Defending the Buffalo

A long section of the Buffalo River got so foul this summer the park officials had to tell people not to swim in it. The river heads up in a wilderness area and flows into the park clear and clean, but midway through the park, it becomes green with slime because the state let a pig factory pollute it. Even the state of Arkansas does not call the polluter a farm. The state finally denied a permit for the hog factory to operate, but it may be years before it shuts down. Likely, the river will be polluted long after the operation is closed.

The Buffalo is part of the national park system. It belongs to all Americans. It wasn't just ignorant to pollute this beautiful asset, it is arrogant and selfish, and it reinforces an embarrassing stereotype. It says we are hillbillies. It is the equivalent, an a large scale, of emptying an ash tray on a parking lot or throwing dirty diapers under a picnic table.

In other states, this problem would not have occurred. Would the California legislature let a pig factory pollute the Merced River, which flows through Yosemite Valley? Would Wyoming let a polluter foul the Snake River where it flows through Grand Teton National Park? I could fill the rest of this column with examples. In other states, a national park is a treasure, an asset.

Well, we're different. People say, "Poor people got poor ways." In Arkansas, rich people got poor ways.

The river has many defenders, but unfortunately, none serve in our state Legislature. People all over the state have been expressing their disgust. The Legislature's reputation got fouled. Everybody has to serve somebody. But the Arkansas Farm Bureau?

JOHN CASEY

Fort Smith