Menu
Log in


Buffalo River Watershed Alliance

Log in

what's New This Page contains all Media posts

  • 16 Nov 2014 8:55 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Vaporized pig waste leaving some unease - Arkansas Democrat Gazette
     
    Farm’s plan short on data, state says

    By Emily Walkenhorst
    This article was published November 16, 2014

    A Mount Judea hog farm's new contract with a Florida company for an untested hog waste disposal method has environmentalists worried about the potential effect on the surrounding area, even as the farm and the company insist that the new method should ease fears of pollution.

    Sometime early next year, Plasma Energy Group of Port Richey, Fla., will test a machine designed to vaporize hog waste on the C&H Hog Farms site, founder and Plasma Energy President Murry Vance said. If everything goes as planned, the technology will eliminate the need for the pools of hog waste currently at the facility, he said.

    The farm sits on Big Creek about 6 miles from where the creek meets the Buffalo National River. Numerous studies are being conducted to determine the effect the hog farm has had on nearby waters since it first opened more than a year ago, but C&H and environmentalists have disagreed on what the results of the studies indicate.

    The vaporizing method has not been approved or rejected by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which has informed the company that it doesn't have enough data -- given that the method has not been tested before on hog waste -- to determine whether the company will need an air-quality permit to proceed.

    In an Oct. 7 email to Vance, the department recommended that the company test its method off-site and provide the agency with data once the testing begins.

    "Please be aware that if you choose to proceed with the trial on the C&H premises, you do so strictly and entirely at your own risk and expense," Air Division Permit Branch Manager Thomas Rheaume wrote. "If it is later determined that an air permit is needed, your company could potentially be subject to an enforcement action. This response in no way authorizes operations that would otherwise require an air permit."

    Because of the size of the machine to be used, Vance said he's not concerned about facing enforcement action. He said the emissions will be less than those of a commercial lawn mower.

    "There's not going to be an issue with air, and they know that," Vance said.

    He told the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission in October that he believed on-site testing was the best way to try out the technology.

    The company sent C&H information about its technology after learning about the farm in the news. C&H co-owner Jason Henson then called the company and noted his interest.

    Vance and Plasma Energy Group have been looking to expand into agriculture, and Henson and C&H have been looking for a way to address the criticism that the farm has incurred for nearly two years.

    Plasma Energy Group submitted an air-permit application to the Environmental Quality Department on Sept. 18.

    "It's more a call to appease the environmentalists than anything," Henson said.

    But environmentalists, chiefly concerned that a large animal operation is located so close to the Buffalo National River, have gone to the Environmental Quality Department and its appellate body -- the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission -- to express their concern that the technology is "experimental" and risky.

    "I liken it to putting lipstick on a pig, if you want to excuse the pun," said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.

    The proposed technology is an attempt to correct something that never should have been there in the first place, he said.

    "It's an unproven technology, and there's a lot more questions than answers," Watkins said.

    While Vance has said the vaporizing method is a "closed-loop" system with no discharge, Watkins and others have been skeptical. Vance said the skepticism is a misreading of the company's proposal.

    Plasma Energy Group has never previously attempted to vaporize hog waste, but Vance notes that the company has previously vaporized human waste and a combination of animal manure and bedding.

    The company started in 2013, but Vance said he has been using plasma arc pyrolysis technology -- typically the conversion of material into synthetic gas -- since 1992. In the case of C&H, Vance said the waste won't be turned into synthetic gas because the quantity of material won't be large enough.

    The method proposed for the C&H farm would break down the hog waste and vaporize it using electron discharge and some heat, then condenses the water vapor into "semi-pure" water that's put back in the plant, Vance said.

    "It doesn't leave the property," he said.

    C&H Hog Farms is a "large concentrated animal feeding operation" permitted to have about 2,000 full-grown sows and as many as 4,000 piglets at a time.

    The farm, granted a permit from the Environmental Quality Department in 2012, has operated for about a year and a half while it and the agencies that granted its operational permits have been under fire from environmentalists who say the amount of animal waste generated at the facility could pose a threat to groundwater and the nearby river.

    The Buffalo National River had more than 1 million visitors in 2013, who spent about $46 million, according to National Park Service data.

    In 2013, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and other environmental organizations filed a lawsuit alleging that loans guaranteed to the hog farm were given after an improper environmental assessment on the impact of the farm that violated several federal laws.

