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  • 10 Apr 2014 8:48 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Robert Cross: Buffalo River, like the Illinois, under attack
     
     
    Posted: Thursday, April 10, 2014 12:00 am | Updated: 4:47 am, Thu Apr 10, 2014.
    By ROBERT CROSS  

    Anyone who has recently floated northeast Oklahoma's Illinois River very well knows it's not the sparkling stream of generations past. The once clear, free-flowing waters are impaired, largely due to phosphorus runoff from chicken litter spread on fields around large Arkansas chicken farms.
    But the Illinois is not the only imperiled river in the Ozark Plateau. The crown jewel of Arkansas, America's first national river, is now being threatened by a combination of regulations and permitting procedures that allow factory farms without considering the environment or the well-being of citizens.
    The Buffalo River is a 135-mile national river that carves its way through the mountains of north Arkansas. More than a million people each year float its crystal waters, camp on its banks and hike its trails. Hundreds of thousands of those visitors travel from Oklahoma, Missouri, and surrounding states, sharing our regional heritage.
    Without much fanfare, notification, or scrutiny, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has granted a permit for a factory farm on a major tributary of the Buffalo. The concentrated animal feeding operation of 6,500 pigs is located on the banks of Big Creek just a few miles upstream from the Buffalo River. The operation is owned by C&H Hog Farms of Newton County. C&H is under contract to Cargill, a huge international agricultural and food conglomerate, which owns the pigs.
    How did we get here, especially after witnessing the plight of the Illinois? Unlike Oklahoma and most states, Arkansas has minimal notification requirements. ADEQ simply placed a notice on its website for 30 days. The permitting process flew under the radar, and Arkansans didn't discover what had happened until nine months after the fact.
    The factory farm, operational for the past year, sits atop porous ground in a karst geological area. The hog farm will produce more than two million gallons of hog waste each year (that's 8,500 tons), which will be held in clay-lined ponds and spread over fields, many of which are flood-prone. While some of the contaminants will be absorbed by field grasses, much will reach the Buffalo River.
    More than a generation ago, Arkansans with their elected representatives joined hands to protect and preserve one of the last free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states. In 1972, the heart and soul of Arkansas, became a national river and was placed under the stewardship of all Americans.
    Today, we are joining forces again to protect this national treasure. The Ozark Society, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance are working together to correct a grave mistake and preserve the legacy passed down to us by our parents and grandparents.
    For more than a decade, Oklahoma has battled Arkansas over the phosphorus from chicken litter flushed down the Illinois River. We in the Ozarks who canoe, camp, hike, float and fish have supported your efforts. We hope our neighbors will do the same in our fight.
    The hog farm in the Buffalo River watershed is the first, but if the permit is allowed to stand it won't be the last. The future of other Arkansas rivers is at stake, including those flowing to other states.
    Arkansas is known throughout the country for its natural beauty, clear lakes and streams and abundance of natural wildlife. The Buffalo River is the heart of this bounty. We will not stand by and allow our river (your river) to lose the life it gives all of us.

    Robert Cross is president of the The Ozark Society and lives in Fayetteville, Ark. www.ozarksociety.net, www.buffaloriveralliance.org
  • 26 Mar 2014 2:41 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Hog Wild: Factory Farms Are Poisoning Iowa's Drinking Water

    Millions of pigs are crammed into overcrowded barns all across the state, being fattened for slaughter while breeding superbugs all to feed China's growing appetite for Spam.
     
    By Ted Genoways | Fri Mar. 21, 2014 3:00 AM PDT


    Tim Geers/Flickr
    This story was originally published by OnEarth.

    Before I even stepped from my truck onto the gravel outside the New Fashion Pork hog confinement facility, Emily Erickson, the company's animal well-being and quality assurance manager, handed me a pair of stretchy white plastic footies to put over my shoes. It was a blustery day in September, the sky threatening snowundefinedthe first hint of winter, when cold, dry air stabilizes viruses and biosecurity becomes a topmost concern.

    All of the hogs inside the confinement near Jackson, Minnesota, just north of the Iowa state line and on the headwaters of the Des Moines River, would be sold to Hormel Foods. Hormel would soon post record profits on the strength of sales of Spam to Asian markets and the expansion of the company's China operations. But Jim Snee, head of Hormel Foods International, announced that the company was making an even bigger push, to firmly establish Spam in Chinese grocery stores before products from its competitor Smithfield Foods, purchased by Shuanghui International in May, could elbow them out. As a major supplier to Hormel's Spam plants in Minnesota and Nebraska, New Fashion Pork was racing to keep pace with demand. The last thing the company could afford was an outbreak of disease.


    To an outsider, the hog industry's vigilance against external pathogensundefinedsymbolized by those hygienic footiesundefinedcan seem strangely at odds with its dismissal of concerns about the effects of its facilities on human health. Large producers like New Fashion insist that the enormous, concrete-reinforced waste pits under each confinementundefinedmany with a capacity of 300,000 gallonsundefinedeffectively prevent contaminants from leaching into the soil, and that manure is carefully managed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources under laws aimed at accounting for all manure at all times. But mounting evidence suggests that an unprecedented boom in Iowa's hog industry has created a glut of manure, which is applied as fertilizer to millions of acres of cropland and runs off into rivers and streams, creating a growing public health threat. Meanwhile, the number of DNR staff conducting inspections has been cut by 60 percent since 2007.

    "It's a lot of pig, it's a lot of metal, it's a lot of noise."
    Between May and July 2013, as downpours sheeted off drought-hardened fields, scientists at the Des Moines Water Works watched manure contamination spike to staggering levels at intake sites on the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. These two major tributaries of the Mississippi are also the usual sources of drinking water for roughly one out of every six Iowans. But at one point last summer, nitrate in the Raccoon reached 240 percent of the level allowed under the Clean Water Act, and the DMWW warned parents not to let children drink from the tap, reminding them of the risk of blue baby syndrome. (Nitrate impairs the oxygen capacity of the bloodstream; in babies and toddlers the syndrome can effectively cut off their air supply, rendering them a deathly blue.)

    Mounting concern about the safety of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has stoked a public outcry. So, to be honest, I was shocked when Brad Freking, the CEO of New Fashion Pork, agreed to allow me to tour one of its facilities. In the changing room, I zipped into some navy coveralls and slid a pair of clear plastic boots over a second set of footies. Emily Erickson turned the handle to the barn entrance, opening the heavy steel door a crack. The sound of squealing hogs spilled into the room. "If you've never been inside," she warned, "it's a lot of pig, it's a lot of metal, it's a lot of noise." I assured her I was ready, and we headed inside.


    ERICKSON WAS RIGHT: it is a lot of pig. Under the yellow light of a series of bulbs, 1,000 hogs, divided according to size and approximate age, jostled and jockeyed in large holding pens. They pressed their wet snouts through the metal gates, snuffling and grunting curiously, but scrambled away as Erickson led me down the side aisle. Some, in fits of momentary panic, let out high shrieks, which echoed off the steel roof, setting off cascades of squeals.

    By this time, these hogs had been through almost the entire process: conceived via artificial insemination in sows held in gestation crates; transferred briefly to farrowing crates for milk-feeding; then, at three weeks old, trucked to this wean-to-finish operation and raised on corn and soybeans delivered by automatic feeders. Within two or three months, when they hit target weight, they would be loaded into trucks and brought to slaughter at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota.


