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  • 08 Jun 2014 9:46 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Watershed moment: Hog farm raises fresh controversy along Buffalo River in Arkansas

    Accompanying photos (Click "Buffalo River" gallery)

    By Michael Kelley, Special to The Commercial Appeal
    Sunday, June 8, 2014

    BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER, Ark.   A lot of spectacular things can happen on the Buffalo River or one of the gravel bars that lie in the shadows of its magnificent bluffs undefined great blue herons rising heavily from the riverbank, otters playfully splashing near shore, black bears ambling to the water’s edge.

    What one doesn’t expect on America’s first national river is a massive algae bloom or fish kill.
    That’s among the fears haunting devotees of the river if nothing is done about a huge hog farm that has been in operation for about a year at the edge of the little town of Mount Judea, nestled 260 miles west of Memphis in an area of lush green valleys, state highways that wind like copperheads and patches of pasture carved out of heavily forested hillsides.
    C&H Hog Farm sits near Big Creek, a major tributary that empties into the Buffalo near the Carver launch site just six miles downstream.

    Producing swine for the agricultural products giant Cargill Inc., C&H is at the center of a controversy reminiscent of the epic battle of the 1960s that was won by conservationists, saving the Buffalo from being dammed like many other Ozarks streams and giving a 135-mile stretch national park status.

    The farm’s permit allows it to feed up to 6,500 pigs undefined 2,500 sows and 4,000 piglets undefined producing up to 2 million gallons of waste per year undefined material that is stored in clay-lined lagoons and sprayed on neighboring fields as fertilizer.
    In terms of waste production, that’s equivalent to a city of 30,000 people on 630 acres of land, according to University of Arkansas professor emeritus and hydrogeologist Van Brahana.
    One of the issues raised by farm opponents undefined a coalition of the National Parks Conservation Association, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Ozark Society and Arkansas Canoe Club undefined is that it lies 841 feet from the border of Mount Judea’s K-12 school property, separated from it by one of several fields that are being fertilized. The juxtaposition raises concerns about how ammonia released by animal waste will affect students’ health.
    Opponents of the farm also worry about the environmental vulnerability of the area’s karst topography, a honeycomb-like, limestone structure with waterways that can run along the surface, disappear and then rise again, eventually making their way into major streams.
    The Buffalo attracts more than a million visitors and pumps an estimated $40 million a year into the local economy. It could be devastated, critics of the farm say, by excessive nutrients and pathogens associated with animal waste, including E. coli.

    Working with a group of 12 volunteers on a $6,000 budget provided by private groups and concerned citizens, Brahana has been testing water quality in and around Big Creek for almost a year.

    Meeting with reporters at the riverside town of Gilbert last week, during a tour organized by the National Parks Conservation Association, Brahana said samples had been taken from 40 sites to measure bacteria, phosphorus and other elements that would have an impact on the growth of algae and public health.

    “Those data showed that the surface of the area is not badly contaminated, but it’s near the limit of how much it can sustainably accommodate,” he said.
    Brahana said nontoxic dye dropped into a shallow, hand-dug well directly across a road from C&H and into a field surrounded on three sides by fields where hog manure is being sprayed was spreading quickly.

    Andrew Sharpley, a professor in the University of Arkansas Department of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences, maintains a neutral stance as the head of a water-quality study financed by state government undefined $350,000 has been allocated so far undefined but concedes that “karst tends to be leaky, so there are risks for nutrient movement fairly quickly.”
    However, “I think everybody on both sides of the fence would agree that we’re not going to find out if there is an impact of this farm on the creek within a year of operation,” he said, suggesting that at least five years are needed “to get a realistic assessment of what’s going to happen long term.”

    “If there is an issue, we want to address that in the field and not measure it downstream of the farm,” Sharpley said. “We want to be proactive in the way we do it. Hopefully we’ll be supported so that we can do this for a long time.”

    River advocates also are alarmed by what they describe as inadequate public notice preceding the farm’s establishment under new state regulations permitting the operation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) such as C&H.
    The process began in 2011 when Arkansas adopted a general statewide permit for CAFOs that required applicants to obtain a permit to operate by filing a notice of intent with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and developing a “nutrient management plan,” or a plan for how to handle waste.

    The general statewide permit proposal was well advertised, but all that was required for a specific project such as C&H was a 30-day notification on the ADEQ website, which appeared in June 2012.

    The notification went unnoticed by potential stakeholders, including officials of the National Park Service, which administers the area officially designated as the Buffalo National River. No public comment was submitted. C&H was granted coverage under the general permit two months later.

    ADEQ has responded to criticism of the process by pointing out that the agency as well as the applicant followed all applicable rules. Changing those rules is among the goals of the farm’s opponents.