    U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. has determined that he will issue an injunction -- or a block -- on those loans, but the details of the injunction and a timeline for when federal agencies will be required to comply with federal law have yet to be determined.

  • 08 Nov 2014 11:40 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansas Democrat Gazette


    Plaintiffs urge block of loans to C&H farm

    By Emily Walkenhorst

    November 8, 2014

    Parties in the lawsuit over federal loan guarantees made to a Newton County hog farm in 2012 filed their recommendations this week for how an injunction against those loans should be administered.
    U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. asked the parties to submit their recommendations within 21 days of his October ruling that the environmental assessment done during the loan process was "defective."
    Marshall wrote Oct. 16 that the assessment was "too brief" and had "no chain of reasoning."
    The lawsuit, filed in August 2013, contends that Farm Service Agency workers ignored several federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, when they conducted the assessment and issued a "finding of no significant impact" for C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea.
    Attorneys for the plaintiffs, which include the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, urged the court this week to block the loans until the agencies are in compliance with the law, citing precedents in similar cases.
    The attorneys also suggested deadlines for complying with federal law, including quarterly reports on the progress. They recommended a 12-month review process for the National Environmental Policy Act, preparation of an environmental impact statement, and a 30- to 90-day consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Endangered Species Act.
    Attorneys for the defendants, which include several federal agencies, asked that the court not impose a deadline on the analyses and not specify how the agencies should conduct their reviews, such as requiring the impact statement.
    "The interests of the public and of the environment are better served by allowing the Defendant Agencies to take the time needed to properly comply with both Acts, rather than creating a situation where the need to conduct a thorough analysis is overshadowed by the specter of failing to meet a judicially imposed deadline," the defendants' attorneys wrote.
    New information could prompt additional analysis and public comment, delaying final decisions, the defendants' attorneys wrote. No evidence exists of an "appreciable risk of harm" to the plaintiff's interests during the time it will take for agencies to comply, they wrote.
    Blocking the federal loan guarantees provides the plaintiffs with all the relief they sought in the injunction, the defendants' attorneys wrote.
    Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that deadlines were allowable by law and cites similar cases in which timetables have been established for compliance.
    They additionally argued that the court should require an environmental impact statement if the loan guarantees may significantly impact the environment, based on precedent.
    C&H Hog Farms is a large-scale concentrated animal feeding operation. The farm, which is permitted to house approximately 2,000 full-grown sows and as many as 4,000 piglets at a time, is the first facility in the state to receive a general permit from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality for the operation of a concentrated animal feeding operation and the management of liquid animal waste.
    The farm and the various agencies responsible for granting its owners operational permits have drawn the ire of environmentalists who say the amount of animal waste generated at the facility could pose a threat to groundwater and the nearby Buffalo National River. The river is the nation's first national river and attracts more than 1 million visitors annually and generated more than $44 million in revenue in 2012, according to the National Park Service.
    The lawsuit affects the loans the farm has received but does not directly challenge its operation.
    Metro on 11/08/2014

  • 02 Nov 2014 7:53 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansas Democrat Gazette

    Colorful credit
    The Buffalo in fall
    By Mike Masterson

    Did you see that an article published by USA Today lists our Buffalo National River as America's second most spectacular national park for autumn scenery? The magnificent Buffalo was rated only behind North Carolina and Virginia's Blue Ridge Parkway.
    Sure hope Cargill Inc. of Minnesota appreciated the story which said the Buffalo region offers "one of America's most scenic rivers ... lined with breathtaking oak and hickory trees."
    Arkansans, and growing numbers across the nation, know multinational Cargill sponsors and supports the controversial large hog factory called C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea. That factory regularly sprays raw hog waste from as many as 6,500 swine across pastures along or around the Big Creek tributary of the Buffalo, which flows six miles downstream.
    I asked Gordon Watkins, who heads the always-active Buffalo Watershed Alliance, for his thoughts on the latest honor for the river, which became the first national river in 1972 thanks in largest measure to legislation by former 3rd District Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison.
    Watkins said the newspaper's second-place national rating "is a feather in the cap of the Natural State and serves to reinforce the importance of the Buffalo not only to the Ozarks and Arkansas, but to the nation as a whole."
    "It also points to the serious mistake made by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality when it allowed a 6,500-head swine CAFO to be placed where it poses a very real threat to that national jewel. Dr. Van Brahana's recent dye-trace studies have shown multiple direct underground pathways from the waste-application area to the Buffalo, so this is not a hypothetical, what-if contention.
    "The risk is real. I'm sure if sections of the river were to be closed for human contact due to elevated E. coli levels, our second-place ranking would change. Maybe then we would rank high on the Top 10 list of 'Most Needlessly Damaged National Treasures.'
    "Surely there are plenty more appropriate locations for such an industrial facility that would not threaten what is an economic engine for our poor corner of the state and a recreational attraction for people across the nation," he said.
    To that I'd add: Surely.