    Massive amounts of antibiotics are used in the meat industry to promote growth and speed this process. Public health advocates including NRDC have warned that the bacteria in CAFO waste pits like the one under our feet can build antibiotic resistance before being spread across surrounding fields and running off into the water. Freking told me, however, that New Fashion Pork does not use hormones or antibiotics to promote growth. But the company does finish its female hogs with a month-long course of ractopamine, a steroid-like feed additive that increases leanness. (China has banned its use, a factor in the purchase of Smithfield, which used the additive in only 40 percent of its meat and since the sale has gone ractopamine-free.)

    But more than sight or sound or even worries about superbugs, what hits you in a pig barn is the smell. The hogs scattered and reconvened as we walked, their hooves clicking anxiously on the slotted wooden floors; their waste, some still fresh and moist, was spread on the floor and smeared over their haunches and feet, slowly working its way down through the slats into an enormous underground pit. Still more waste had dried and turned powdery, creating a choking haze that swirled in the dim light. It carried with it a hot, fleshy stinkundefinednot just a smell but an astringent, chemical burn that sears your nostrils.

    On the back wall, giant fans vented ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other dangerous gases that rise from decomposing manure. A report published jointly by the University of Iowa and Iowa State University in 2002 concluded that air pollution from large-scale confinements "may constitute a public health hazard," explaining that the problem did not arise primarily from the containment of manure in waste pits but from its application aboveground as fertilizer. (The report attributed fully 80 percent of hazardous gas release to the first six hours after this was done.) In response, the DNR announced new air-quality regulations. But Iowa lawmakers, most of whom count agribusiness among their biggest donors, overruled those standards within days. Instead, new guidelines were established requiring liquid manure to be immediately plowed under or injected directly into the subsoil, preventing harmful gases from escaping into the air.

    A hot, fleshy stink not just a smell but an astringent, chemical burn that sears your nostrils.
    But then came a revolution in the corn industry. In 2005 Congress approved the first Renewable Fuel Standard, requiring the production of at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable transportation fuels by 2012, creating an overnight demand for ethanolundefinedand therefore for corn. The market price quadrupled, encouraging farmers to plant more and more rows into already overplanted fields. The steep jump in feed prices tipped many struggling hog operations toward bankruptcy.

    To stabilize the market, several meatpackers were granted exemptions to state laws prohibiting them from owning livestock or feed cropsundefinedwhich brought in out-of-state dollars but also touched off a boom in CAFO-building financed by some of the nation's largest hog producers. In 2000, 38 permits had been issued statewide to construct or expand animal confinements large enough to require permitting by the DNR; by 2006, the number had vaulted to 318. Iowa now has more than 8,500 factory farms, and is by far the country's biggest hog producer. More than 18 million of its 20 million hogs are raised in CAFOsundefinedmost owned by or under exclusive contract to industry giants such as Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson, or Hormel.

    To support this boom, however, the industry needed buyers. The fiercest competition has been for expanding Asian markets, which is why Iowa's Republican governor, Terry Branstad, and other Midwest governors have made repeated overtures to Japan, China, and South Koreaundefinedwhich collectively import more than $3 billion worth of American pork each year. In April 2013, Branstad met with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing; two months later, representatives from Hebei Province attended the World Pork Expo in Des Moines and struck a deal not only to buy more Iowa hogs but also to learn breeding and herd management techniques.

    Industry leaders and politicians alike have trumpeted the jobs created by these growing partnerships with China, but the rapid expansion of the hog industry to meet export demand has had a devastating effect on Iowa's waterways. With farmers now plowing under vegetation and planting every available acre to corn, soil is eroding at an accelerating rate. And when precious topsoil is lost during spring melt and heavy rains, farmers apply more fertilizer to jump-start the crop.

    According to David Goodner, a spokesman for the watchdog group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Iowa's factory farms now produce well over five billion gallons of liquid manure a year. The laws governing application of manure may mask the problem by reducing the level of harmful gases in the air, he said, but vast quantities of waste are being injected directly into the drought-stricken and highly erodible soil. The ground simply can't hold all the nitrates and bacteria being produced by so many hogs.


    Jay Lausen is soft-spoken, with wispy blond hair and a shy smile. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who goes looking for trouble, but when New Fashion Pork applied to build a hog confinement less than a mile from his home in 2011, he decided to put up a fight. Lausen's roots run deep around Estherville, Iowa, a small farming community a few miles from the Minnesota border. His family's century farm is just six miles from where he and his wife are home-schooling their four children, in the same house where Lausen grew up with his four older siblings.

    The ground simply can't hold all the nitrates and bacteria being produced by so many hogs.
    Before New Fashion purchased the 160 acres where it intended to build, Lausen had farmed the land himself, renting it from a neighbor. He knew the spine-like ridge dividing the acreage was critical to the watershed. While he had farmed the east side, he had enrolled the west side, some 50 acres, in the Conservation Reserve Program, an initiative of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take environmentally sensitive land out of crop production by paying farmers to instead plant native grasses, windbreaks along property lines, and evergreens to hold soil along waterways. Even with the improved ground cover, a serpentine gully cut across the acreage toward the southwest fence corner, where runoff pooled and swelled into a culvert that drained into the West Fork of the Des Moines River, about half a mile away.

    Large sections of the river in Emmet County had been on the DNR's list of impaired waterways for years, so when the landlord said she intended to put the property up for auction in November 2011, Lausen hoped the department would snap it up. After all, it had bought adjacent land on two sides and even paid to undercut the dirt road to reestablish natural drainage as part of a wetland restoration program. But when the auction came around after Thanksgiving of that year, the DNR was nowhere to be found. The high bid came from New Fashion Pork.

    When Lausen called the department to discuss the building plans, he found that the company intended to erect a 2,400-head wean-to-finish operation. However, the state doesn't count livestock by heads but by "animal units"undefinedone such unit being the standard weight of a cow ready for slaughter. A hog is considered 0.4 animal unit; thus, the operation was proposed to hold 960 units, just below the 1,000-unit size that requires a construction permit under DNR rules. And, just as Lausen suspected, the required manure management plan called for injecting the contents of the facility's waste pit into the surrounding fieldsundefinedincluding the 50 acres that drain directly into the Des Moines River. So he started digging through USDA data, DNR reports, state department of health records, researching all of the regulations governing the permitting of CAFOs. What he found about DNR enforcement of those regulations was even more troubling.

    After more than a decade out of office, Terry Branstad was again elected governor in 2010. In the next few months, he eliminated 100 positions at the DNR, including 14 vacant jobs in CAFO inspection and enforcement. Wayne Gieselman, the agency's head of environmental compliance, told the Associated Press that these cuts would hurt enforcement: "If we could be on site on a more regular basis, producers would know we're watching." Branstad told Roger Lande, the attorney for the powerful Iowa Farm Bureau whom he had just appointed as director of the DNR, that he wanted Gieselman gone. And he was, within a week. The governor certainly "wanted his own people in there," Gieselman told me when I reached him by phone in Kansas, where he now works for Region 7 of the EPA.

    Branstad also announced four appointments to the nine-member Iowa Environmental Protection Commission: a past president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, the CEO of a hog-confinement construction company, the CEO of an agricultural lobbying firm, and a former Iowa House member known for her efforts to loosen laws governing the application of manure from confinements.

