically a good indicator of the overall levels of nutrients and other components in a water body. If the dissolved oxygen drops below 5 parts per million for more than eight consecutive hours in a section of river, it can drive changes in fish and invertebrates, he said.

“If it does that long enough, it kills things, or the fish just leave,” Usrey said.

During the annual conference of the Arkansas Water Resources Center in July, Usrey said there had not been enough time to capture a true “pre-farm” characterization of the river before operators began spreading hog manure on area grasslands. Usrey said that ideally, researchers would have two to three years worth of data before the farm went into operation.

Data from Usrey and the Big Creek Research Team have shown repeated spikes in E. coli in confluence waters after big rains, and dissolved oxygen levels have occasionally dipped, although the river has maintained healthy levels overall.

In May 2013, Usrey produced an assessment of E. coli in the Buffalo National River from 2009-12 for the National Park Service. In the report’s abstract, Usrey wrote that although the vast majority of the 456 samples collected during the fouryear reporting period were well below established limits for E. coli, tributaries to the river “posed a higher risk for contracting water-borne illness during recreational activities.”

Usrey said his concerns regarding the effect of C&H Hog Farms on the river aren’t centered on an imagined catastrophic accident, but on the gradual accumulation of pollutants in Big Creek that will then elevate the level of

E. coli in the Buffalo National River every time there is a big rain.

Usrey said he hopes to expand the park’s water monitoring and analysis capabilities to match those of the U.S. Geologic Survey, which currently maintains five monitoring stations along the Buffalo National River. He said that would give a more complete portrait of the river’s health without relying on individuals’ abilities to wade into the river to collect flow samples.

Usrey also said he would like to establish a certified laboratory that would meet U.S. Geologic Survey standards for quality assurance. “That way, if we go to court, the data would stand on its own,” Usrey said.

Environmental Quality Department spokesman Katherine Benenati said the park already shares its data with the Environmental Quality Department, as required under Regulation 2, the rule that governs the administration of the federal Clean Water Act in Arkansas.

Usrey said the park has been steadily working to hire additional staff members to conduct water quality monitoring, but repeated budget cuts to the National Park System have slowed the process. Caven Clark, chief of resources and education at the Buffalo National River, said the park has one new fulltime researcher who will join Usrey’s office in September.

Reed Green, a biologist with the U.S. Geologic Survey in Little Rock, is developing a “work plan” for the long-term measurement of dissolved oxygen throughout the Buffalo National River. After an internal review and approval process, Green said he expects to deliver the document to Usrey by Oct. 1.

Of the 20 tributaries to the Buffalo National River that Usrey regularly surveys, three are currently on the Environmental Quality Department’s list of impaired streams. Two of the streams

undefined Bear Creek, near Gilbert, and Big Creek Lower, which is in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness and is not connected to the Big Creek flowing near Mount Judea undefined are considered impaired because of low levels of dissolved oxygen.

Big Creek Lower “has got a big wilderness component to it, so it’s a big mystery, we want to look into it,” Usrey said. “That’s what the dissolved oxygen program with USGS is going to help us do, is understand how various land uses affect dissolved oxygen.”

“That’s why we’re trying to get into dissolved oxygen in a really quality way,” Usrey said. “We’re going to have to visit all of our tributaries. We have to also figure out, what’s natural ?”



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RYAN McGEENEY Faron Usrey, an aquatic ecologist with the Buffalo National River, collects water quality samples from the river at its confluence with Big Creek, a major tributary to the river. Although park staff have collected water quality data for more than 30 years, efforts to monitor levels of dissolved oxygen and E. coli in the river intensified after a large-scale concentrated animal feeding operation was built in nearby Mount Judea.

On the Buffalo
Candidates speak
 
By Mike Masterson
 
You may find it as unsurprising as I do to learn what both gubernatorial candidates have to say (and not) about our state wrongheadedly permitting that controversial hog factory at Mount Judea in our state's precious Buffalo National River watershed.

GOP candidate Asa Hutchinson and the Democrats' Mike Ross believe the Department of Environmental Quality (cough) properly issued this permit, which enabled this manure-laden factory of up to 6,500 swine to set up shop six miles upstream from the river. They also say the factory owners and their sponsor (multinational food giant Cargill Inc.) jumped through all the hoops necessary to acquire the permit.

Apparently there's nothing either candidate could, or would, do to either close or move this potential polluter should he become the person in charge of what has become the politicized agency responsible for protecting our natural environment. Too late, they say.