    In late April, they persuaded the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to issue a 180-day moratorium in the watershed on the issuance of permits for medium- and large-scale swine feeding operations.

    The commission has scheduled a public meeting on proposed changes in the permit issuance regulations for 6 p.m. June 17 at the Durand Conference Center in Harrison. It will accept public comment on proposed amendments until July 1.

    Meanwhile, considerable support for the farm has developed, particularly in the agricultural community. Many residents of Mount Judea are staunch supporters.
    “I can see it from my kitchen window, and I’m all for it undefined 100 percent,” said Charles Pridmore, who argues that when effluent is spread on the fields “the ground’s going to soak it right up.”

    Charles Campbell, whose 247-acre farm benefits from hog manure sprayed on his pastures, “never had a problem with it, at all,” he said. “I’d say it’s good for the community.”
    “People has always raised hogs and cattle all up and down the creek,” Campbell said. “The hogs would wallow in it. Do it all in the creek. The cattle the same way. Some of it goes on still with small operations. I don’t think it hurts (the environment) at all. Not one iota.”
    “I think when most people actually see where the farm is it makes sense,” said Karl Buth, serving customers at the Eagle Rock Café in Mount Judea. “The farm sits up on a hill, and the Buffalo River is 10 miles away.”

    Locals who are not pleased with the development include Jewell Fowler, 88, whose home is on Big Creek, less than a mile downstream from the farm.

    She was visiting nearby Sexton Cemetery just before Memorial Day to decorate some family graves when members of her group were overcome by a disgusting odor.

    Daughter Pam Fowler, a retired special education teacher and former Mount Judea resident who lives in nearby Jasper, wrote a brief narrative about the incident, describing a “horrendous and overwhelming stench of hog manure and, I guess, burning hogs undefined distinct singed hair smell and a nightmarish sound of shrieking hogs. A horror film couldn’t have had more unnerving sounds. I had to tie a scarf over my face to breathe as we worked quickly to escape back into our car.”

    C&H owners Jason Henson and his cousins, Philip and Richard Campbell (no relation to Charles), have been unavailable for comment.

    In a YouTube video produced by the Arkansas Farm Bureau, Henson, the company president, defended himself and his partners as “environmentalists at heart.”
    “That’s our heritage. That’s where I learned to swim, in Big Creek,” he said. “To say that I would do anything to contaminate it is ludicrous.”
    “Jason has not had a good experience with the media trying to tell his story,” said Farm Bureau environmental specialist Evan Teague. “ He’s a good guy, but this has not been a good experience for him, media wise.”

    The Campbell brothers operated C&C Hog Farm for about 15 years “with no controversy, no violations, no issues from the environmental community,” Teague said.
    Not only is C&H designed with features that will protect the environment, he said, but there also have been other smaller hog farms in the Buffalo watershed.
    “When this one started there were five or six ,” he said. “In the early 2000s and 1990, there may have been a dozen. These were all 300- to 500-sow units. This one is larger, but even with the addition of this farm itself, the actual number of hogs in the watershed is less than it was 15 or 20 years ago.

    “I think our viewpoint on this is that over the last 15 to 25 years agriculture, including hog farms, has coexisted with recreation in the Buffalo River watershed. It wasn’t until this single farm (was built) that the environmental community became concerned or engaged This is being made into something it’s not.”

    In numerous conversations with Cargill officials, Teague said, “Not once have I heard anyone from Cargill saying, ‘We’re expecting a significant ramp-up in production.’ It’s always been, ‘We’re just expecting to maintain the numbers we have.’ ”

    Much of the current activity by hog farm opponents seems to be aimed at increasing the pressure on Cargill to step in and alter its position.

    Company spokesman Mike Martin said Cargill is keeping in touch with stakeholders to assess the situation.“Nobody at Cargill wants to see anything adversely impact the Buffalo or any other waterway,” he said.

    Within the last 10 years, Cargill has actually reduced the number of pigs it buys from farms in the area, including the one operated by the Campbell brothers, Martin said.
    “We just don’t believe that the current configuration of the C&H Hog Farm poses the kind of risk that some people believe it does,” he added. “It is a difficult situation. We certainly understand all sides of it, and we’ll see where this goes going forward, but at this point in time no decisions have been made to make any changes.”

    C&H alone presents a clear and present danger to one of the Ozarks’ most precious commodities, however, said Robert Cross, a University of Arkansas chemical engineering professor emeritus who serves as president of The Ozark Society.

    The organization is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the legality of a federally backed loan to the farm operators, charging that the Farm Service Agency’s required environmental assessment was faulty.

    But even if the plaintiffs in that lawsuit are successful, some fear that the owners may come up with the funds, perhaps from Cargill, to keep the farm going.

    In the scenario that may be most feared by river advocates, violations of the federal Clean Water Act are discovered undefined but too late to prevent them from spoiling a precious environmental treasure.