    In August 2011, just before the sale of the land near Estherville, the Washington, D.C.–based Environmental Integrity Project, joined by the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, filed notice of intent to sue the EPA for failing to answer an earlier petition to take over enforcement of the Clean Water Act from the state of Iowa. The DNR responded by issuing plans to improve water quality but cautioned that the downsized department was overmatched by the problem.

    Last fall the department allowed me to accompany environmental specialist Don Cunningham on an inspection of another New Fashion Pork facility, near Estherville. He told me that inspectors circle a facilityundefinedchecking for cracks in the foundation that could leak manure or problems with venting fansundefinedbut do not enter the confinement as part of normal procedure. At the end of the walk-around, Cunningham told Jay Moore, New Fashion Pork's environmental construction manager, that the company was past deadline for new soil samples and that a well on the property seemed to be closer to the confinement than claimed on the permit. (Moore later conceded this.) Cunningham informed Moore that there would be a formal notice of violationundefinedthe site's second in 18 months. New paperwork would need to be submitted. After that, everything would proceed as before. Within days, the confinement's pit was pumped as low as possible and the fields were injected with hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure.

    I asked Cunningham how such perfunctory inspection squared with the DNR's own estimate that the Raccoon River watershed, which feeds directly into the Des Moines River, needed a 50 percent reduction in nitrate levels and a staggering 99 percent reduction in E. coli just to come into compliance with federal standards. He responded cautiously: he sticks to his job description, inspecting manure management plans, ensuring compliance with existing regulations, and reporting problems when he observes them. Cunningham doesn't make the laws; he just enforces the laws the politicians give him.

    Jay Lausen realized that the DNR, under the thumb of an ag-friendly governor, would never intercede against New Fashion Porkundefinedor any other hog producer. The only hope was to block construction at the local level. In advance of the April 2012 meeting of the Emmet County supervisors, at which New Fashion's proposal would come to a vote, Lausen asked to address the board. He distributed copies of his research along with USDA data, showing that 60 percent of the property lay on the Des Moines River watershed, classified by the DNR as endangered. But Jay Moore came armed with statistics of his own, showing that the company supported 17 full-time employees in the county and tallying the tax dollars and other economic benefits to the local economy. Moore assured the board that his company understood small agricultural communities. "It's still run as a family operation," he said.

    "How many family-run operations have 320 employees?" Lausen retorted. "This is corporate farming."


    NOTHING GETS UNDER Brad Freking's skin quite so much as when people in northern Iowa call him a corporate farmer. "Like we're these big guys from out of state," he said to me ruefully. New Fashion's headquarters are barely 20 miles from Estherville. In the conference room where we sat, Hormel Spirit of Excellence plaques stood lined up on the mantel above a wide fireplace, and Freking sipped from a Hormel mug. He is a wiry man in his forties, soft-spoken and careful in choosing his words. He freely admitted that he had been advised against our meeting, but he said there was nothing to hide so he wasn't going to duck my questions. "Call us a little bit unique in that," he said.

    Freking grew up on a 200-head hog farm in Jackson County, Minnesota, graduating from the local high school in 1986 at the very height of the worst agricultural downturn since the Great Depression. With no prospects for farming at the time, he went first to South Dakota State University, where he got a degree in animal science, then continued on to veterinary school at the University of Minnesota. In 1994, he came home with his wife to found New Fashion. "It started extremely small," he told me, "producing about 16,000 pigs a year." But Freking's company grew more slowly and more strategically than his competitors, so the downturn in the hog industry in 1998 presented an unusual opportunity. "We were, financially, in a very good position at that time," he said. "So we started acquiring distressed sow farms." That's why New Fashion's operation is so geographically diverse. Freking bought failing breeding barns from the Rockies to the Great Lakes, building what he calls a "sow base."

    In 2004, just as this period of acquisition was ending, Iowa began exempting big packers from its vertical integration laws. New Fashion Pork, with its sow base expanded from fewer than 1,000 to more than 50,000, joined in the boom, building as fast as it could and aggressively investing in every link of the supply chain. Today, New Fashion Pork not only raises 1.2 million hogs per yearundefinedabout half of those in some 50 wean-to-finish facilities across northern Iowaundefinedbut also owns hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and dozens of feed mills. It produces so much manure that it now markets its own line of fertilizer injectors. The company has been recognized by Hormel Foods as one of its top suppliers of gilt hogs (young females), and New Fashion processes its barrows (males) at its own packing plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, for export to Asia in partnership with four other producers, most notably Christensen Farms, under the name Triumph Foods. That plant processes 24,000 hogs per day, making it the second-largest hog kill in the United States. The result of all this integration, Freking told me, is that "we're not only producing pigs. Now we're producing pork."

    The whole process is made possible by injecting cheap manure into cornfields. "It is a great model, if you think about it," Freking said. "Here's my farm, and I put my pig barn on my farm and then I take the organic nutrients out of that pig and put it on the farm to grow the corn to feed the pig. It's very sustainable." Freking allowed that not every company lives up to the standard he expects from his facilities, especially in cash-strapped times. "When I think about the acquisitions I did of failing farms," he said, "most of them had environmental issues. That's true from Wyoming to Indiana." Still, given the construction standards imposed on waste pits and the piles of paperwork that must be completed to stay in compliance with the DNR, Freking and Moore both told me they saw no reason to believe that hog confinements contribute more to water contamination than small town water-treatment plants that flush their systems during flooding.

    Later, when I visited the laboratories at the Des Moines Water Works, I asked Dennis Hill, the DMWW's microbiologist, about this argument. "Those little towns might as well straight-pipe their sewage to the river," he scoffed. "Compared to what comes in from agriculture, it wouldn't make any difference."


    WITH ITS SOARING, vaulted ceiling and churchlike quiet, the filter building at the Des Moines Water Works can feel like a cathedral. Tucked into niches on either side of the tiled gallery, the filters themselves look like soaking pools at some long-forgotten Turkish bath. But their green-hued waters are pumped in from the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, then slow-filtered, up to 50,000 gallons at a time, through 100 tons of gravel and 130 tons of sand. Linda Kinman, the policy analyst and watershed advocate at DMWW, told me that this building has been in use since the 1940s. But the process it employs is ancient in its simplicity and has worked with time-tested efficiencyundefineduntil recently.

    Scientists at the water works have been tracking steady increases in levels of nitrates and E. coli in the contributing watersheds since the 1970s, when industrial agriculture first hit its stride. But in the past decade those levels have started to pose greater and greater threats to public health, and last year the situation reached a crisis. The DMWW turned off its intakes from the two rivers and began drawing from alternative sourcesundefinedlakes under its control, an aquifer storage system, the utility's underground filtration and storage hold, and neighboring waterworks. By late July, the water flowing through the pipes was registering 9.65 milligrams per liter of nitrates, just under the 10 mg/L allowed by the EPA. Kinman was granted a face-to-face meeting with the federal agency and the Iowa DNR to discuss ways of reducing nitrate loadsundefinedbut came away with no assurances.

    "The political scene in Iowa right now is almost over‑the‑top supportive of agriculture," Kinman told me.