It doesn't matter that the sufficiency of the state's entire process to approve this factory has repeatedly been called into question. This includes the department's own director, Teresa Marks, conceding that she didn't know her agency had issued the permit until after the fact. Neither did staff at the local office in Jasper. That's still jaw-dropping unbelievable each time I write it.

Those who've followed the travesty don't need me to repeat the long list of genuine concerns here. The bottom line is that water and pollution always flow downhill. In this case, C&H Hog Farms regularly sprays endless gallons of raw hog waste onto fields around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo, and atop a fractured karst subsurface that rapidly transports whatever is applied to it.

Back to what the gubernatorial candidates have to say about what they'd do should they become the person who appoints the Environmental Quality director and is therefore ultimately accountable for that that agency does and fails to do.

Here's what Hutchinson told me: "The Buffalo National River must be protected and I will take any necessary steps to protect its water quality and environmental health. In the case of the farmer in Newton County, the farmer has done nothing wrong and has complied with all the permitting requirements of the state.

"I support continued monitoring of the watershed and also more effective notification requirements on future applications to assure that all interested parties are notified and have adequate opportunity to express any concerns. I grew up drinking fresh water from the Spavinaw Creek on our farm, so I am committed to protecting the quality of our water sources and the Buffalo River in particular. Many Arkansans depend on the tourism generated by our state's natural beauty and the Buffalo River is a major part of that economic engine."

Ross sent a statement saying he, too, opposes additional hog farms in or near the Buffalo River watershed. "But this farmer followed the rules that exist now and did everything right." Congressman Hutchinson has said he opposes putting a hog farm anywhere in Arkansas. Ross said he supports the right of people to have a hog farm "if they receive the proper permits and do not harm the environment." Yet Ross also called the permitting process leading to the current hog farm flawed, believing that more public input is needed throughout the process.

Now I'm not a candidate for governor, nor would I ever become one. But I do believe if I were the governor of a state proudly boasting the country's first national river, I'd have no problem firing the director who said she didn't know her own agency had permitted the factory. Then I'd politely ask Cargill's CEO to make the factory owners financially whole and to transfer the thousands of hogs they are raising for Cargill to a suitable location.

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for another state entity to monitor the water quality around this factory that the state permitted strikes me as a preposterous waste. It also smacks of needlessly bending way over way backwards for years to make sure that what the state enabled isn't harming the river. This conflict has never been about "farming," but the untenable location of a hog factory.

It's got to be exhausting for any governor to try to do the right thing while appeasing obvious special-interest political contributors and their lobbyists who oddly seem to enjoy having this factory in such a threatening location.

As a footnote, it's been reported that the Gov. Mike Beebe-appointed Ms. Marks plans to retire from her exalted position at the end of September.

If her pending departure is true, I can only say how fortunate for her that she'd curried enough favor from Beebe to have hung on this long after allowing such a needless situation to ever develop in our national river watershed. Perhaps her replacement will be far more diligent in protecting what rare natural treasures we have in our relatively poor state.

Yet somehow I can't help believing he or she also will be snared in the political cobwebs that too often prevent truth and doing the obvious right thing from ever escaping into reality.

------------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 08/03/2014

Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK   Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks will retire on Sept. 30, the agency said Wednesday.

Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Marks in 2007 to head the state environmental regulatory agency, which has about 400 employees.

“I have been so fortunate and I will always be grateful to Governor Beebe for allowing me this opportunity,” Marks stated in an ADEQ news release. “I’ve worked with a wonderful and dedicated staff that strives each and every day to protect the environment and make Arkansas a better place to live and work.”

Marks said she looks forward to traveling with her husband this fall before deciding on her next career step.

“Whether working to protect our environment or our consumers, Teresa has spent her career providing dedicated service to Arkansas,” Beebe said. “She was one of the first appointments I made in my administration, and she will leave a team in charge at ADEQ that is well prepared to continue her fair and measured approach to the job.”

Ryan Benefield, ADEQ deputy director, will serve as interim director for the remainder of Beebe’s term, the agency said. Term limits prohibited Beebe from seeking a third term, and he will leave office in January.

ADEQ said Tammera Harrelson, currently chief of its legal division, will become interim deputy director.

Before being appointed ADEQ director, Marks served in the attorney general’s office as Public Protection Department deputy attorney general, where she supervised lawyers and support staff in representing the interests of consumers and state agencies in consumer protection, antitrust, utilities and environmental matters.

A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Monticello, Marks also worked as a high school teacher and as a deputy prosecuting attorney with the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office. She briefly worked as a lawyer in private practice before joining the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law faculty in 1990.

