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Deadly Pig Virus Seen In Arkansas
27 Jun 2013 7:10 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
Deadly piglet virus spreads to nearly 200 U.S. farm site
Outbreak of deadly piglet virus spreads to 13 U.S. states
Wed, Jun 19 2013
By P.J. Huffstutter
CHICAGO | Mon Jun 24, 2013 5:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - A swine virus deadly to young pigs, and never before seen in North America, has spiked to 199 sites in 13 states - nearly double the number of farms and other locations from earlier this month.
Iowa, the largest U.S. hog producer, has the most sites testing positive for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus: 102 sites, as of June 10. The state raises on average 30 million hogs each year, according to the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
PEDV, most often fatal to very young pigs, causes diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. It also sickens older hogs, though their survival rate tends to be high.
The total number of pig deaths from the outbreak since the first cases were confirmed May 17 is not known.
Researchers at veterinarian diagnostic labs, who are testing samples as part of a broad investigation into the outbreak, have seen a substantial increase in positive cases since early June, when data on the PEDV outbreak showed it at some 103 sites nationwide.
The data was compiled and released last week by Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, Kansas State University and South Dakota State University.
The virus does not pose a health risk to humans or other animals and the meat from PEDV-infected pigs is safe for people to eat, according to federal officials and livestock economists.
But the virus, which is spreading rapidly across the United States, is proving harder to control than previously believed. In addition to Iowa, Oklahoma has 38 positive sites, Minnesota has 19 and Indiana has 10, according to the data.
PEDV has also been diagnosed in
Arkansas
, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.
Swine veterinarians, investigators with the U.S. Agriculture Department and others are trying to determine how the virus is spreading from farm to farm and state to state. Currently the focus is on the nation's livestock transportation system.
PEDV is spread most commonly by pigs ingesting contaminated feces. Investigators are studying physical transmission, such as truck trailers marred with contaminated feces, or a person wearing dirty boots or with dirty nails.
While the virus has not tended to kill older pigs, mortality among very young pigs infected in U.S. farms is commonly 50 percent, and can be as high at 100 percent, say veterinarians and scientists who are studying the outbreak.
The strain of the PEDV virus that is making its way across the nation's hog farms and slaughterhouses is 99.4 percent similar in genetic structure to the PEDV that hit China's herds last year, according to the U.S. researchers.
After PEDV was first diagnosed in China in 2010, it overran southern China and killed more than 1 million piglets, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal.
No direct connection has been found between the U.S. outbreak and previously identified outbreaks in Asia and Europe, say scientists and researchers.
(Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter. Additional reporter by Theopolis Waters.; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
U.S.HEALTH
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Comments (1)
Past ADEQ Head Weighs In
24 Jun 2013 7:08 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
CAFO a mistake
Mathis weighs in
Mike Masterson
The man who led our state’s Department of Environmental Quality under three governors says it was a big mistake to ever issue a permit to operate that concentrated animal feeding operation for 6,500 sows and piglets in the Buffalo National River watershed at Mount Judea.
Randall Mathis told me the permit to C&H Hog Farms Inc. never couldundefinedor wouldundefinedhave been approved had he still been heading the department. He said he did everything in his power during his 18 years with the agency to ensure the environmentally sensitive watershed was protected from contamination.
“Regardless of how well this farm is operated, it’s a serious mistake to land-apply hog waste in a karst area like this, ” he said. “I don’t understand why this matter hasn’t already been addressed and changed in order to protect one of the state’s extraordinary resource streams. This certainly wouldn’t have happened on my watch.”
Mathis retired from the agency in 2000 at age 70. He served the agency then known as the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology under Govs. Bill Clinton, Jim Guy Tucker and Mike Huckabee, and was its director when the name changed to the Department of Environmental Quality. Afterwards, he served on the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, which oversees the agency.
Mathis intimately understands the environment of our state and the treacherous and unpredictable nature of drainage in the limestone karst formations that underlie Newton County.
This “hog factory,” supplied and supported by Cargill Inc., was permitted in the fall of 2012 unbeknownst to the present agency Director Teresa Marks, the National Park Service, the state Health Department, Game and Fish and the Department of Environmental Quality’s own staff in the Newton County seat. No public hearings were held in Newton or adjacent Boone County where the Park Service has its Buffalo River office. Arkansas’ requirements for issuing such permits obviously are wholly inadequate and ineffective.