    After the Iowa environmental groups filed notice of intent to sue in 2011, the EPA was finally forced to act. In July 2012 it issued a scathing critique of the DNR's handling of the state's factory farms, finding that it had failed to properly issue required permits for operating such facilities, to administer inspections, to respond to manure spills and other environmental violations, and to assess adequate fines and penalties when violations did occur. But nearly a year later, the state had still failed to take any action. Given the dangerous levels of nitrates at that timeundefinedand the overall trend line of water contaminationundefinedKinman told me, "At some point, we will violate."

    Apparently fearing that the crisis would give the EPA leverage to intercede, Governor Branstad took preemptive action. On May 20, 2013, he sent a letter to acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe and Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy, whom President Obama had nominated to helm the agency. Branstad denounced CAFO compliance inspections as "the ‘gotcha' approach." He insisted that "the majority of discharges into Iowa's waters are accidental spills" and claimed that runoff was unavoidable because it was "caused by Mother Nature." He invited McCarthy to come to Iowa and meet with livestock industry leaders.

    Last August, McCarthyundefinedwho had just been confirmed by the Senateundefinedmet with Farm Bureau members under the picnic shelter at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and pledged to establish a "more trusting relationship between EPA and the agriculture community." Jay Moore of New Fashion Pork told me, "It was just refreshing to hear her talk." Within weeks, the EPA and Iowa had struck a deal: the state would reopen hiring for 7 of the 14 positions eliminated by the governor since 2011 and would allocate roughly $30 million to water quality initiatives.

    Scientists at DMWW point out that the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers have the highest and second-highest nitrate concentrations of the 42 major tributaries to the Mississippi. The $30 million allocation, they say, is just too little to address such an enormous problem. "I have four little grandkids," Kinman said. She tells her daughter, who lives in a rural community, not to give her children tap water. "There are companies that make special bottled water for infants. I said, ‘You buy that in the spring and the fall.'"


    AFTER JAY LAUSEN'S impassioned appeal to the county supervisors, a group of concerned citizens called a public meeting to consider legal options for opposing the proposed New Fashion Pork facility outside Estherville. More than 100 people gathered in the gymnasium of the local Regional Wellness Center. Brad Freking went, too, and fielded more than an hour's worth of questions. "We are pretty comfortable with the site," he told the crowd, but by the end of the evening he promised, "We're going to pursue an alternative location if possible." And that's exactly what they did.

    Freking told me he had gained "tremendous respect" for the Iowa Great Lakes Watershed and the rivers it feeds and had learned to consider community concerns before purchasing property or applying for a permit to build. "You understand the watersheds, and you just stay out of them," he said. "That's our approach."

    Later, I recounted that conversation to Lausen. I asked him if this might represent a ray of hopeundefinedand a way forward. Sure, the EPA appeared cowed by political pressure and, yes, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, hamstrung by the governor and the legislature, seemed unlikely to carry out more than minimal enforcement of the Clean Water Act. But maybe direct public pressure was enough to appeal to the conscience of these businesses.

    Lausen broke out in a broad smile. "You haven't seen where they built instead, have you?" he asked.

    By the time I arrived at the new site, the sun had burned through the morning rains. The cold of weeks before had turned into a brief, unseasonable warm-up. The sun was so bright, in fact, that we could see light glinting on the water running off the newly fertilized fields toward Brown Creek, right where it passes under a bridge and bends into a stand of trees on its way to the Des Moines River. The fields surrounding the New Fashion Pork facility, new and bright-white on the hill, drained directly into a DNR-maintained wildlife management area.

    The new site might seem absurd, but it deftly swings to the east, avoiding Estherville and local opposition. But what about the people downstream in Emmetsburg or Fort Dodge or the half-million people who depend on the river in Des Moines? For that matter, what about St. Louis and Memphis, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans? What about everyone from here to the Gulf Coast who goes to the tap expecting to find clean, safe water? As long as the hog industry runs wild in Iowa, that question will be harder and harder to answer.
  • 26 Mar 2014 8:14 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Are We Becoming China's Factory Farm?

    US hog operations are feeding more than a billion people's growing appetite for pork.
     
    China is in the midst of a love affair with pork. Its consumption of the stuff has nearly doubled since 1993 and just keeps rising. The Chinese currently eat 88 pounds per capita each yearundefinedfar more than Americans' relatively measly 60 pounds. To meet the growing demand, China's hog farms have grown and multiplied, and more than half of the globe's pigs are now raised there. But even so, its production can't keep up with the pork craze.

    So where is China looking to supply its demand for chops, ribs, loins, butts, and bellies? Not Southeast Asia or Africaundefinedmore like Iowa and North Carolina. US pork exports to China surged from about 57,000 metric tons in 2003 to more than 430,000 metric tons in 2012, about a fifth of all such exports. And that was before a Chinese company announced its intention to buy US pork giant Smithfield Foods in 2013. The way things are going, the United States is poised to become China's very own factory hog farm. Here are a few reasons why:

    ➊ It's now cheaper to produce pork in the US than in China. You read that right: Our meat industry churns out hogs for about $0.57 per pound, according to the US Department of Agriculture, versus $0.68 per pound in China's new, factory-scale hog farms. The main difference is feed costs. US pig producers spend about 25 percent less on feed than their Chinese counterparts, the USDA found, because the "United States has more abundant land, water, and grain resources."

    âž‹ Americans are not as fond of "the other white meat" as we once were. You wouldn't know it from the menus in trendy restaurants, but US consumers' appetite for pork hit a peak in 1999 and has declined ever since. Yet industry, beholden to shareholders demanding growth, keeps churning out more. According to its latest projections, the USDA expects US pork exports to rise by another 0.9 metric tons by 2022undefineda 33 percent jump from 2012 levels.

    ➌ Much of China's arable land is polluted. Fully 40 percent has been degraded by erosion, salinization, or acidificationundefinedand nearly 20 percent is tainted by industrial effluent, sewage, excessive farm chemicals, or mining runoff. The pollution makes soil less productive, and dangerous elements like cadmium have turned up in rice crops.

    ➍ Chinese rivers have been vanishing since the 1990s as demand from farms and factories has helped suck them dry. Of the ones that remain, 75 percent are severely polluted, and more than a third of those are so toxic they can't be used to irrigate farms, according to a 2008 report by the Chinese government. According to the World Bank, China's average annual water resources are less than 2,200 cubic meters per capita. The United States, by contrast, boasts almost 9,400 cubic meters of water per person.

    ➎ Chinese consumers are losing trust in the nation's food supplyundefinedand will pay for alternatives. A spate of food-related scandals over the past half decade has made food safety the Chinese public's No. 1 concern, a 2013 study from Shanghai Jiao Tong University found. Judith Shapiro, author of the 2012 book China's Environmental Challenges and director of the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development program at American University, says she expects Smithfield pork to command "quite a premium" in China, because it's perceived as safer and better than the domestic stuff. Already, "US pork is particularly popular and commands premium prices, as it is viewed as higher quality due to our strict food safety laws," a Bloomberg Businessweek columnist reported last July.

    But what's good for pork exporters may not be good for the United States: More mass-produced pork also means more pollution to air and water from toxic manure, more dangerous and low-wage work, and more antibiotic-resistant pathogens. And that's just the beginning. In addition to ramping up foreign meat purchases, China is also rapidly transforming its domestic meat industry along the US industrial modelundefinedand importing enormous amounts of feed to do so. The Chinese and their hogs, chickens, and cows gobble up a jaw-dropping 60 percent of the global trade in soybeans, and the government may soon also ramp up corn importsundefinedbecause while Beijing currently limits foreign corn purchases, meat producers are clamoring for more. And where does a third of the globe's corn come from? You guessed it: The good old USA.