- See more at: http://arkansasnews.com/news/arkansas/adeq-director-retire#sthash.6fCi3Inv.dpuf

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/07/22/governor-candidates-talk-about-hog-farms-in-northwest-arkansas

Governor candidates talk about hog farms in Northwest Arkansas

Posted By Max Brantley on Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:26 PM

The major party candidates for governor have had one joint appearance today and have another scheduled. No debate debates for Republican Asa Hutchinson and Democrat Mike Ross.

Here's a summary of the first appearance from KNWA. I'd like to see more detail on this snippet:

On the issue of large scale hog farms, Ross voiced support of the need for this type of farm in Arkansas and claimed Hutchinson has said there's no need for it.

I think it's more accurate to say that Hutchinson has straddled this issue. He's criticized the permitting process for the hog feeder operation in the Buffalo River watershed but has stopped far short of opposing the specific farm or ones like it. Which Ross himself has more or less said himself.

It wouldn't do, I guess, for either candidate (and the desire by each to please the farm lobby) to say that there are some special places in this state undefined such as the porous limestone substrata of the Buffalo River watershed undefined unsuitable for mass production of pig manure.

Ross continued his advocacy for private option health insurance, Hutchinson continued to dodge.

UPDATE: The Ross campaign explains more fully.

Asa’s Exact Remarks from APA Debate:

“Quite frankly, I’m not sure we need large-scale hog operations in the state."

Mike Ross' position:

My opponent is out there running commercials about how much he supports agriculture. But, just two weeks ago, he said our state didn’t need large hog operations in Arkansas. Well, Congressman Hutchinson, I don’t think it’s the governor’s role to be picking winners and losers in agriculture here in Arkansas. What will you oppose next? Big poultry farms? Large cattle ranches?

Every Arkansan has a right to farm responsibly. As governor, I won’t pick winners and losers – I’ll protect the rights of all Arkansans to farm responsibly and make a living for their families and provide food and fiber to our state and nation.

Mike Ross' remarks on hog farm from APA Debate:

We’ve got to recognize the Buffalo River is America’s first national river. We also have to recognize what it means to tourism in this state – and tourism is our state’s second largest industry. The process in which the permit was approved was a mistake. There should have been more input from the public. There should have been more public hearings. The people that live in that area who care deeply about the Buffalo River should have had more opportunities to be heard during that permitting process. I believe the permitting process, as a result of this, needs to be changed.

Having said that, the State of Arkansas approved the permit. The hog farmer hasn’t done anything wrong. He applied for a permit, and he received a permit. Governor Beebe is investing additional revenue in making sure testing is done to ensure there is no damage done to the environment as it relates to the Buffalo River from the hog farm. I will continue that testing as governor, and should that hog farm at any point in the future cause harm to the Buffalo National River or watershed, we will take appropriate actions at the time. So, we’re going to change the process and continue to monitor the existing farm there.

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/jul/22/vitamins-and-groundwater-20140722/

Dr. John Van Brahana, the widely respected professor emeritus and specialist in hydrology from the University of Arkansas, must be taking mega-vitamins.

How else to explain the energy level of this man who for almost a year has volunteered his time and resources, along with a team of volunteers, to monitor the water quality at Mount Judea in the Buffalo National River watershed?

His work matters more than we can realize since C&H Hog Farms (sponsored courtesy of Cargill Inc.) opened the state's first concentrated animal feeding operation nurturing up to 6,500 swine under the new General Permit. The state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) was directly responsible for quietly issuing the permit to operate in such an incredibly sensitive environment.

The agency's wrongheaded action since triggered a continuing firestorm of public controversy by multitudes who want to protect the river.

So many hogs amount to a lot of animal waste daily that is siphoned into two open lagoons, then routinely sprayed onto fields around the factory, including several along Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo flowing just six miles downstream.

I've written about Brahana and his work for months now.

Most recently he and his group have been monitoring the flow of sub-surface groundwater beneath the factory's acres and around adjacent Big Creek by tracing the flow of a special dye injected into the ground. The fields beneath the factory, as with most of the the ground in the Ozarks, are underlain by fractured limestone called karst. This kind of rock creates gaps, voids and caves that can easily carry water from the surface into surrounding streams and on to the country's first national river.

I asked Brahana what's been happening lately with his efforts.

"Briefly, our dye tracing has been yielding valuable information," he said. "One trace injected into a shallow-dug well in the middle of three spreading fields came out as expected at four springs that surround the property. But the water also traveled 3.5 miles northwest, beneath high ground, to seven springs that lie in the next drainage basin to the north (Left Fork of Big Creek). Then the flow continued to transfer the injected dye for more than three weeks."