By the way, where have all our apparently mute elected “leaders” (with the exception of Warwick Sabin, Greg Leding and Kelley Linck) been hiding from such an important matter? Thousands of hogs got your tongues?
This farm is said to meet the requirements for permitting, built to withstand leakage and operated by a reputable and capable hog-raising family. None of that’s been an issue with me. My problem is a hog factory producing millions of gallons of waste land-applied near Big Creek, a major tributary to the magnificent Buffalo National River a few miles downstream and replenished by underground springs flowing through the karst.
I’m equally concerned, as are many others, that no dye studies were done on karst formations beneath the application fields, or the farm itself. Then there are those questionable approval documents and the gatekeeping processes that I see as deeply flawed that somehow allowed to place this factory where it is today.
Mathis has identical concerns. And he knows what he’s talking about. During his tenure, this straight-speaking man, who at 83 still tends the family farm near Arkadelphia, said he was dedicated to protecting our state’s streams designated as extraordinary resources, the queen of which being the Buffalo. He also said he had four deputies who each managed various agency divisions and with whom he met twice daily to stay up to speed.
Mathis issued a specific policy that said he’d be immediately notified of any proposals to locate a CAFO in karst regions of the Ozarks, especially the Buffalo watershed. More significantly, in 1992 he issued a moratorium on placing any CAFOs in the Buffalo watershed, period. Anyone else wondering in 2013 what happened to that protective moratorium and his policy? Who got rid of them? Why?
Today, Mathis can’t fathom how anyone in his former position could possibly not know their agency was issuing its first hog CAFO permit under the new general permit in the Buffalo watershed. “I would have shut that idea down immediately,” he said. “As I said, during my tenure we were especially sensitive to any possible pollution of the Buffalo.”
He told me he blamed the agency staff for bringing the permit to the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission for approval. “I don’t fault the commission as much as I do the agency’s director and deputy director for ever even presenting this to them,” he said. “They should have known better. It certainly wouldn’t have happened on my watch.”
He feels it’s a matter of time until hog waste will flow through the karst into Big Creek and the Buffalo. Such leakage would naturally elevate the coliform bacteria levels in the Buffalo. And that troubles him even more.
“Were I still at ADEQ , I’d call for a meeting of the commission and issue another moratorium on any hog CAFOs and other operations that need to be limited to prevent polluting this national river,” he said. “It’s just common sense.”
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
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In Search Of Leadership, by Mike Masterson
16 Jun 2013 9:13 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
In search of leadership
Mike Masterson
With Mike Beebe’s spokesman saying if he’d had his “druthers,” the governor wouldn’t have permitted that controversial hog factory in the Buffalo National watershed in Newton County, I wondered about the druthers of Sen. John Boozman and Rep. Steve Womack over the waste from 6,500 swine deposited on karst-riddled land within reach of the river.
Boozman’s office initially implied in a May letter to a constituent that any confusion involved with this farm’s location largely originated with the Buffalo National River Park’s Harrison office that should have known about the plan before the concentrated animal feeding operation for hogs was permitted.
That rationale confused me, especially since that Park Service office was one of many that (for whatever reasons) was not informed about permitting this hog factory. Among the other uninformed were the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which permitted the farm, that agency’s staff in Newton County, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arkansas Health Department.
To me, any fault for the way this quietly came to pass lay anywhere but with the Park Service and its Buffalo National River office. That’s the very agency that ultimately blew the whistle when it discovered what it called multiple inadequacies in this farm’s loan report prepared by the U.S. Farm Service Agency. We should be congratulating these folks.
Thankfully, the Republican senator’s original position has since broadened as the new facts detailing the extent of such widespread ignorance have come to light. Philip Moore with Boozman’s office says the senator now believes all the agencies involved could have done a much better job of communicating about the hog factory being placed where it now exists.
True, but that position seems relatively insignificant to me now that the factory is up and generating waste. It should be a matter of law that proposals for something this huge and potentially contaminating be ballyhooed far and wide. In fact, I still believe a U.S. Inspector General, either from Agriculture or the Interior Department, should examine why this wasn’t done and the fullest truths behind how the entire matter was handled from start to finish.