  • 26 Mar 2014 8:04 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Farm seeks OK on change to permit

    Dozens attend manure-application hearing

    By Ryan McGeeney
    Posted: March 26, 2014 at 5 a.m.

    Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RYAN MCGEENEY 
    Photo: John Bailey (from left), head of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s water division permits branch, discusses technical aspects of the nutrient management plan designed by C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea with Gordon Watkins of Parthenon and Dane Shumacher of Huntsville on Monday night in the Jasper Public Schools cafetorium. The department held a public hearing for a proposed modification to the permit.
     
    About 90 people attended a public hearing Monday for a proposed modification to the permit for a controversial Newton County hog farm.

    The farm, C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea, is the first and only operation in Arkansas to receive a general permit of its kind under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program. The farm has received intense public scrutiny since early 2013, when Buffalo National River Superintendent Kevin Cheri complained that an environmental assessment performed by the Farm Service Agency was “woefully inadequate.”

    The farm, which is permitted to house approximately 2,500 sows and as many as 4,000 piglets at a time, is located adjacent to Big Creek, about 6 miles from its confluence with the Buffalo National River.

    The farm’s owners have land-use agreements for approximately 630 acres of grasslands surrounding the main production facility, divided into 17 fields. Monday’s public hearing focused on a proposed modification to the farm’s permit that would allow operators to use a vacuum tanker truck to spray manure on three of the 17 fields. The permit currently allows the operators to use only a sprinkler system to spreadmanure on those fields.

    Karl VanDevender, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture in Little Rock, said there is typically no difference in outcome between the two methods of manure application. He said the farm owners’ request was likely a matter of practicality.

    “They don’t have sprinklers installed in that field yet,” VanDevender said. “There’s also a reality perspective; for irrigation to work, you’ve got to be able to pump water to a field from your waste pond. As the distance to the field increases, cost for maintaining linesgoes up. It’s an economic, practical issue.”

    Jason Henson, one of the farm’s co-owners, said Monday that he had requested the modification simply to give himself and his fellow operators more options for applying the manure to the fields.

    The fields in question, fields 7, 8 and 9, represent about 140 acres of land, much of which directly abuts Big Creek. Although the permit establishes “setbacks,” which forbid operators from applying manure within 100 feet of the stream banks, many critics of the farm worry that heavy rains on fields already saturated with phosphorus will lead to “run-off” in which large amounts of nutrients will be swept into area waters, potentially polluting both Big Creek and the Buffalo National River.

    By Monday afternoon, official public comments from about 30 people and entities had been made available through the Environmental Quality Department’s permit database. Many of the public comments exceeded the scope of the modification request, questioning the soundness of granting the permit in the first place.

    Ginny Masullo, a Fayetteville resident who has been involved in efforts to get the farm’s operational permit revoked since early 2013, saidthe proposed modification was of relatively little consequence compared with the potential environmental damage posed by the farm itself.

    “It’s very confusing to me why we’re having a public hearing for this one modification, when there’s more serious things to be considered about the original permit,” Masullo said, although she agreed to “respect the limitations” of the forum.

    Masullo said that in addition to the high levels of phosphorus already present in field 7, according to soil test results included in the farm owners’ nutrient management plan, possible air pollution from the farm’s two large waste storage tanks was also cause for concern.

    The accumulated waste from hogs inside the C&H Hog Farm facility is held in two open air lagoons, capable of holding several million gallons of waste, before being applied to the surrounding grasslands. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, both of which are known byproducts of hog manure, are classified as neurotoxins by the Environmental Protection Agency.

    Because much of Mount Judea, including its schools, sits directly downwind of the farm’s production facility, several people attending Monday voiced concern over not only the potential smell, but the potential health hazards of the farm, and asked that the Environmental Quality Department begin monitoringthe air quality in Mount Judea.

    “My understanding is that Arkansas doesn’t use air monitoring for agriculture,” Masullo said. “This isn’t agriculture. This is industrialized factory farming.”

    Katherine Benenati, a spokesman for the Environmental Quality Department, said Tuesday the department is considering whether to adopt air quality monitoring standards for agricultural operations.

    “At this point, we’re evaluating the possibility of a plan for air monitoring,” Benenati said. “We don’t currently have the equipment necessary to do such monitoring. We’re also evaluating the state’s air pollution law. There’s an exemption for agricultural processes and we’re researching the law to see how it’s been interpreted in the past.”

    Some commenters asked if there were other concentrated animal feeding operations thathave secretly applied for permits with the Environmental Quality Department. Agency Director Teresa Marks denied that there were any “secret” applications.

    There have been no other applicants for the general concentrated animal feeding operation permit after C&H Hog Farms, although Marks said there are about a half-dozen applications for individual permits under the state’s Regulation 5, which has been in use since 1992. According to the department’s online database, there are more than 260concentrated animal feeding operations with active Regulation 5 permits throughout the state, about three-quarters of which are hog operations.

    One of the few commenters to speak in favor of the proposed modification, and of the farm in general, was Jerry Masters. Masters, who is executive vice president of the Arkansas Pork Producers Association, has been a frequent defender of C&H Hog Farms, appearing at many of the public discussions about the facility to speak on behalf of the farm and its owners.

    “[The farm owners] followed every bit of the regulation for their [concentrated animal feeding operation] permit,” Masters said. “You may not agree with how the permit is done, but this hog farm followed every part of that regulation, and they went over and beyond.”

    Masters said that there is “zero scientific proof ”that land-applying fertilizer through a vacuum tank truck is any more dangerous than using a sprinkler system, and asked that the Environmental Quality Department approve the proposed modification to the permit.

    Benenati said that comments will now be reviewed by the department’s staff, and any comments and questions relevant to the proposed modification will be directly addressed and answered. Benenati said she could not provide a completion date for the comment review.

    Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/26/2014
  • 24 Mar 2014 1:37 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/28/waterkeepers-governor-declare-state-emergency-pig-deaths-ped/

    Waterkeepers Urge Governor to Declare State of Emergency on Pig Deaths from PED

    John Deike | February 28, 2014 10:02 am 

    On Thursday, Waterkeeper Alliance and North Carolina Riverkeepers called on the North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, Steve Troxler, to protect public and environmental health against the swine industry’s handling of the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus outbreak in the state.


    Commissioner Troxler has been urged to immediately inform the public about the scope of the hog-killing disease and health risks associated with improperly disposing of the infected carcasses. The groups demand the effects of the hog deaths be safely managed by the swine industry and supervised by state officials.

    “While we understand that PED cannot be directly transmitted to humans, the massive numbers of pigs that have died from this virus pose a significant concern to the public health if not disposed of properly,” said Gray Jernigan, North Carolina-based staff attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, in a prepared statement. “There is currently little to no government oversight of carcass disposal in the midst of this epidemic, and we are calling on the state to take action as authorized by law to protect the citizens of North Carolina.”

    They also asked Troxler that he petition North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to declare a state of emergency to help deal with the PED mortality problem.

    A state of emergency would allow state and local authorities, including county health directors, to inspect industrialized swine facilities where the PED virus has left millions of dead and dying hogs.