The soft-spoken Brahana explained that downstream from these seven springs algae growth is flourishing, especially compared to last year.

"We don't know the exact pathway the groundwater is taking," he said, "only that we injected dye south of the factory farm, and we found irrefutable evidence that some of that dye is coming out north and west of the farm in another surface drainage basin that flows into Big Creek."

From there, the injected dye flows at a rapid rate toward the Buffalo National River. "The flow velocity is fast, typical of karst groundwaters," he said. "Our conservative estimate of the groundwater velocity is from 1,500 to more than 2,500 feet per day. It may be as fast as several miles per day, which means there would not be much time to react should contamination get into the groundwater."

Brahana's no stranger to politics in Arkansas and the role it played in our state allowing this mega waste-producing factory in the national river's watershed, of all places.

He expressed his feelings this way: "Please encourage your readers to contact their representatives and encourage them to vote for the upcoming proposed changes to regulations, rule-making that replaces the General Permit, a flawed document that ignores key science that would protect our precious water resources, " he said.

Lots of rumors appear to be running rampant on this matter, he added, but right now facts are hard to come by.

At least I have faith that objective facts gathered from the science of water quality (rather than the political maneuverings that obviously got this factory permitted) always will be Brahana's foremost goal.

------------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 07/22/2014

Report out on E. coli near farm

RYAN MCGEENEY
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE



The environmental research team assigned by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture to monitor nutrient and bacteria levels surrounding a controversial Newton County hog farm has released its third quarterly report.
The Big Creek Research Team, headed by Andrew Sharpley, and professor of soils and water quality at UA, was formed last year in reaction to continued public outcry over the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s decision to issue an operational permit to C&H Hog Farms, a large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operation in Mount Judea. The farm, which is permitted to house approximately 2,500 full-grown sows and as many as 4,000 piglets, abuts Big Creek about 6 miles upstream from its confluence with the Buffalo National River.
Researchers with the team began gathering weekly water samples from four points along Big Creek last September. The sampling points are upstream and downstream of C&H Hog Farms’ production facility and the surrounding grasslands upon which the farm owners are permitted to spread the animal waste generated by their hogs.
Although the quarterly report notes generally stable levels of contaminants in the creek, levels of E.coli were shown to spike significantly after storms in mid-May, just as they had in November. According to the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission’s Regulation 2, which governs state water quality standards, between May 1 and Sept. 30, levels of E. coli should not exceed 400 colonies per 100 milliliters of water in areas used for swimming, canoeing or other activities where individuals come into direct contact with the water.
Samples taken May 13 show E. coli levels as high as about 920 colonies of E. coli upstream from thefarm, and as high as about 1,553 downstream from the farm. By the next collection date, May 19, the levels had again dropped to well below the state limitations, ranging from about 27 colonies to about 205 colonies.
Van Brahana, a retired UA professor of hydrology, who has been conducting his own water quality sampling in Big Creek and the Buffalo National River, said that as more manure is applied to the grassland undefined much of which is already saturated with phosphorus and other nutrients from decades of fertilizer application undefined instances of nutrient and bacterial runoff into area waters will continue with each rain.
“If you overload a field, then many of those additional components are going to be moved downstream,”Brahana said. “If they get into low-velocity flows or reservoirs, those can create some significant problems with oxygen.”
Nutrients such as phosphorus can lower the levels of dissolved oxygen in water, promoting algae growth, and suffocating fish and other aquatic wildlife.
In an email Friday, Sharpley said that in areas where phosphorus content is already high, manure will be applied at a reduced rate, if at all.
“The term ‘very high’ is qualitative and there is a limit of soil phosphorus, which when exceeded will not allow any application of [phosphorus], be it as hog slurry, poultry litter, or commercial fertilizer,” Sharpley said. “That threshold or limiting soil phosphorus varies from field to field based on such relevant site factors as field slope, proximity to the stream, erodibility, and potential for runoff to occur.”
Sharpley and his team are also considering the promotion of “alternative manure management strategies,” including treating the animal waste with low-cost, locally available materials that will “render the phosphorus in the manure less soluble or environmentally less reactive either before it reaches the lagoon or in the lagoon itself,” Sharpley said.
The report also outlines the use of ground-penetrating radar on one of the 17 grassland fields surrounding the farm. Because most of Newton County has a karst geology, where porous limestone underlays typically less than a yard of soil, critics of the farm have voiced concern that nutrients may eventually percolate through the soil, and eventually into the groundwater, especially if there are large fissures in the karst near the farm.
Sharpley described the findings of the radar as being “useful,” but “not spectacular” during a presentation Wednesday at the Arkansas Water Resources Center’s annual water conference in Fayetteville. The results discussed in the study described typical karst formations with no remarkable abnormalities.
The report concludes with a checklist of future plans for the research team, including the installation of automated water sampling equipment in Big Creek, which will be useful in collecting real-time data during storms. The report says the team will also install a “subsurface flow collector trench” near thefarm’s outdoor lagoons, where animal waste from the two large barns is stored until it is either spread as manure or transported off-site.
The trench, which has already been dug down-slope of the lagoons, will help measure whether nutrients and bacteria are being washed onto the nearby grounds from the lagoons during rains, or are leaking into the ground after permeating the lagoons’ clay liners.