Instead of hindsight at this stage, I’ve been searching for signs of decisive leadership and common sense.
So I asked 3rd District GOP Rep. Womack for his opinions about the CAFO along Big Creek that flows into the Buffalo. After all, it was his own 13-term predecessor, Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, who in 1972 overcame multiple obstacles over years to protect this river.
Hammerschmidt (and yes, he’s still my uncle) displayed remarkable fortitude and leadership in hammering out a bipartisan agreement that made the Buffalo America’s first national river. As the 3rd District’s representative and a leader, John Paul saw the struggle through to protect and preserve the magnificent and majestic Buffalo.
In light of the unique heritage in the very office of public trust he holds, I believed Congressman Womack (and Boozman, his immediate predecessor) would have a special connection with any efforts to protect this sacred river. After all, Hammerschmidt pursued that goal above all else, certainly including the potential for contamination from swine waste.
The response from Claire Burghoff in Womack’s office: “Congressman Womack has heard the concerns of constituents on both sides of this issue and will continue to keep a close eye on it.” Say what? The congressman told me on Easter weekend that he would “become involved in the matter if he needed to.”
Naturally I wondered when and how such “need” might be determined and a translation behind “keeping a close eye” on the hog factory on behalf of constituents on “both sides of the issue.” I always believed every issue has constituents.
I do respect Womack and Boozman. But I was hoping for clear indications of leadership from our state’s top elected officials.
I didn’t expect fault-finding, “druthers” or eye-keeping. I can’t help but wonder what Uncle John would have done back in 1972 had he been noncommittal when the river’s future appeared at risk, or some constituents and influential contributors pushed back (which I assure you they did).
Had he straddled the center line, I don’t believe we’d have the Buffalo National River today. Many thousands feel the same way, which prompts me to share some more edited reader views:
From Kay: “If John Paul Hammerschmidt and Governor Orval Faubus could step up to the plate defending this grand river back in the 1960s, why can’t our Governor Beebe do the same now?”
From Jeff: “Why aren’t all the organizations fighting against this hog farm talking to Wal-Mart? A simple ‘forget about it’ from Wal-Mart to Cargill would end this. Alice Walton, who has poured so much time and effort into the local community, could with a whisper into the ears of Wal-Mart executives put a stop to things by Monday morning. “
From Joe: “If procedural matters don’t stop this project, something like [geoscientist John Van] Brahana’s proposal may be the only solution. If a good and detailed study could be done, the owners might have second thoughts about even operating the facility.”
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
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Beebe's Druthers? - Mike Masterson Op-Ed
12 Jun 2013 7:02 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
Beebe’s druthers?
On that hog farm
Mike Masterson
Iwondered how Gov. Mike Beebe feels about the risk that waste from the industrial hog farm at Mount Judea poses to the environment of the country’s first national river, a pristine tourism attraction and economic boon for decades.
After all, he is our governor. And after all, he is dealing with his appointee in Teresa Marks, who heads the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, which permitted this controversial hog factory in the Buffalo National River’s watershed. And he is a politician who’s proven himself adept at getting things corrected and accomplished in the public interest (even behind the scenes over a telephone). Am I right?
His aide, Matt DeCample, responded for Beebe: “If the governor had his druthers, the permit would not have been issued. However, the applicant followed all state laws and procedures and the governor or ADEQ can’t make arbitrary decisions to deny an applicant who follows the rules.”
DeCample explained that the best way to change this kind of unimaginable threat to a state treasure from happening again “is to strengthen restrictions for areas of particular concern, such as the Buffalo River watershed. However, such action needs to be legislative. ADEQ cannot change those rules on its own.”
How’s that for artfully wordsmithing one’s way around a superheated issue that isn’t going away?
So there you have it. The Buffalo National River watershed can be put at risk of potential contamination from God-awful hog waste because our elected legislators have failed to protect it through responsible lawmaking. And there’s not a thing the governor or anyone in power can do, regardless of his druthers. No calls to Cargill? Wal-Mart? No come-to-Jesus chats with his own Environmental Quality director? Nothing?
And it now appears Marks may not be the only relevant member of her agency not to know it had permitted C&H Hog Farms Inc. until it was a done deal. The employees based in the agency’s Newton County office at Jasper also were unaware until it was a done deal.