  • 30 Oct 2014 7:41 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    National Hog Farmer


    Arkansas Imposes Moratorium on Hog Farm Permits
    Time allows review by Arkansas State Legislature on future animal feeding operations in Buffalo River Watershed


    Oct 30, 2014

    Source: The Baxter Bulletin, Mountain Home, AR
     

    A moratorium on permits for hog farms in Arkansas gives that state’s legislature time to review future livestock operations. This is a second moratorium that has been issued on new permits for large or medium hog farms in the Buffalo River Watershed.

    This moratorium may remain in force up to 180 days and it stems from a permit issued by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality for the C&H Hog Farm near Mount Judea, AR. The moratorium was enacted to allow for the initiation and potential adoption of rule changes that would prohibit future medium- and large-confined animal operations, as well as concentrated animal feeding operations for swine.

    According to Administrative Law Judge Charles Moulton, of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission (APCEC), the moratorium extends the previous one put in place on May 6. That moratorium was set to expire Oct. 22.

    Moulton said the moratorium deals with reviews of APCEC regulations that deal with liquid animal waste and control systems, and animal feeding operations.

    Jerry Masters, executive vice president of the Arkansas Pork Producers Association, says that Minnetonka, Minn.-based Cargill undefined which holds the contract on the C&H Hog Farm undefined had put its own moratorium on more facilities in the Buffalo River Watershed within the last six weeks.

    The delay is to give the amendments to the regulation undefined intended to prevent future large-scale hog farms from opening in the watershed undefined time to go through review. The review would be done jointly by the Arkansas Legislature and House Agriculture and Health Committee, which currently is scheduled for Dec. 5. After that, the changes would go to the rules committee.

    Masters says the C&H Hog Farm is well above permit standards, adding the Environmental Protection Agency has visited the site recently and found no violations.

    Moulton says the joint committee meeting on the amendments takes place after the rules committee, set for the last meeting before the Legislature ends regular session for the year, and in order for the joint committee to review the rules before the end of the regular session, there would probably have to be a special meeting called of the state Legislature. After those two reviews, third parties would be asked for input.

    C&H Hog Farm is situated about 6 miles from the Buffalo National River in Newton County. The farm was designed for a capacity of 2,500 sows and not more than 6,500 swine undefined a combination of sows and piglets  under roof at one time.

     

  • 29 Oct 2014 10:51 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/experience/weekend/lifestyle/2014/10/29/10best-national-parks-in-fall/17995483/


    10Best: National parks in fall

    David and Kay Scott, 10Best.com 10:17 a.m. EDT October 29, 2014

    America's national parks offer stunning autumn scenery from coast to coast.

     
    1. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina and Virginia. Changes in elevation produce beautiful colors.

    2. Buffalo National River, Arkansas. One of America's most scenic rivers is lined with breathtaking oak and hickory trees.

    3. Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio. Oak, hickory, maple and poplar trees fill this park with color.

    4. Grand Teton, Wyoming. See the aspens and cottonwoods of this spectacular Western park.

    5. Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee. Trees at various elevations show peak colors at different times.

    6. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. Dense forests become a painted wonderland with reds, golds and purples.

    7. Mount Rainier, Washington. Bushes and shrubs in the park's sub-alpine region produce beautiful colors.

    8. Rocky Mountains, Colorado. This rugged park's trees are striking.

    9. Shenandoah, Virginia. See fall colors on the 105-mile-long Skyline Drive.

    10. Zion, Utah. Zion Canyon becomes a ribbon of gold in autumn.


  • 29 Oct 2014 9:03 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    A team of outside experts was hired by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team (BCRET) to take a critical look at the research protocols and methods being implemented on C&H Farm. 