    “It’s not a matter of when” the river will become contaminated, “but how quickly it will happen,” said Bob Allen, a retired Arkansas Tech University chemistry professor who serves as president of the Arkansas Canoe Club. “The phosphorus and nitrogen will build up, and there goes the fish. There’s a place for that farm, but it’s not here.”

    Contact freelance writer Michael Kelley, a former reporter and editorial writer for The Commercial Appeal, at mdk62083@yahoo.com.
  • 06 Jun 2014 2:01 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Click on the Friday, June 6 Ozarks At Large and fast-forward to about 18:30 for the segment.http://www.kuaf.org/ozarksatlarge
  • 06 Jun 2014 7:44 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    EDITORIAL: Let’s dig up some answers about the Buffalo
     
    Posted: Thursday, June 5, 2014 4:35 pm Harrison Daily Times
     
    On some rocks along the Buffalo River are the fossilized remains of some supersized snail-like creatures. There are some estimates that the remains are several million years old.

    Even three million years ago, life was a little slower on the Buffalo, slow enough for giant snails.

    That’s one of the big draws of the Buffalo undefined its slow, don’t-get-in-a-hurry nature. The Buffalo goes at its own pace, and like following a Florida retiree driving in the left hand lane, if you’re going to float, swim or fish on the Buffalo, you’re going to slow down.

    Since its creation 42 years ago as America’s first national river assured the Buffalo would retain its laid back nature, it has entertained millions who want to leave the hustle and bustle of everyday life for a few hours.

    While the Buffalo may be slow, other things need to be fast. One of those things is an answer to a controversy that has been shaping up on practically the river’s banks. That is the C&H Hog Farms located just outside Mt. Judea and not too far from the Buffalo River at the Carver bridge.

    The owners of the farm insist that they went through the proper channels to get a permit for the farm and that they are going above and beyond what is necessary to prevent pollution in the area. After all, they have said, they have lived on the Buffalo their entire lives and love it, too.
    Opponents of the farm insist that waste from 6,500 hogs will seep into the porous karst landscape and eventually wind up in the Buffalo. Who wants to swim or canoe in a river filled with hog feces or float down the river while getting a whiff of hog manure, they ask.
    We need to get a quick resolution to this question in order to save the jewel of Arkansas natural attractions.

    We don’t want to someday find the fossilized remains of the Arkansas tourist industry along the Buffalo.
  • 06 Jun 2014 6:49 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    http://epaper.ardemgaz.com/Repository/ml.asp?Locale=english-skin-custom&Mode=Gif&Ref=QXJEZW1vY3JhdE5XLzIwMTQvMDYvMDUjQXIwMDcwNA==

    Arkansas Democrat Gazette article by Ryan McGeeney about the June 3, 2014 media float trip and Mt Judea flyover. (Click 'Continuation' at upper right to see page 2)
  • 06 Jun 2014 6:17 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Conservationists float Buffalo agenda; Highlight hog farm dangers
     
    David Holsted/Staff Harrison Daily Times

    News media float the Buffalo National River near Gilbert on June 3. The float trip was part of a tour hosted by the National Parks Conservation Association in partnership with several local organizations and was meant to show the pristine beauty of the river. The groups are opposed to a large scale hog farm that has been opened in Newton County near the Buffalo.

    Posted: Friday, June 6, 2014 6:45 am
    By DAVID HOLSTED davidh@harrisondaily.com  

    GILBERT   As the flotilla of canoes and rafts made its way languidly down the Buffalo, its progress speeded up occasionally by gentle rapids, it was being watched by curious eyes.
    A lanky blue heron went high stepping along the rocky beach before taking wing. Landing downstream, it waited for the fleet to catch up before repeating the procedure.

    A bald eagle perched motionless in the boughs of a tree high above the river. As still as the image on a coin, the eagle seemingly took no interest in the canoes gliding past.
    Some turtles piggybacked on one another as they sunned themselves on a rock. The stack shortened when one smoothly glided into the water.

    The float trip on the Buffalo National River, between Grinder’s Ferry and Gilbert on June 3, was symbolic in a way. Just as the denizens of the river watched closely the activities around them, some of the people in the canoes and rafts were keeping a close eye on the river, and they didn’t always like what they saw.

    The float trip was part of a day-long media event hosted by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) in partnership with the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Canoe Club. Media representatives from as far away as Memphis, Tennessee, got a taste of life on the Buffalo.

    The host groups are very concerned about the future of the Buffalo after a 6,500 hog factory farm started operation last year. They contend that C&H Farms, located near Mt. Judea, was wrongfully permitted to build at its present location. The waste from the hogs, equivalent to a city of 30,000 people, will seep into the highly permeable karst topography and eventually end up in the Buffalo River.