    Burying dead pigs in mass graves is common practice in mass casualty events, and Waterkeepers has raised concerns that areas of the coastal plain, where most infected swine facilities are located, stand a high risk of shallow groundwater and nearby waterway contamination.

    In some coastal waters, it already appears the transmission of bacteria and pathogens has affected drinking water supplies and recreational waters.

    Environmentalists suspect this North Carolina algae bloom is directly linked to mass diseased pig graves located just off the state's coast. Photo credit: Waterkeeper Alliance
    Environmentalists suspect this North Carolina algae bloom is directly linked to mass diseased pig graves located just off the state’s coast. Photo credit: Waterkeeper Alliance
    “I have seen first hand the unsafe disposal methods commonly employed on hog facilities. Hogs are commonly buried in low-lying areas adjacent to wetlands. They often sit out for days waiting to be transported for off-site disposal while blood and other fluids seep into the ground,” added Larry Baldwin, New Bern-based CAFO [concentrated animal feeding operation] Coordinator for Waterkeeper Alliance.

    The request to Troxler was delivered in a letter that included a Freedom of Information Act request for additional data on the full scope of the PED outbreak, including numbers and locations of affected farms, total numbers of dead animals, number and location of disposal sites and a full and public accounting of the state’s response to the PED outbreak.

    A 2007 resolution was also included by the Association of Local County Health Directors (ALCHD) expressing their concerns for the public health, and requesting appropriate reform of dangerous swine production practices. The swine industry sought to kill the resolutionundefinedan attempt that was rejected by the ALCHD.

    The organization also released a new video that shows the impact of the PED virus on North Carolina farms and human health, and illustrates unsanitary hog disposal methods.

    Facts you need to know about the PED epidemic:

    Industrial hog facilities across North Carolina have been struck by (PED), a fast-spreading virus that kills piglets.
    PED is believed to have originated in China and appeared in the U.S. last spring. Since then, the epidemic has spread to more than two-dozen states.
    In North Carolina, home to around 10 million hogs and the highest concentration of hog feeding operations in the country, nearly 100 cases per week have been reported, however, that number is most likely fairly low since farmer’s aren’t required to report new cases of PED.
    While PED cannot be transmitted directly to humans, the massive numbers of pigs that have died from this virus pose a significant threat to public health if not disposed of in a manner that is safe to the public. There is currently little or no local or state government oversight of carcass disposal.

    Demand that the state of North Carolina address the PED issue by signing this petition.


  • 24 Mar 2014 10:16 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    Arkansas Democrat Gazette

    Guest column
    A factory farm’s effect on tourism
     
    By GORDON WATKINS SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
    This article was published March 23, 2014 at 3:35 a.m.

    Arkansas is the Natural State, or at least that’s how it’s advertised. Over the years, millions of tax dollars have been spent promoting its pristine image, enticing residents of neighboring states to come and stay a while. The television commercials and print ads paint lush mountains and clear waters where happy people canoe, swim, fish, and hike. But what the commercials don’t show is a recent factory farm of 6,500 pigs that is now operating on a major tributary of the Buffalo National River. Each year at C & H Hog Farms, 2 million gallons of feces and urine from those pigs will be held in leaking lagoons and then spread over porous limestone terrain just a few miles upstream from the Buffalo.

    There is a bit of irony in all this. On one hand you have a state agency, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, luring visitors with the state’s beauty-while on the other hand you have another state agency, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, approving a large hog farm in the watershed of one of the state’s top attractions. How many people will come to our Natural State if our river is fouled with animal waste? Perhaps a better question is how much money does the state stand to lose?

    Tourism is a $6-billion industry in Arkansas, creating 60,000 jobs while generating $400 million in tax revenues every year. The Buffalo National River attracts more visitors than Crystal Bridges Museum and the Clinton Presidential Center. Last year, 1.2 million people enjoyed the national park while spending $44 million. Around 610 jobs are directly tied to the Buffalo.

    In comparison, let’s talk about the economics of C & H in the Buffalo watershed. The factory farm is funded with a $3-million taxpayer-subsidized loan. In addition, the state of Arkansas is spending $340,000 of taxpayer dollars to monitor pollution runoff from lagoons and spray fields. That price tag is expected to exceed half a million dollars within the next few years. In return for all this federal and state money, the farm operators are creating six low-paying jobs while threatening our environment.

    Recently the Governor’s Conference on Tourism was held in Rogers, where Gov. Mike Beebe got an earful. About 150 concerned citizens rallied outside the event in support of the Buffalo National River. At one point, Gov. Beebe addressed the crowd, saying he appreciated their concern, but there was little he could do until laws were changed. Inside, many convention delegates expressed their concern. State Tourism Director Joe David Rice told reporters that if pollution from the factory hog farm reaches the Buffalo it would damage the whole state. “It’s an iconic image of Arkansas,” Rice said. “Folks see the cliffs, the clear water, a lot of folks grew up skipping rocks on the Buffalo. They took their first canoe trip on the Buffalo, so it’s very important emotionally for most Arkansans.”

    Arkansas politicians must make some hard choices sooner rather than later. If they want Arkansas to be the Natural State, they can’t allow factory farms to pollute our best rivers. You can’t have it both ways and still expect tourists to flock to the state. The federal Clean Water Act requires states to monitor rivers and list those imperiled by agriculture and other pollution sources. In the Ozarks alone, the Illinois River is impaired. The White River is impaired. The Kings River is impaired. And Crooked Creek is impaired. If the Buffalo National River is the next casualty, then the state may have to come up with another feelgood publicity campaign to replace an imperiled multibillion-dollar industry.

    Gordon Watkins is the president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and owns a farm in Parthenon (Newton County).

    Perspective, Pages 83 on 03/23/2014

    Print Headline: A factory farm’s effect on tourism

  • 24 Mar 2014 9:06 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Dear Governor Beebe,                                                                                                               March 21, 2014



    Many concerned citizens attended the Big Creek Research & Extension Team's seminar led by Dr. Andrew Sharpley at the U of A on March 11, 2014.  Like most Arkansans, it was our understanding that the state-funded study was initiated to ease fears of C&H polluting nearby waterways, including the Buffalo River. But statements by Dr. Sharpley and others on the Big Creek Study Team seem to contradict the true goal of this taxpayer- funded testing and leave many questions.

    1.  How was this study initiated and by whom?

    AR Times, Sept. 5, 2013:  “Gov. Mike Beebe’s request for $340,510 to implement pollution testing and monitoring at the C&H Hog Farm in Mt. Judea”  "This will allow us to more thoroughly determine if unsafe levels of waste could reach Big Creek and the Buffalo River, and to take preventive action if that occurs."


    However, Dr. Sharpley stated publically that this study was initiated by Jason Henson and his cousins who contacted the Newton County extension agent to ask for help and then the state asked U of A to develop a research plan. He stated, "The mission was to help landowners comply with state and federal law."

    2.  Is the purpose of this study to protect the watershed and Buffalo National River, or is it to sustain this poorly sited facility?  While it may be the extension's job to help hog farmers figure out how to run their hog operation, should Arkansas taxpayers be asked to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that?

    Dr. Mark J. Cochran, Vice President for Agriculture at the U of A, testified that the plan was formulated to: 1) monitor the nutrients and bacteria resulting from the land application of liquid fertilizer (intensive monitoring to be conducted in three of the seventeen application fields), 2) test the impact of the farm undefined (sic) both the manure holding ponds and the application of liquid fertilizer undefined (sic) on water quality on and around the farm. 