    This Peer Review team submitted their report on May 19, 2014. This report pointed out certain weaknesses and included specific recommendations for improving the monitoring study. 


    The Peer Review Report is followed by the BCRET response which includes explanations for why they chose not to implement some of those recommendations. 


    The Report and Response may be found on the Documents and Videos page under the University of Arkansas Big Creek Research Team Documents section.

  • 26 Oct 2014 2:03 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arkansas Online, October 26, 2014


    Intimidation tactics

    Threats reported

    Mike Masterson



    Threats fueled by heated emotions over the hog factory in Newton County have increased of late along Big Creek at Mount Judea. Two volunteer water-quality monitors, one of whom was with two members of the press, reported being harassed in separate instances while stopped along public roads near C&H Hog Farms in the Buffalo National River watershed.
    University of Arkansas emeritus geoscience professor John Van Brahana has been working independently with a team of diligent volunteers for more than a year to measure water flow and quality around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo. The creek runs adjacent or very near fields at Mount Judea that are being regularly sprayed with raw hog waste from the factory our state has permitted to keep up to 6,500 swine.
    Brahana’s dye testing has proven that groundwater from this area rapidly flows through the fractures created by karst limestone formations just beneath the surface. And that dye already has been discovered in some private local wells.
    And now, the respected former professor (who recently had his own car tire slashed while it was parked in Newton County) said he’s been told that two volunteers were recently accosted on public roads by angry men. As a result, he’s reminded those in his group never to travel alone in the area.
    “Here’s the story as I perceived it,” he said. “A local, apparently unbalanced and extremely agitated supporter of the hog factory followed a team member (along with a two-person TV crew), blocked their passage in several instances on public roads, screamed, yelled, and demanded they cease photographing.
    “The story is similar in style to other confrontations that occurred previously, except this man is reported to be more than just a ‘mouthy’ individual, and based on the perception in the local community, willing to inflict a beating on any who he perceives to have done something he doesn’t like,” Brahana said.
    Included in his diatribe, Brahana said, the agitated man warned the volunteer he knew who she was “and where she lived.”
    “The threat, ‘we know who you are, and where you live’ reminds us that the ‘burn ’em out’ mentality of those whipped into a frenzy … should be viewed as dangerous, unstable, and are to be politely avoided.” I’m told burning down homes is not a new approach to controlling those neighbors you don’t like in parts of Newton County, and reflects the fear that generates reluctance on the part of the canoe outfitters, other tourist-related groups, and small-operation real farmers have in speaking out about the pig factory.
    Brahana implored his team: “No matter what our emotions, we should be nonconfrontational, which we have always been. I encourage all who spend time in the field to fully document these adversarial encounters so we can share these in letters to Cargill and their suppliers along with the local sheriff and the county judge, who, by the way, is a relative of the owners of the factory and directed his staff to [continuously mow around] protesters’ feet as they gathered last year near the Newton County Courthouse.”
    Another volunteer was in the process of filing a complaint with Sheriff Keith Slape at midweek after reporting that she, too, was accosted by a man on a county road near Mount Judea.
    “I’d just passed an older red pickup truck and then met a spray truck in the road,” she said. “I turned around and started following the spray truck, which then stopped. I also stopped and the red truck sped up and pulled in front of me, blocking my access forward.
    “The guy in the pickup got out, screaming at me to not take any photos. I locked the doors, rolled up the windows and backed out. He ran to his truck, turned around, and tried to block me from leaving,” she continued. ” I was barely able to turn around in the road between the barbed-wire fence and his car. He started pounding his fist on my car! It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared or angry.”
    Sounds as if Sheriff Slape could well find himself a bit busier than normal if these kinds of needless threats and intimidation continues against law-abiding citizens.
    Meanwhile, Brahana urged his volunteers to stand united. “I encourage all of you to keep the faith, and to obey all laws and property considerations. We likely will see more bullying. But what we are striving for is a noble goal.
    “Facts are facts,” he added. “Truth … needs to be shared openly with an informed community. Intimidation, fear, and the manipulation of politics for special interests need to be openly discussed.”
    Does it ever, professor. Sure hope this factory’s sponsor, Cargill Inc. of Minnesota (and its PR department), is paying attention to what’s unfolding here since it is inexorably linked in the court of public opinion to any consequences.