    “This is a precious, precious entity,” Dr. John Van Brahana, a retired professor and hydrologist from the University of Arkansas, said of the Buffalo National River.
    Brahana was one of the key speakers at a post-float lunch held at the Gilbert Cafe. His studies have been a major arguing point for groups like the NPCA.

    The float trip along the pristine Buffalo, the country’s first national river, was balanced in the afternoon by a flyover of the C&H Hog Farms. Media were able to see first-hand the proximity of the farms to Mt. Judea schools, as well as Big Creek, which flows directly into the Buffalo.
    Emily Jones, Southeast Program Manager for the NPCA, said her organization has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration for their inadequate review and improper authorization of loan guarantee assistance to C&H Farms.

    Jones described her organization as America’s voice for national parks. The NPCA works to make sure that rules and regulations set up to protect the parks are observed.
    Jones went on to say that the NPCA had sent letters to Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality director Theresa Marks, expressing concerns that C&H had been placed in the wrong location.

    “Her response was ‘Thank you very much. It’s fine,’” Jones said. “We tried to go through dialogue with authorities. They didn’t want to, so we were forced to file a lawsuit.”

    Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said he lives in the next valley over from the hog farm. He owns some tourist cabins, and he has floated the Buffalo dozens of times. Describing his group as a boots-on-the-ground operation, Watkins said the alliance’s goals are to stop operation of C&H and to prevent any other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from starting up along the Buffalo.

    Watkins thought there was more opposition to the hog farms than some might imagine.
    “We’re finding people are reluctant to speak out,” he said.

    He continued by saying that he had real concerns about the effects of the farm on school children in Mt. Judea. He was also concerned about phosphorous from the hog waste ending up in Big Creek, in wells and eventually in the Buffalo River.

    “The important message we’ve gotten across,” Watkins said, “is we’re not going away.”
    Bob Allen is the Piney Creeks Chapter president of the Arkansas Canoe Club. He said he moved to Arkansas primarily because of the Buffalo River.

    “It’s not a matter of if the Buffalo River will be polluted, but when,” said Allen, a former chemistry professor at Arkansas Tech University. “Excess phosphates and nitrates will get in the Buffalo.”

    Allen then addressed the eating habits of Americans.
    “We all want to eat bacon,” he told the Gilbert Cafe crowd, many of whom were eating ham sandwiches as they listened and took notes, “but we can’t raise it in the watershed of the Buffalo River.”

    The star of the lunchtime program was Brahana, who was introduced by Jones as a hydrologist, philosopher and first-rate scientist.

    Among the courses Brahana taught at Arkansas were Karst, Environmental Justice and Geology of Our National Parks. Environmental Justice, he explained, dealt with those with money who go into areas without money and put in things that are potentially hazardous to the environment.

    Brahana considered the hog farm controversy to be a major concern of political manipulation and one that has fractured the community.

    According to Brahana, he has heard rumors that Cargill, which has the contract with C&H Farms, wants out of the situation. In addition, Marks wants out of her job and the governor wants a resolution of the problem, Brahana said.

    Brahana explained that he has taken about 40 samples from wells, springs and creeks in the area around the hog farm and has found dangerous concentrations of hazardous materials. He added that he introduced non-toxic dye into the ground across the road from the hog farm. About 30 hours later, he said, it showed up in Big Creek.
  • 06 Jun 2014 5:51 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Hog farm protesters make Buffalo River floaters aware of pollution issues