At least that’s what Don Nelms of Jasper, a former congressional candidate and successful Fayetteville businessman, said Jasper department employees told him the other day. He said they explained that they hadn’t known about the farm before their agency permitted it. “I was shocked to hear that,” Nelms told me.
If Nelms is right (and he usually is), it leaves me squealing yet again in the hazy realm of downright flabbergastion over the way this farm was smoothly guided through so many opened gates.
Nelms said he also found it hard to believe the contained animal feeding operation (supplied by the multinational corporation Cargill Inc.) would be permitted in the Buffalo National River watershed without the agency director, or the staff based in that county knowing it was being considered. And if they didn’t know, why not?
My own suspicions have been that this mega-hog factory was kept quiet and off the public radar as much as possible by powers that be until it was fully smoked and served. Not even one public hearing in either Jasper or Harrison beforehand? Really?
Isn’t it convenient when those in positions of public responsibility can simply plead plausible deniability, ignorance and/or blame others in the heat of controversy when the obvious right thing hasn’t (or isn’t) being done? And isn’t ours a fine example of ensuring accountability and embracing plain ol’ common sense in so many matters of public concern?
Speaking of common sense, Newton County’s quorum court fired off a response to the Fayetteville City Council’s April resolution against placing this hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed. The Newton County body, which I understand has at least one member who’s a co-owner of the farm, said it resented the “interference in the livelihoods of these families by the city of Fayetteville and other entities.” The premise of the objection is basically that anyone who lives outside Newton County should have no say about this national river, even if they and their families and friends enjoy it.
Tim Slape of Compton, who pushed for the court for its response to Fayetteville, offered what some from there might see as a brilliant argument when he was quoted in the Jasper weekly paper: “What I’d like to ask the quorum court to do is consider drawing up a resolution that states we’re against Bikes, Blues and Barbecue.” The reason, he said, is that the increase in motorcycle traffic passing through Newton County for the event puts an added stress on the county’s law enforcement and first responders.
Yet again, I find myself at a loss for words. Does that means if Slape had his druthers, he wouldn’t want bikers stopping in Newton County businesses en route to Fayetteville because he compares possibly contaminating every citizens’ national river with microbes from hog waste with bikers stressing local police?
Hmm. Well, valued readers, I believe I’ll just rest my case at the way this hog farm mess has been mishandled from the top down.
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
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Scientist Offers CAFO Karst Tests
10 Jun 2013 2:04 PM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
http://mikemastersonsmessenger.com/scientist-offers-cafo-karst-tests/
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National Parks Traveler Article
10 Jun 2013 11:45 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
National Parks Traveler
Updated: Groups Working To Prevent Hog Farm From Polluting Buffalo National River
Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on June 7, 2013 - 2:43am
Could a proposed hog farm not quite 6 miles from Buffalo National River contaminate the river?
Editor's note: This updates with comments from Cargill, clarifies that farm is operating.
An industrial hog farm that could produce more than 2 million gallons of manure and wastewater annually over porous karst geology roughly 5 miles up a tributary from the Buffalo National River was permitted based on erroneous information, according to a coalition opposing the project.
The "confined animal feeding operation," or CAFO, is proposed to handle upwards of 6,500 hogs a year. It is located close to Mount Judea, Arkansas, and near Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River.
“The ideal thing is to stop it. And the reason being, it’s in absolutely the wrong place, both in terms of being close to the national river, but even worst than that, it’s on karst formations," Jack Stewart, a spokesman for the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said Thursday during a phone call.
Karst 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. In the National Park System, karst geology is perhaps mostly visibly connected to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, but it can also be found along the Buffalo National River and at Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri.
For many who love the Buffalo National River, the farm run by C&H Hog Farms came as a great surprise earlier this year, according to Mr. Stewart. Though he said there's evidence that the project has been in the works for some time, possibly as long as five years, it only came to light this past January after construction had begun. Under the permit the operation applied for, he explained, there was no requirement that the state publicize the project's permit application in newspapers, and it never was mentioned in the local paper.
On Thursday, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association, and the Ozark Society sent notice to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Association that they will be sued unless they ensure that loan guarantee assistance provide to C&H Hog Farms complies with all legal requirements.