  • 21 Oct 2014 9:23 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Buffalo brouhaha

    Gone whole-hog


    By Mike Masterson

    This article was published today at 3:14 a.m.

    Legal and political aromas from that misplaced hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed at Mount Judea continue to waft across Arkansas.

    U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. ruled the other day that he'll file an injunction against the questionable and cursory manner in which loan guarantees were awarded to C&H Hog Farms.

    I'd say the judge is not only insightful but right on the money with his findings in the civil suit. The word hamstringing leaps to mind.

    The judge wants the U.S. Farm Service Agency to finally complete the detailed environmental assessment of this factory it should have done initially. The hog factory, supported by Cargill Inc., now must specifically describe potential negative effects on surrounding wildlife habitats including the country's first national river.

    Dr. John Van Brahana and his team of volunteers, along with the National Park Service, the National Parks Conservation Association, and other interested parties such as the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Canoe Club and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, have been learning a lot of late about water flow and quality around and below this factory at Mount Judea.

    I'd say this injunction means folks at the Farm Service Agency have one heck of a whole-hog task ahead.

    Contained in the suit from some of those groups is the allegation that the agency (a key official of which is married to a relative of the factory's owners) ignored several federal laws when it deemed the hog factory would have "no significant impact" to the environment and national river.

    Perhaps it made that assessment from its offices in the federal building at Harrison, located just down the hallway from the National Park Service, whom the Farm Service Agency failed to notify of this farm's proposed existence as it approved the loan.

    All part of the unbelievable way all our supposedly responsible bureaucratic gatekeepers quietly pushed this factory through in the state's worst possible location without adequate public notice or hearings. They even failed to notify, or seek input from, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

    The agency's staff apparently had no problem (alongside the Small Business Administration) issuing $3.4 million in federal loan guarantees so the family that owns the factory could purchase property and equipment in this watershed that draws a million visitors each year who spend more than $44 million.

    Judge Marshall found it was abundantly evident that the agency's environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact are defective, according to a news account by reporter Ryan McGeeney. "They're too brief, and there's no chain of reasoning. There's a 'cursoriness' about them," said Marshall.

    The environmental assessment featured 600 pages of pre-existing documents, which included the hog factory's nutrient management plan and copies of other existing permits. It's an impressively thick stack that reveals little, if nothing, about potential impact from millions of gallons of raw hog waste routinely applied to land fractured by limestone and chert just beneath its surface.

    Hannah Chang of Earthjustice, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, called this factory permitted by our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to raise and nurture as many as 6,500 swine "unprecedented" in the Buffalo National River watershed.

    She emphasized that the unprecedented size of this hog factory in the karst-laden environment meant every agency connected with it should have been more diligent in their scrutiny and calculation of possible effects to the watershed.

    In McGeeney's story, Chang said: "All [the defendants'] arguments rely on the central idea that they have no discretion, no control and no redress. We will show that's simply not true."

    Lawyers for each side were given 21 days to submit final briefs recommending what should be included in the injunction order. It's unclear what effect, if any, the judicial injunction could have on the factory itself, as the owners have been in full operation for about a year in this deeply controversial location.

    Then there is the letter sent last week by GOP former Arkansas congressmen Ed Bethune of Little Rock and John Paul Hammerschmidt to leaders in the state legislature.

    Both men asked the legislature to review and support proposed reforms to state regulations to allow the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to extend a temporary moratorium on any new large-scale corporate hog operations in the Buffalo River watershed. The commission is to consider extending the ban at its Friday meeting.

    As a 13-term congressman, Hammerschmidt, of Harrison, shaped and introduced the legislation that made the Buffalo the country's first national river in 1972.

    Meanwhile, I've heard from a French documentarian in Arkansas to produce a special on the effects of big, corporate agriculture on America's politics and environment (including Cargill's involvement in the Buffalo's watershed).

    Good to see the French paying attention to the now internationally newsworthy threats to preserving the purity of our country's first national river.

  • 20 Oct 2014 10:03 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    http://kuaf.com/post/new-swine-factory-farm-faces-scientific-scrutiny


    Three different teams of scientists are monitoring Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River, to assess if a new industrial swine farm situated upstream is polluting the watershed. One team, led by noted UA Geoscientist Emeritus Dr. Van Brahana, has released a second round of findings. Jacqueline Froelich visits with him in her studio.


Buffalo River Watershed Alliance is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization

Copyright @ 2019


Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software