Equipment to vaporize pig manure has made its way to C&H Hog Farms after being tested at a hog operation in Conway County.
To ease fears that hog waste could pollute the Buffalo National River, C&H Hog Farms owners opted to work with Plasma Energy Group, based in Port Richey, Fla., which specializes in the technology called plasma arc pyrolysis. The technology essentially vaporizes materials in a closed loop.
After more than a year of saying that the technology would soon be used at C&H Farms, Plasma Energy Group tested it Oct. 9 at Sandy River Farm in Conway County, according to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. Cargill Inc., which owned Sandy River Farm at the time, offered that farm for the testing site. (In November, JBS USA Pork completed the purchase of Cargill's pork division.)
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality had personnel present for the Sandy River Farm testing and received additional data from testing on hog waste in Florida in September.
The department has yet to determine whether the company will need a state air permit to operate the waste-disposal method.
"We are still evaluating that," spokesman Katherine Benenati said in an email.
Air permits are required if emissions are expected to exceed certain levels.
Plasma Energy Group applied for an air permit on Sept. 18, 2014.
The department does not yet have the data from the Sandy River Farm testing and so has not formed an assessment, but the plasma arc pyrolysis equipment has been moved to C&H Hog Farms for additional testing.
Attempts to reach Plasma Energy Group representatives over the past two weeks have been unsuccessful. The group's website could no longer be found, and the company's phone number was disconnected sometime between Dec. 18 and Dec. 22. However, Florida Department of State Division of Corporations records accessed Dec. 22 indicate that the company is still active.
Jason Henson, co-owner of C&H Hog Farms, did not return voice mails asking about the vaporizing technology or the results of any testing.
The equipment was not in use at C&H Farms as of Dec. 18, Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh said in a letter to representatives of the Arkansas Canoe Club, the Ozark Society, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance -- four groups that have fought C&H Hog Farms' operation in Mount Judea.
"Once the unit is ready to commence operations at the C&H location, ADEQ compliance staff members will again be present to monitor and observe the unit," Keogh wrote in the Dec. 18 letter. "Subsequently, ADEQ staff will remain available to observe the unit throughout the refined testing process as well as when the unit becomes operational."
Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said his group was aware of the testing at Sandy River Farm before Keogh's letter. He said his group maintains that the Department of Environmental Quality should not let the testing go forward in an environmentally sensitive area without more data on any emissions the technology produces.
"We found it just unacceptable that ADEQ is letting such an experimental process go forward," he said.
C&H Hog Farms sits on Big Creek, 6.8 miles from where the creek flows into the Buffalo National River. The farm is the first large-scale hog operation in the watershed -- the area that drains into the river. The farm, which opened in May 2013, is permitted to have 2,503 sows and 4,000 piglets.
In 2014, the Buffalo National River -- the nation's first national river -- had more than 1.3 million visitors, who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.
Plasma arc pyrolysis is one of two waste-disposal methods that C&H Hog Farms has proposed using to address concerns about hog waste polluting the watershed.
The other method would add liners to some waste lagoons and place a cover on another lagoon that would capture gas emissions, send them through a pipe and incinerate them. A proposed modification to the hog farm's state permit that would let the farm use this method of waste disposal is before the Department of Environmental Quality.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Services Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration released a final reassessment on the environmental impact of the farm, concluding that the farm likely would have "no significant impact" on the watershed.
Metro on 12/27/2015