    Lovely County Citizen

    Wednesday, June 4, 2014
    By Kathryn Lucariello, CCNhi@cox-internet.com
    NEWTON COUNTY -- Those floating the Buffalo River over Memorial Day weekend got more than time away from work and responsibilities. Many of them also got an education.
    Several dozen people from a group called Ozark River Stewards took to the river at Grinder's Ferry in two separate groups, packing signs, banners, balloons and pennants to raise awareness about the potential environmental impacts of industrial hog farms, called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, on rivers such as the Buffalo, the nation's first designated scenic, natural river.
    C&H Hog Farms houses 6,500 pigs to supply pork for Cargill Corporation food processing. The farm was approved by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality last year and set up six miles from the Buffalo River.
    Ginny Masullo and Lin Wellford, who is from Carroll County, led the educational float trip. Several people from Eureka Springs took part as well.
    "We're here to call attention to the factory hog farm that is operating in the watershed," Masullo said. "A lot of people have not heard of it, and they need to know that there is reason to believe that this beautiful river will be impacted by hog waste washing off of spray fields. Even worse, thousands of gallons of sewage are seeping into the ground every single day. In this watershed, that kind of leakage is going to end up in the river. It has nowhere else to go."
    Wellford said there are two efforts at testing whether waste is seeping into the river. The first is by the University of Arkansas, which receives funds from Cargill for its agriculture department, which is looking at nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen and only doing a grass surface test, but of greater concern is antibiotics and steroids in hog waste.
    "In Iowa, steroids are showing up in well water. People are drinking that," she said, "and they have topsoil. Imagine what happens in an area like ours with no topsoil."
    She said the university did not want to dye test, which is a more reliable way to see exactly where waste is going, and the field owners would not give permission for such tests.
    But UA retired hydrogeologist Dr. John Van Brahana has been doing dye testing around the perimeters of the farm.
    Wellford said there was "extremely rapid transmission, because it's karst. There was almost no filtration, and within a day and a half above the farm, it came out at Big Spring and Creek. They used different colors of dye, so they can tell you exactly where it was put in."
    She said the CAFO permit, a "one size fits all" around the country, allows up to 5,000 gallons per day of discharge of hog waste per lagoon, and there are two lagoons.
    "Their estimate was 3,400 gallons per day -- day in, day out, since last summer. So where does it go in a watershed? Everything goes downhill. They're seeing algae growth in a place where last year there was no big bloom."
    She said Governor Mike Beebe said if it can be proven that unsafe levels of pollution are hitting the river, C&H will be closed down.
    "Of course, 'unsafe' is a slippery slope. I don't know what his definition of unsafe is."
    Wellford said the reception to her group's handing out plastic baggies of information on the river was overall positive.
    "We had 200 cards printed out and at the end had about 15 packets left, and the other group gave away all of theirs," she said. "Some people said they already knew about it or were not interested, but most said, 'Are you kidding? I thought that was all taken care of.'"
    She said they ran across two hog farmers who had small farms in the Mt. Judea area who felt the Buffalo should not have been made a national river; that that ruined it. But they have small hog farms, no more than 300 head.
    "We're not against farmers," Wellford said. "We think C&H should get compensated by Cargill, who lied and said this was sustainable, and it's not. A city the size of Russellville has this same amount of sewage. Can you imagine Russellville saying 'We won't bother to treat our sewage anymore; we'll just dump it on the ground'? They also lied about it creating new jobs. Six jobs were created, high school students making minimum wage."
    Wellford said Ozark River Stewards is planning another float in the near future and are looking at July 5, weather permitting, to try to continue to educate people about the river.
    "People are out on the river because they love it, especially families with children. We're planning to do it again because it really hit home to us that people were not keeping up with the news."
    She said the EPA estimates that 35,000 river miles have been degraded by CAFOs since the 1980s.
    "This is the first National River," Wellford said. "If we can't protect and even improve its water quality, the Buffalo may end up adding another 134 miles to the EPA's tally of impaired waterways. That's a tragedy for all of us."
     
  • 25 May 2014 8:39 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Law and Odor: How to Take Down a Terrible-Smelling Hog Farm

    A couple of attorneys have sniffed out Big Pork's legal weak spot.

    undefinedBy Bridget Huber

    Mother Jones May/June 2014 Issue


    From the stage in a packed, noisy auditorium in Fairfield, Iowa, Richard Middleton peers theatrically into the crowd. "I know we've got some of you folks here," he calls. "And I just wanted to know if any of you have the courage to raise your hand and say hello."


    The audience hoots and whistles as Middleton, a waggish, middle-aged attorney from Savannah, Georgia, pauses for effect. He's looking for a lawyer for the agribusiness giant Cargill who's been seen taking notes at his events. But tonight, no infiltrators come forward. Middleton shakes his head. "Not a damn one! Let me tell you something, folks: All I wanted to do was see if you'd accept service on a lawsuit. Because we're coming!" The crowd goes wild.


    Middleton has traveled to Iowa to speak with potential clients: people who say that living next to massive hog farms is ruining their lives. Over the past decade, Middleton and fellow lawyer Charlie Speer have made a name for themselves by taking on some of the meat industry's biggest players and winning big damages for their clients. They do it by zeroing in on the industry's Achilles' heel: stink.


    To date, the pair has filed cases against milk, meat, and egg producers in nine states, and they have won at least $32 million in jury awards, plus millions more in settlements. Last summer, they began filing suits on behalf of more than 4,000 North Carolina plaintiffs who live near farms raising hogs for Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer. In Iowa, the nation's top pork-producing state, they've signed up more than 500 clients.


    America's livestock produce about 500 million tons of manure each yearundefinedroughly three times more than the country's human population. On hog farms, that waste is typically held in euphemistically named "lagoons" or underground pits and then sprayed onto cropland or injected into the soil. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not regulate manure odor, nor do most states. Many do specify how close hog farms may be to homes, but Middleton and Speer argue that those rules don't protect people from the powerful stench that can deprive them of their right to use and enjoy their own property.