The groups assert that the loan guarantee to the hog facility hinges on a flawed environmental review process that violates the law and does not follow USDA’s own regulations.
Earlier this year the superintendent of the Buffalo National River sent a letter of his own, running 11 pages, to the Arkansas executive director of the Farm Service Agency citing nearly four dozen concerns the Park Service had with an environmental assessment conducted in connection with the hog operation's permit application. In opening that letter, Superintendent Kevin Cheri said his staff had reviewed the EA and found it to be "very weak from an environmental point of view."
Additionally, he doubted that the Farm Service Agency had followed its own regulations in compiling the EA, particularly in how it "related to the public communication standard." Somewhat to that point, Superintendent Cheri noted that while the EA identified the National Park Service as a cooperating agency in the matter, "Since we never received word of the document, this is clearly in error."
Among the additional concerns cited by the superintendent were:
* National Environmental Policy Act regulations were not followed in the EA's preparation;
* The EA failed to back up with evidence its contention that no endangered species would be harmed by the hog farm;
* An endangered species, the Gray bat, roosts in caves at Buffalo National River and could be adversely affected if pollution from the hog farm enters Big Creek;
* The EA did not study how the hog farm might lower property values resulting from their proximity to the hog farm or the loss of "income to the people who use the Buffalo River as a source of income for ecotourism";
* While the EA states that the operation would not impact public health, "We feel that FSA utterly failed to consider the impact of the swine waste on the residents of Mount Judea, the people living downstream on Big Creek, or the people recreating within Buffalo National River. We feel that the FSA statement is completely false because 'Public Health' was not adequately analyzed."
On Friday, a spokesman for Cargill, an international food conglomerate that has contracted with C&H Hog Farms for piglets, said the operation was properly permitted and engineered above and beyond state requirements.
"We're as concerned as everybody else is, we don't want to see any adverse impact to the Buffalo River or any other waterways," said Mike Martin. "We believe that with the type of engineering that was done to ensure that there wouldn't be an environmental impact from a release of manure, by preventing a release of manure from this particular farm, that the environmental safeguards that are in place, first of all they're state-of-the-art, and second of all, they go well beyond anything that's required."
In a 25-page response to Superintendent Cheri's letter, Linda Newkirk, the Arkansas executive director of the Farm Service Agency, rebutted each of his comments while also noting that she shared his "concern for protection and preservation of the Buffalo National River and all natural resources in the State of Arkansas."
In a footnote to her response, Ms. Newkirk's staff wrote that "Superintendent Cheri's letter is fraught with conjecture and innuendo and unsubstantiated conclusions which the Farm Service Agency need not respond, but will as best possible based on the Environmental Assessment ("EA") prepared by Agency personnel and a Finding of No Significant Impact ("FONSI"), both of which are supported by extensive information and documentation contained in the EA file prepared by State and Federal Agencies and previously provided to Superintendent Cheri by the Agency."
Furthermore, Ms. Newkirk's response pointed out that the notices of the draft permit application were published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on February 10, 2011, and April 18, 2011, that six public meetings were held, and that no one appealed the decision to issue the permit.
While the Park Service is considered a cooperating agency, her staff noted, there was no obligation to contact the Buffalo National River because the hog farm's location is more than a quarter-mile from the park's boundaries and is not visible from it.
As to Superintendent Cheri's contention that the EA did not adequately consider public health impacts from the hog farm, the FSA staff pointedly replied, "NPS is oblivious to the EA process and its statement in Paragraph 26 is without basis and reckless at best. Based on the ADEQ and NPDES Analysis and Permit as well as the CNMP, there is nothing to indicate that the proposed operation will significantly affect public health and safety, based on NEPA requirements."
In a biting conclusion, the FSA staff wrote that:
The Superintendent of the Buffalo National River, National Park Service, does not understand the Class II Environment Assessment process as used in the case of the C & H Hog Farms project and has failed to take the time to have someone explain it to him, despite the fact that he has had two (2) years to do so. Both the public and applicable cooperating agencies at Federal, State and local levels have received properly published notices, public meetings and the opportunity to contest the permit issued by ADEQ and Class II assessment by the FSA. The project has been properly planned, documented, coordinated, analyzed and permitted in accordance with State and Federal law and complies with NEPA and the EPA, so as to protect the American public, the citizens of Arkansas, and the Buffalo National River.