    3. What is the benefit of performing "intensive monitoring" on a field where no waste will be applied?  

    Dr. Sharpley has stated, "I am there to do the science."  Science calls for absolute accuracy and integrity including reports. So why would Dr. Sharpley choose to use maps he knew to be inaccurate and spend 1/3 of the time and resources on a field that will not be receiving manure application?  If they are monitoring the nutrients and bacteria resulting from the land application of liquid fertilizer ("intensive monitoring will be conducted in three of the seventeen application fields"), shouldn't they be monitoring fields that WILL have waste applied?   He stated that the field in question will not have waste applied to it, but they plan to go ahead and continue their work in it for baseline--that doesn't seem to be the best use of taxpayer money.

    4. Why is the University not studying fields directly across from the Mt. Judea public school and/or fields which already have high phosphorous levels?

    AR Times, Aug.15, 2013 Beebe:  “State Funded Independent Monitoring of Hog Farm Doesn't Need Landowner Permission”.  The potential monitoring program would be led by Andrew Sharpley, a renowned soil and water quality expert at the University of Arkansas....The governor said that after researching the question, his office has concluded that the state has the authority to do so "with or without landowners” permission" from either C&H or owners of the spray fields.

    In fact, the written and signed agreement between the U of A and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality states that ADEQ will, "Assist the University in obtaining access to conduct the study if access is denied by any landowner."

    But at a public hearing March 11, 2014, Dr. Sharpley stated repeatedly (as he had previously) that he chose the three fields because he DID NOT have permission to access any of the other fields. Then it was revealed that due to inaccurate maps, one of the fields they'd chosen to study was not among those C&H had signed agreements to use within the Nutrient Management Plan submitted to ADEQ.

    On the same day Governor Beebe, when you came out and spoke to the people at the rally at the Governor's Tourism Conference, you said that none of the spray-field owners had been denied permission for U of A to access them. This is not the case.

    5.  Why isn't dye-testing in the sewage lagoons a priority, if monitoring to detect or prevent pollution is the goal?  

    The plan states that they would be  "testing the impact of the farm undefined (sic) both the manure holding ponds and the application of liquid fertilizer undefined (sic) on water quality on and around the farm."  The sewage lagoons are permitted to leak up to five thousand gallons per day per acre of surface area and according to an ADEQ geologist; the ponds are leaking approximately 3400 gallons of raw untreated sewage per day. Dye tracing would likely reveal where the 3400+ gallons of raw manure are disappearing to every day.

    6.  Why is the University of Arkansas consulting with the Farm Bureau and Cargill?  Isn’t this a conflict of interest?

    Cargill has repeatedly claimed they only own the pigs and have nothing to do with the ownership and operation of C & H Farms. But according to a recent Freedom of Information Act request (excerpts below), the U of A has been in contact with Cargill and Cargill has been providing input on the study. We find this alarming, unprofessional, and further calls into question the whether this study is biased and is scientifically compromised.

    From: Andrew N. Sharpley
    Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 10:29 AM


    …3. One concern centered on what Cargill felt was a large number of piezometers and Iysimeters on the farm, which would themselves lead to the preferential flow of nutrients applied in slurry to Big Creek.


    …4. Another concern was the export of any solids that might be produced by any solid-liquid manure treatment process would violate the permitted plan and require it to be reopened and re-permitted. An outcome Cargill did not want for obvious reasons.

     

     

     

    Governor Beebe, we kindly ask for answers to the above questions by April 1, 2014 and we request the following actions be taken by May 1, 2014:

     

    • 1.     Please obtain access to ALL of the 17 fields for Dr. Sharpley's Big Creek Research Team.

     

    • 2.     Please add a registered professional geologist (PG) from the UA Geosciences Department and a member of one environmental group to the UA Big Creek Research Team. We ask that the environmental representative serve as a "citizen monitor” and has access to all data and analysis and accompanies all scientific fieldwork. We believe additional oversight by the citizen monitor is needed since this team appears to not be using their time, effort and tax payer money appropriately and has not provided accurate data. After all this is Arkansas taxpayer money being used for this study.
    •  
    • 3.     Please provide a clear mission statement detailing the parameters and scope of the UA work so that it is crystal clear what activities are authorized.
    •  
    • 4.      Please ensure the Big Creek Research Team provides a quarterly accounting of the funds spent and that it is publicly available within 30 days at the end of each quarter.

     


    I know that this issue is important to you, Governor Beebe, and we appreciate your efforts. We know the degradation of our first national river is not something you want to be part of your legacy.

     

    Respectfully,

    The Ozark River Stewards 

    P.O. Box 791

    Fayetteville, AR 72702

    ozarkriverstewards@gmail.com

     

    The Ozark River Stewards are a group of concerned Arkansas taxpayers from Boone, Carroll, Madison, Marion, Newton, Searcy, and Washington Counties. Our focus is on maintaining a clean, healthy, robust, and sustainable environment for all Arkansans.
     

  • 24 Mar 2014 8:56 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Essential Paddling Guide: Can Hogs Be Farmed Safely Upstream Of Buffalo National River?
    Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on March 24, 2014 - 6:53am
     
    What threat does a commercial hog farm pose to the Buffalo National River?  

    Often the health of our rivers, lakes, and streams in the National Park System is endangered by something we don’t immediately see. Such is the case in Arkansas, where a hog farm less than 6 miles upstream from the Buffalo National River poses an industrial threat to the river.

    The Buffalo River travels through the heart of the Ozark Mountains in northwestern Arkansas, and runs beneath magnificent cliffs which at times extend nearly 700 feet above the river’s clear, quiet pools and rushing rapids. One hundred thirty-five miles of the Buffalo comprise the country’s very first national river, which attracts more than one million visitors each year who float the crystal waters, camp on the gravel bars, and hike the trails – generating $38 million toward the local economy.

    Now, a hog farm you can’t even see from the Buffalo might not sound like much of a threat. But when you realize this farm could have as many as 6,500 pigs generating an estimated 2 million gallons of manure a year, and that the manure would be spread on fields atop the region’s porous karst geology, well, you can sense the issue. The problem lies largely in that karst foundation. This type of geology is composed of easily dissolved rocks, such as limestone and dolomite. Via sinkholes and underground caves in the geology, groundwater can flow miles very quickly.

    The National Parks Conservation Association’s Southeast Region has been working closely with local river advocates on a campaign (and lawsuit) to both prevent damage from the C&H Hog Farms operation and to see restrictions established concerning future operations in the watershed. While the hog farm is up and running, you can help work to minimize its impacts on the Buffalo River by asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, and Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe to implement better protections for the national river’s watershed.

    Elsewhere in the Southeast, NPCA staff has been working in support of a petition filed by the State of Tennessee to protect more than 500 miles of ridge lines in the headwaters of the Big South Fork River that flows through the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area from mountaintop removal coal mining.

    Coal mining, along with being visually unappealing, can generate siltation and other runoff that pollutes rivers and kills stream life. Such an impact on the park would be felt particularly by those who visit to challenge themselves on the Big South Fork’s rapids.

    “This would have a huge impact on the water in the park,” says Don Barger, who heads NPCA’s Southeast Region.