    To give me a sense of just what that means, Deb Chance, a Middleton and Speer client in Batavia, Iowa, shows me her calendar for late 2013. She says her house, a log cabin with a red metal roof, was overrun with the raunchy, rotten-egg smell of hog manure for days at a time. September 9, her birthday: "Hog smell all day." November 1: "Worst hog smell yet!" December 25: "Merry fuckin hog smell Christmas!"


    Chance spent 14 years improving her land with her husband. Their daughter picked a spot where she planned to one day build her own house. But everything changed when one of the 12 neighboring hog operations reached full capacity last fall. Now there are days when all the family can do is come inside, slam the door, and cry.


    "Their intent is to destroy modern livestock production. Oh, and make millions in the process."

    "It's like being held prisoner," says Elsie Herring, a Middleton and Speer client from Wallace, North Carolina, who has been dealing with hog stench for years. The odor means her family can no longer enjoy sitting on the porch, having cookouts, or even hanging laundry on the line. "We were here before the pork industry even came in here, so what about our rights?" she asks. "It's as if we have none."


    Odor nuisance suits are nothing new. In 1610, William Aldred, a Virginia colonist, successfully sued his neighbor for "erecting a hogstye so near the house of the plaintiff that the air thereof was corrupted." Speer carries a copy of jurist Sir Edward Coke's report of the court's decision in his briefcase.


    Yet Middleton and Speer's legal approach has some new twists. They don't seek injunctions, only monetary damages. They'll file repeated nuisance suits against farms that don't clean up their act: Some clients have successfully sued the same operation three times. And they go after not only local operations, but also the deep pockets at the top of the food chainundefinedthe big companies that contract with the farmers.


    To agribusiness companies, that makes Middleton and Speer ambulance chasers and carpetbaggers. Don Butler, a spokesman for the Smithfield subsidiary Murphy-Brown, told me, "Their intent is to destroy modern livestock production. Period. Oh, and by the way, make millions in the process." (Middleton and Speer take cases on a contingency basisundefinedif they prevail, they get paid.)


    Middleton has a long history as a plaintiff's lawyerundefinedhe got his start in asbestos litigation. But Speer used to be on the other side, defending landfill companies against environmental suits. That changed in 1996, when he represented a group of small farmers who complained that a massive hog operation was fouling their air and water. That case didn't sit well with some of his firm's corporate clients, so in 2000 he quit and teamed up with Middleton. "I'm a conservative guy, fighting for regular folks," says Speer, a lifelong Republican. "This is about private-property rights."


    In 2010, Middleton and Speer won their largest jury award to dateundefined$11.5 million for 15 neighbors of Missouri operations raising hogs for a Smithfield subsidiary. When the verdict was announced, the company threatened to leave the state. The following year, the state changed the law to limit repeat suits and cap damages in farm nuisance suits.


    Since 2005, at least six other states have passed measures that could stymie stink suits. Some of the bills are similar to model legislation written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the organization known for promoting pro-business bills drafted behind closed doors.


    "If the government were doing its job, my firm wouldn't exist," Speer says.

    Local communities in at least 16 states have also been stripped of their ability to impose rules on farms that are tougher than state guidelines. As for federal regulation, the EPA doesn't even know where all of the nation's 20,000 large, confined feedlots are located, never mind how much they may be polluting. "If the government were doing its job, my firm wouldn't exist," Speer says.

    Speer acknowledges that stink lawsuits aren't the ideal way to address air and water pollution from factory farms. But as long as the industry has a stranglehold on state legislatures, he explains, this strategy is one of the few things that works. "We can't shame them and we can't reason with them," he says. "The only way to get their attention is to go after their profits."

  • 25 May 2014 8:37 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Back on the Buffalo

    By Mike Masterson

    Posted: May 25, 2014 at 2:05 a.m.

    It's been a spell since I addressed the latest developments of that hog factory our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) wrongheadedly permitted to spread untold gallons of raw waste across fields in our precious Buffalo National River watershed.

    When we last left the disgraceful saga, geoscientist and professor emeritus John Van Brahana and his band of concerned volunteers were involved with dye and water-quality testing around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo. Let's give Branaha and his crew a richly deserved ovation for their vigilance, which our state has neither financed nor publicly supported.

    They're now in the middle of dye-testing beneath the surface of the fragile watershed. Thus far they've discovered just what was expected in the porous limestone subsurface known as karst.

    "Our preliminary results indicate the groundwater is moving at about 1,500 to 1,700 feet per day, unquestionably fast for groundwater, but typical for karst groundwater," he said. "Preliminary interpretations are that the dye we've inserted is moving as a plume, spreading out as it moves through the mini-caves in the bedrock, but being replaced by later water, which is added by precipitation."

    In other words, whatever winds up on the surface of the surrounding fields trickles down into the bedrock and spreads out through all the fractures and caves.