Back at Cargill, Mr. Martin said hog farming has been done for generations in northwestern Arkansas, seemingly without harming the river.
"There were many more hogs in that immediate area, historically, than there are now. There were just more farms that hundreds of hogs on them rather than having 2,500 sows in one location," he said. "And so, when those farms existed and didn't have the same type of environmental safeguards for the waste lagoons and for dealing with the waste and nutrient management plan, that didn't seem to be a concern.
"There seems to be more of a concern because there's 2,500 sows in one location, as opposed to many more thousands of sows that were spread out over about nine to 11 locations that historically existed in that area. We find that kind of baffling as to why the previous farms that were largely unregulated in terms of being older farms and not having the same requirements that farms do today for environmental compliance, were somehow not as impactful in the view of some people," he said.
Opposition to the hog farm goes beyond the groups that notified the USDA and SBA of their intent to sue if the permitting process was not reviewed and corrected. A. Keen-Zebert, PhD, a geoscientist, Arkansas native, and professor of geosciences at Murray State University maintains a website tracking the hog farm.
A University of Arkansas geosciences professor also has written state officials to point to the unsuitability of karst geology for this sort of operation.
"Although many of the regulations of the NOI (Notice of Intent) appear to have been met ... the heart of the regulations -- the questions of nutrient loading and waste leakage -- are weak and incomplete and do not give confidence that the NOI plans are adequate for preserving environmental quality," wrote John Van Brahana. "My personal perception is that this document does not satisfy the requirements. Coupled with what was perceived as an air of secrecy and a less-than-obvious need for rapid or immediate action, the response of ADEQ in dealing with this project has reinforced the overall feeling that the proposed C&H Hog Farm is a highly risky water-quality endeavor in a fragile, lovely location."
The Buffalo River, designated in 1972 as the very first "national river," flows through the Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas. The underlying karst geology has riddled the park's landscape with more than 300 caves. The river and its surrounding forests and campgrounds draw more than 1 million visitors a year, many who come expressly to paddle the river. The tourism results in a $38 million economic boost to the region annually, according to NPCA.
In a press release, Emily Jones, a senior program manager in the NPCA's Southeast Region, said the Buffalo National River must be protected "from the waste and pollutants spewed from an atrociously misplaced industrial facility.”
Among the problems with FSA's environmental assessment, the coalition said, was that notice of the EA was never published in a local newspaper in the vicinity of Mount Judea, and no public comments were received. The Park Service, the groups added, wasn't notified of the EA until two months after roughly $3.5 million in loans were guaranteed by FSA and SBA to the C&H operation.
Robert Cross, president of the Ozark Society, said he too learned of the hog operation only months after its loans were guaranteed.
“I then read the EA in detail. In my many years in industry and academia I have never seen such irresponsibility and negligence in carrying out a task having so much importance to the primary stakeholdersundefinedthe American public," said Mr. Cross in comments carried in the press release. "Although 600 pages long, it is all virtually meaningless and obviously prepared with the thought that there would be no review. I do have faith in the American justice system in that FSA and SBA will be called to account as a step to stopping the hog farm in the fragile ecosystem of the Buffalo National River.”
Mr. Stewart also said Thursday that another flaw of the plan is the proposal to spray hog waste onto fields near Mount Judea schools. "There are studies that have shown that asthma rates increase dramatically around these CAFOs," he said.
The coalition's release also said the hog waste, rich in phosphorous, could be washed downstream in storm runoff and lead to algae growth and other ecological impacts in the Buffalo River. "With this facility sitting atop extremely porous ground, the risk for contamination of the Buffalo River is exceptionally high, and this risk is at odds with the protections required for a national park," the coalition said.
“We believe that FSA and SBA violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Buffalo National River Enabling Act with their loan guarantees to C&H,” Marianne Engelman Lado, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest law firm representing the groups, said in the release. “FSA also egregiously violated their own regulations requiring local public notice and proceeded through its entire environmental review and decision-making process with absolutely zero public input.”