    Hogs and coal mining are just two of the more obvious threats to our parks’ waters in the Southeast Region, which spans Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Much work also needs to be done to prevent landscapes from being lost to development.

    “Supporting land acquisition (through the Land and Water Conservation Fund) for critical parcels at the Obed Wild and Scenic River (and many others) is a perennial issue, especially in the East where development is rapidly impinging on the wild experience,” points out Mr. Barger.

  • 18 Mar 2014 11:38 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    ‘Shut down’ if it pollutes
     
    By Mike Masterson
    This article was published March 15, 2014

    Gov. Mike Beebe told several members at a protest last week that the controversial hog factory (that his state agency wrongheadedly permitted in the Buffalo National River watershed) would be “shut down” if it pollutes the precious Ozark stream.

    His remarks reportedly came in casual conversation with some of the estimated 150 Arkansans who rallied last Saturday at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Rogers to protest the home to as many as 6,500 swine in the watershed.

    During two hours together (dozens also joined the crowd in protest of SWEPCO’s plan to run a 52-mile-long high-voltage transmission line through the mountainous forests in Benton and Carroll counties), the gathering seemed appreciative that Beebe, at the request of former Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody, stepped outside to speak encouragingly.

    Lorel Hoffman of Mayfield said she even asked the governor to repeat that comment in front of several others, which he did. “I asked what the penalty would be if hog contamination was discovered in the river,” she said. “And that’s exactly what he said. It would be shut down.”

    Well, then, I say hooray for the governor!

    Beebe’s comment came shortly before he spoke at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Strangely, it wasn’t reported by the TV news crews on scene, nor did his remark make the news of the day.

    It certainly was one significantly newsworthy statement in my faded journalism books. The only other remark I’ve seen coming from Beebe’s office (since his own Department of Environmental Quality quickly and quietly allowed this factory) came from his aide who told me last summer that if Beebe “had his druthers,” he wouldn’t have issued the permit.

    So just to make sure I still have this continually twisting saga straight, let’s recap my opinions of this nationally publicized mess together: The Department of Environmental Quality, which operates with a gubernatorial-appointed director, permitted a large hog factory, without allowing sufficient advance public notification or hearings, in the worst possible location without requiring preliminary water-quality tests paid for by those seeking to profit from the venture (multinational Cargill Inc. and C&H Hog Farms).

    Neither the U.S. National Park Service nor the Department of Environmental Quality’s own office in Newton County say they were informed that this permit was approved until after the fact. The state agency’s director, Teresa Marks, told me that even she didn’t know her folks had issued the factory’s permit until it was a done deal.

    After finally reviewing the permit, the Park Service complained long and loud, saying about 40 flaws were discovered in its pages. Other agencies and state and national associations were none too pleased with the way the permit glided through without sufficient notification or warning.

    It’s important to remember that this pristine river in “God’s Country” accounts for about 40 million tourism dollars to the state annually. And since becoming the country’s first National River in 1972 it’s become a very popular recreational spot for so many people and their families across Arkansas. I’d guess the planet holds at least 190 billion spots more suitable for a mega-waste-producing hog factory.

    When the state and national alarms finally were sounded after the fact, the Department of Environmental Quality threw up its hands and squealed Oops, too late! There was nothing that could stop this since the owners had jumped through all required hoops.

    So former University of Arkansas geoscientist and professor John Van Brahana (bless the man) took it upon himself with fellow volunteers to quickly begin testing baseline water quality in and around this factory and Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo. Brahana shamefully has received no support or funding from the state or the university.

    Meanwhile, the governor did see to it that $340,000 was appropriated for the University of Arkansas (more state institutions) to conduct water-quality testing. But it turned out the factory owners and managers didn’t even have legal authority to list three of the waste-distribution fields cited in the permit. And apparently the Department of Environmental Quality had known that. Many then wondered (with that erroneous information confirmed) why the permit hasn’t been withdrawn.

    The Cargill-supported factory now had one of its many swine-feeder factories owned by a local family with a federally insured loan (being questioned in an ongoing federal civil suit) and regulated by a state agency that issued its permit, even though the governor said he wouldn’t have done that given his druthers and that the factory will be shut down if it fouls the water. What a mess.

    Moreover, taxpayers are footing a further bill for the study by our state institution of higher education to detect whether this state-approved hog factory has contaminated our only national river. What a great country where taxpayers back private hog factories supported by multibillion-dollar multinational private corporations using private family operators in grossly inappropriate tourism locations.

    One reader admirably summarized the feelings of (probably most) Arkansans this way: “I can’t think of an issue which is a larger embarrassment to the state’s regulators, and suddenly, a group from the university is there to accept the Legislature’s money, show their technological sophistication, and divert the attention.”
  • 17 Mar 2014 11:03 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
    From the Log Cabin Democrat, Conway, AR:

    Mosby: Hog farm and the Buffalo River
    Posted: March 15, 2014 - 11:23am


    Several aspects of the significant controversy over the hog farm near the Buffalo River disturb us.

    One, the foremost, is a potential threat to this Arkansas and national gem – the Buffalo.

    Two, the conflict of private entrepreneurship opposed to governmental regulation.

    Three, sneakiness by public agencies.

    Four, animal abuse and its definitions.

    In case you haven’t been paying attention to news over the last year or more, the topic is a large hog farm at Mount Judea in Newton County. It has a capacity of 6,500 hogs – sows and young ‘uns. The farm is near Big Creek which flows into the Buffalo about six miles downstream. Manure from the hogs, and this amounts to much, is channeled into “lagoons” then spread over nearby fields.

    You can see the threat to the Buffalo River – hog poop.

    This C&H Farm is a project of some long-time and well-regarded Newton County people, the Campbell and Henson families. They are being guided by and contracted with food industry giant Cargill, based in Minnesota.

    Naturally, all sorts of government approvals and permits are required for such an undertaking, and this is where much of the fussing is centered.

    A coalition of state and federal agencies granted permits without public notice. Some Arkansas legislature members steered a provision into law that did away with public notices for permits for concentrated animal feeding operations like the Mount Judea farm. The Buffalo National River says it did not know of the permit application. Nor did the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and a number of other agencies that should have an interest. Even the head of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) said she did not know about it, that a staff member granted the approval.

    The hog farm is in operation know although below that 6,500-pig maximum. Manure is being collected in the lagoons or ponds but not yet spread on nearby land, we are told.

    In this type hog farm, the sows are bred and kept in cages, with other terms used for description – gestation boxes is one. Very small areas. This raises the issue of animal abuse. Is it right to treat hogs like this? Is this hog farm any different from a chicken house where the birds never see the outside, never get to move around?

    This Newton County farm is the first of its type in Arkansas. People with expertise in the meat industry say it is the coming thing, that more are in the future because they are a more efficient and profitable means of producing meat animals.

    One thing we hope is also in the future is development of feasible uses for large amounts of manure. Yes, we know how animal wastes properly handled are great for gardens and crop fields. They sell the stuff in stores – aged and composted cow, horse, sheep, goat, rabbit manure. Think of the potential of tons and tons of hog manure – again, properly treated.

    But our thinking keeps returning to a couple of issues raised above.

    The Buffalo River should not be compromised. This hog farm is sitting on porous limestone underground called karst.

    And how in the world can anyone justify secrecy in the permit process? Certainly there would have been an uproar had the public heard about the proposed hog farm before permits were issued. That does not excuse the bypassing of proper notifications.


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