    The last time I wrote on this travesty against common sense (supported by swine supplier and purchaser Cargill Inc.) the National Park Service and others had detected seriously elevated levels of E. coli bacteria in Big Creek very near its confluence with the Buffalo.

    More testing was needed to determine whether this pollution was an anomaly caused by rapidly rising waters, or the creek's new normal levels since the hog factory is up and running "full waste" ahead. E. coli bacteria from animals' digestive systems can cause disease and ailments in humans.

    Said Brahana: "The high E. coli values could be coming from groundwater spreading on the spray fields that drain down into the karst aquifer, or from intense rainfall events washing the waste and sediments into Big Creek mostly along the surface, or from other animal sources upstream."

    Now there are concerns for the river's environmental quality other than bacterial pollution. "Based on what we observed this spring, biomass and algae growth in the stream is much more extensive than last year, prior to the pigs being brought in," he said. "Our background sampling [also] suggests Big Creek basin was impacted by animal production prior to that."

    Brahana does feel encouraged in some respects. "Some very positive events are taking place associated with the science. The USGS has installed some continuous monitoring gauges in Big Creek as part of a cooperative agreement with Dr. Andrew Sharpley and his study." Sharpley and his state-funded group from the University of Arkansas also are monitoring water quality around this hog factory that's permitted to hold more than 6,000 swine and leak thousands of gallons of raw waste daily.

    Brahana said the USGS will measure the discharge (amount of flow at any one time) of Big Creek. "This will allow the computation of the mass of nutrients in the creek. At one location, they have a probe that measures the amounts of nitrates in the creek, which is a very important nutrient that should help assess one potential contribution from the hog factory."

    He said the nitrate probe is set up down from springs that have been dye-traced to the boundary of the farm. The professor said last week that he was returning with his group and volunteers to the testing sites to continue collecting data and examining the karst hydrology.

    Meanwhile, it was brought to my attention last week that, in formulating its rules for permitting this first hog concentrated animal feeding operation under a new general permit, our Department of Environmental Quality somehow erased the public-notification requirements that still were present in its second draft.

    That requirement would have made it mandatory to notify the Arkansas Department of Health, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the EPA and other obvious stakeholders by email when a CAFO permit was requested. A fine idea!

    But it was inexplicably dropped. Instead, the agency's public notification for proposed CAFOs became simply to post such proposals on its website. Why--and how--do you suppose such valid requirements vanished from the second draft?

    I've seen a relevant letter from J. Terry Paul of the Health Department sent to the Department of Environmental Quality's Mo Shafii of the permits division back on March 21, 2013.

    Paul said our Department of Health, which also learned after the fact about this hog factory's permit, had "concerns that water-borne pathogens including E. coli and cryptosporidium from the proposed land application site may pose a risk for body contact on the Buffalo National River, a popular recreational destination."

    And well, well, just look what's been unfolding down on the "farm" today, my friends.

    Finally, GOP gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson told me recently that as governor he "will do whatever is necessary to protect the Buffalo." So far, he's the only candidate on record with a firm commitment.

    ------------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 05/25/2014
  • 22 May 2014 12:51 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Outside Magazine
    May 21, 2014

    Arkansas' Buffalo River was the first named national river in the United States, but its waters might be in danger. Locals and environmental groups were shocked at the end of 2013 when the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) allowed an industrial hog farm to set up just six miles from the river. Today, a battle between the farm and its opponents continues as protests, water quality research, and behind-the-scenes conflicts emerge.

    C&H Hog Farms will house 6,500 pigs to supply pork for the Cargill food processing company. Supporters of the farm say that hog farms have existed near watersheds with no impact on their waters. ADEQ director Teresa Marks told the New York Times that some of the farm's waste could reach the Buffalo River, but she was not concerned about environmental harm.

    Supporters of the river are not convinced. Representatives of public interest groups assert that the farm is an economic disaster. According to a letter released by Earthjustice, C&H received a federal loan of $3.4 million just to construct the farm. Among other stated concerns are water contamination from hog waste and fertilizer, as well as general environmental degradation. "I'm just afraid of the stink," local Jewell Fowler told the Times.

    "When this first started, they sent a petition around: 'Sign this paper if you don't want to swim in hog poop on the Buffalo,'" C&H co-owner Jason Henson told OzarksFirst.com. "I woulda signed the paper myself." The Hensons insist they have followed every regulation required for a permit, but activists have now taken up this issue as one of the main problems with C&H.

    In February, representatives of public interest groups released a more detailed letter accusing ADEQ and C&H of faulty and expensive research that allowed the hog farm permit to go through. C&H claimed they had access to 17 parcels of land on which to dispose of waste, but farmers who owned three of those fields wrote to indicate they had never granted that permission. That skews the results of a government-funded research project that allowed C&H to obtain their permit in the first place. C&H received loans of more than half a million dollars just to make up for these errors, the groups say. "The people of Arkansas … have been seriously misled," says Ozark Society president Robert Cross.