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Michael Dougherty's Democrat Op-Ed, June 9
10 Jun 2013 7:22 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
The Buffalo battle
MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
More than a generation ago, Arkansas residents and elected representatives joined hands to protect and preserve one of the last free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states. In 1972 the Buffalo River, the crown jewel of Arkansas, was designated America’s first national river. The pristine spring-fed waters that wind though the Ozarks are an environmental wonderland and the heart and soul of the Natural State.
For 40 years the Buffalo River has been essentially pollution free. But recently a state agency granted a permit that threatens its waters and the livelihoods of thousands of Arkansans. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality approved a factory hog farm on one of the river’s major tributaries. The C & H Hog Farms, a 6,500-pig facility (and its accompanying manure and urine), sits atop porous land in Newton County that drains into Big Creek and several miles later into the Buffalo. The hog farm is contracted by Cargill, a huge international conglomerate.
How did we get here? It’s a question that leaves all of us scratching our heads … even many elected officials. The permit was granted without notifying surrounding landowners, county residents, county officials, the Arkansas Department of Health, or the National Park Service. ADEQ simply placed a notice on its website for 30 days and another in the back of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The permitting process flew under the radar and Arkansans didn’t discover what had happened until nine months after the fact. Every state that surrounds Arkansas calls for local notifications and allows public hearings before granting a permit, but for some reason that did not happen here.
The impact of a factory farm of 6,500 pigs is very real. Even best management practices and an operator concerned with environmental impacts can’t prevent animal waste from leaching through the limestone geology or spilling over holding ponds. C & H is proposing to dump additional phosphorus-laden waste onto fields that already have all or more than they need. This could cause significant amounts of phosphorus infiltration to groundwater and possibly runoff. And based on soil maps, seven of the 17 C & H fields are occasionally flooded by Big Creek and its tributaries throughout the time period phosphorus would be spread and applied, an issue obscured by C & H’s permit application.
C & H Hog Farms will produce over two million gallons of manure each year. That’s 8,500 tons. In other states, year after year there are disasters:
In July 2009, a manure holding pond ruptured in Illinois, sending 200,000 gallons into a nearby river. The spill traveled almost 20 miles downstream, killing close to 110,000 fish.
In 2010, an Indiana hog farm operator sprayed 200,000 gallons of hog manure onto a field during rainy weather. The runoff killed 40,000 fish in two nearby rivers.
In 2011 in Iowa, a breach in a hog manure holding pond leaked into a nearby river, killing fish five miles downstream.
Imagine any of those scenarios happening in the Buffalo River watershed. As a national river, the Buffalo is entitled to the highest level of protection, and we shouldn’t risk contamination.
Cargill and the people behind C & H Hog Farms have a right to make a living, but so do the people who live and work in the Buffalo River region. In 2012, direct tourism expenditures in Arkansas totaled $5.7 billion.
The Buffalo National River is an anchor for tourism in the Ozarks where over a million people visit each year. They spend money in our stores. They rent our vacation homes. They eat in our restaurants. They fish and float our river. Last year the Buffalo River generated $38 million in revenue and created 528 jobs. In contrast, C & H Hog Farms will create only 10 jobs while generating tons of pollution and putting those other 528 jobs at risk. Tourism is a clean, locally sustainable industry that imports wealth and leaves behind no residue.
Because of this dire threat to our river and our state, we have joined forces to protect the Buffalo River and preserve the legacy passed down to us by our parents and grandparents. 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.
Hank Bates, a Little Rock environmental attorney and a member of our coalition, recently sent a letter to ADEQ Director Teresa Marks challenging the permit based upon the hog farm’s nutrient management plan and its many holes and inaccuracies. At a public meeting in Jasper, Marks said she would revoke, modify or suspend the factory farm’s permit if it contained significant omissions of relevant facts. There is no doubt that this is the case.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that Mr. Bates supplied to ADEQ , Director Marks recently responded by essentially ignoring the law and refuting nothing. Respected hydrologists and geologists recognize the risk to our treasured river and support our position. ADEQ seems to want to sweep this under the rug and move on.
In May, our organizations also sent a notice of intent to sue to the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its $4 million loan guarantee to the factory farm. The USDA action may violate the Endangered Species Act. The watershed is home to over 300 species of fish, insects, freshwater mussels, and aquatic plants, including the endangered snuffbox mussel, the endangered gray bat, and the endangered Indiana bat.