FAYETTEVILLE -- On the second day of a conference that has centered on "wicked problems" across the state, water quality experts spent Wednesday morning discussing the relatively recent addition of a controversial hog farm within the Buffalo National River Watershed.
After an introduction from Brian Haggard, director of the Arkansas Water Resources Center and the center's annual conference, three experts spoke in turns about efforts to establish "baseline data" on existing levels of nutrients, bacteria and pathogens in the river near its confluence with Big Creek, a major tributary to the river. The data will be used to determine whether manure from C&H Hog Farms, a large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operation in Mount Judea, is finding its way into local surface or ground waters.

The farm is permitted to house about 2,500 full-grown sows, and as many as 4,000 piglets, at any one time. The waste from the animals is initially held in a pair of open-air lagoons, then either spread over about 630 acres of grasslands surrounding the facility or transported off site for sale. Several of the farm's fields abut Big Creek.

Faron Usrey, an aquatic ecologist with the Buffalo National River, spoke about challenges his research team face in trying to establish baseline data for levels of dissolved oxygen and the presence of E. coli in Big Creek, and its confluence with the Buffalo National River.

Usrey said that his research team began gathering water samples from several sites in March 2013, which was not given enough time prior to the farm's operation to accumulate enough data to establish "normal" amounts of either dissolved oxygen or E. coli bacteria in the area. According to inspection reports from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, operators at C&H Hog Farms began spreading manure on some fields in December 2013.

Usrey said that levels of dissolved oxygen, which are essential to many forms of aquatic life, including fish and plankton, were found to be very low in Big Creek during the summer of 2013, but have risen somewhat this year.

"In terms of dissolved oxygen, there's definitely something stressed in Big Creek," Usrey said. "We need two or three good years of differing hydrologies, to come up with a good feel for what was normal pre-CAFO. We just didn't quite get that."

Van Brahana, a retired professor of hydrology at the University of Arkansas and a vocal critic of the Environmental Quality Department's decision to grant an operational permit to C&H Hog Farms in the first place, spoke about his own efforts to partially map the karst terrain of the area surrounding the farm.

Most of the Buffalo National River watershed sits on limestone karst, a permeable and porous rock through which groundwater flows in often unpredictable ways. Because soil in the area tends to be only about one meter deep, critics of the farm, including Brahana, have voiced concern that if either of the operation's waste lagoons should rupture, massive amounts of raw manure could be introduced into the ground water very quickly. Despite the Environmental Quality Department having no record of any waste lagoon failing in such a manner in Arkansas, Brahana doesn't dismiss the danger posed by such a scenario.

In 2013, Brahana and a team of volunteers began gathering water samples throughout the area to test for nutrients and pathogens, and also began conducting dye trace studies, in which non-toxic dye is placed into ground water at a specified site, and recorded by radiological monitors when it resurfaces.

Brahana said two of the three dye traces his team has conducted showed that ground water in the area moves extremely fast; the third batch of dye never resurfaced.

"It went to Marti Gras, for all I know," Brahana said.

Andrew Sharpley, a professor of soils and water quality at the University of Arkansas, updated those in attendance on the Big Creek Research Team's efforts to both assess current levels of nutrients and bacteria in soil and water surrounding the farm, and to begin devising ways to treat the farm's manure to make it inert in the event of a run-off or leakage event.

"We know there are possibilities, we know they work from research, but none of them have worked on a farm before, because they're just too expensive," Sharpley said.

Sharpley said that the focus of both aspects of his research was to head off any damage to the Buffalo National River and other water bodies in the area.

"Once those nutrients get into the creek, we've got a problem," Sharpley said. "So one of the things we really wanted to focus on is those land application fields, and if there is a build-up [of nutrients and bacteria], to identify that before it actually gets to the creek."

"It's fine and well to measure it in the stream, but, as the saying goes, this horse has already gone out the barn by then," Sharpley said.

NW News on 07/17/2014