    Two independent research groups are now tasked with keeping track of the farm's impact. Earlier this month, the Big Creek Research Team, led by a professor at the University of Arkansas, released a quarterly report that measured as much as 8,500 colonies of E. coli bacteria per 100 milliliters of water. The ADEQ regulates a limit of 400 colonies per 100 milliliters.

    This doesn't necessarily incriminate the farm, however. Researcher Andrew Sharpley said these readings were likely due mostly to high rainfall and flooding, and it's impossible to pinpoint a single source for the E. coli. The team's next step is to use a "dye trace" study to watch how quickly and where groundwater from the farm flows into surrounding areas.

    In the midst of all this, Buffalo River received an Active Trails grant from the National Park Foundation to fund projects that will restore, protect, and create land and water trails around the river.
  • 22 May 2014 12:06 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    May 24, 2014 
    JASPER, AR (KNWA) - The Buffalo National River holds a special place in Arkansans' hearts, and when a factory hog farm was built less than six miles away, concerns of contamination drew a huge outcry.

    Now, two teams of scientists are working to protect the water quality of one of the Natural State's biggest attractions.

    "There's a lot of passion about keeping this river the first scenic river and keeping it pristine," says Andrew Sharpley, a professor from the University of Arkansas Agriculture Department. "There's a lot of pressure on the state to keep it pristine."

    The truth of how the C & H Hog Farm may or may not impact the Buffalo River watershed isn't clear, but the battle between the farm and its opponents is raging.

    "We're being attacked by the media daily, and the majority of the people is not interested in the truth," says co-owner Jason Henson. "When this first started, they sent a petition around, 'Sign this paper if you don't want to swim in hog poop on the Buffalo.' I woulda signed the paper myself."

    Jason Henson is a co-owner of the hog farm, and says he's operating within state laws. Two lagoons on the property hold the animal waste, which is eventually spread across nearby fields.

    "These fields have been fertilized for years and years," Henson says. "We have rules and regulations on how much we can put out, and when we can put it out, and how we can put it out."

    Van Brahana is worried the state laws are stacked in favor of big agriculture, and ignore the underlying geography of the area.

    "The argument that we followed all the rules, that's a true statement," he says. "The fact of the matter is though, from a scientific standpoint, those were weighted strongly in favor of factory farming."

    Brahana, a recently retired hydro-geologist from the University of Arkansas, says porous, permeable limestone sits under a thin layer of soil. The formation allows water to quickly move underground, and to unexpected places.

    "It goes down and into the rock," he says. "Because it's underground, we can't see exactly where it is."

    He's gathered a group of volunteers to conduct a dye tracing study, to find out how long it takes for fluids to travel from this spot near the farm, to Big Creek and the Buffalo.

    "We want to have an assessment that this particular facility has a degree of safety built in, so that we don't contaminate the people who live downstream," he says. "It will allow us to determine where the output sources are so that when we put monitor stations in, we can be very precise."

    The Hensons aren't happy to see Brahana anywhere near Newton County.

    "We believe that they are doing a biased study," he says.

    Sharpley, and his team from the Agriculture Department are also monitoring the water quality around the farm, at the state's request.

    "We are measuring above and below the farm on Big Creek," Sharpley says. "It's a beautiful place, and the more you are out here, the more you see the importance of this river to the local community."

    Automatic samplers collect water when it rises, and the team drilled holes in 3 of the 17 fields where Henson will spread the waste.

    "We're monitoring that, and we also have some wells up around the lagoons to see if there is leakage because there was concern about that," Sharpley says. "The principal behind his application plan is he's putting enough of the nutrients on when the soil is dry enough, that the plants are going to soak those nutrients up and there's no excess. In reality, this is what we're hoping to see."

    Sharpley says the strategy should give a warning if the management plan isn't working.

    "Once it's in the creek, it's an issue and it's too late," he says. "Hopefully, the way we're doing things, we might be able to see before it actually gets there."

    Sharpley has also been accused of bias.

    "We were asked to do this, and although we're the division of Ag. we kind of represent every stakeholder in the state," he says. "We're staying totally impartial in what we are doing to have the science tell the story."

    Van admits he may have a personal bias, but says it won't affect his results.

    "As a scientist I try to describe things very accurately so that meaningful decisions for the general public can be made," he says. "Andrew will do some work. I will do some work and we'll cross reference and that's the way science works."

    Although Henson doesn't trust Brahana, he says he will listen to science, even if it means changing his operation.

    "We're nine generations of living in this area," Henson says. "We of all people want to make sure that the environment is not hurt at all."
     

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