Listing all of the failures and misrepresentations surrounding the permitting process would take many pages. One thing is absolutely clear, though: The actions of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and USDA’s Farm Service Agency have threatened the livelihoods of thousands of Arkansans and the river’s fragile ecosystem.
The Buffalo River is a regional and national treasure as well as a vital part of our economy. There are thousands of square miles in other parts of the state that are much more suitable for factory farms.
We remain confident that this messy situation will soon be resolved expeditiously, based on the facts. The permitting process was inadequate. It did not receive proper public input. More importantly, it did not take into consideration the public health of area residents, the almost certain pollution of Arkansas’s crown jewel, and the economic threat to the region’s multimillion-dollar tourism industry.
Michael Dougherty is president of the Buffalo River Chamber of Commerce and member of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.
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Baxter Bulletin article, June 8
09 Jun 2013 7:46 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
Written by
FRANK WALLIS
Arkansas’ chief enforcer of environmental law has its hands full in Baxter and Newton counties.
A war of press releases, public commentary and rebuttals continues over a large new hog farm in the Buffalo National River watershed that some believe is a threat to the ecosystem of the Ozarks.
Little Rock attorney Hank Bates, whose clients include the Ozark Society, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association and the Arkansas Canoe Club, expects to meet today with Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks.
That’s just a sampling of those opposed to C & H Hog Farm Inc. in Newton County. The latest undefined Dr. John Van Brahana, a retired professor of geosciences for the University of Arkansas undefined explained his opposition Monday on university letterhead stationery.
The hog farm fight is just one on the north Arkansas front for ADEQ. The agency has filed a lawsuit against the six-county Ozark Mountain Solid Waste Management District, which includes Newton County, seeking a judge’s order to district directors to bring the NABORS landfill in north Baxter County into compliance with environmental and financial-assurance regulations.
Citizens for Clean Water complained Wednesday about a lack of action by ADEQ for cleanup of the Damco Inc. waste tire storage site in north Baxter County. The facility is approved to store 880 bales of tires containing 100 tires each. A recent inspection shows it contains 4,000 bales of tires.
Brahana’s complaint, directed to ADEQ director Marks, is couched in the the professor’s understanding of subterranean karst geology known as the Boone Formation underneath Newton County. The professor complains that underground water, including any from the hog farm, can move through porous karst formations as quickly as water flows above ground.
“I know of no active karst consultant who recommends that a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) be sited on karstified limestone, particularly up-gradient from so sensitive a natural resource as the Buffalo National River, with its direct-contact use by canoeists, fishermen and swimmers,” Brahana wrote.
The farm sits less than six miles from the Buffalo River, near its confluence with Big Creek.
Brahana’s letter was circulated on the Internet this week as an attachment to still another letter to Marks from Bates on behalf of the Ozark Society, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association and Arkansas Canoe Club.
Meanwhile, 30 days have passed since most of Bates’ clients, represented in Washington by law firm Earthjustice, sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Farm Services Agency because of the hog farm’s alleged threat to endangered species.
ADEQ granted a permit in August 2012 to C & H partners for concentrated feeding of up to 2,500 gestation sows and up to 4,000 piglets under roof, and storage of more than 2 million gallons of of manure, litter and wastewater. The mix is to be diluted and dispersed by liquid spray applicators over a 630-acre area, according to a 260-page permit application posted to ADEQ’s website.
The following statement is a common thread in press releases from organizations opposed to the farm:
“The C & H facility’s loan and guarantee were issued in the summer and fall of 2012. Because of a failure to notify local residents, however, the community in and around Mount Judea did not find out about the facility’s construction until this year. The lack of adequate public notice is just one of a number of egregious failures on the part of the state and federal government to ensure that this facility will not have detrimental impacts on the exceptional natural resources of the Buffalo River watershed.”
ADEQ claims to have held six public hearings in 2011 before adopting the general permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations that enabled C & H Hog Farms to borrow money through the Farm Service Agency to build and operate.
On May 15, Bates published a litany of alleged omissions, errors and misrepresentations in a nutrient management plan ADEQ approved for C & H Hog Farm based on what Bates says is an inaccurate soil test furnished by livestock feed vendor Cargill Inc. Bates says C & H’s plan to apply phosphorus-laden farm waste onto nearby fields already rich in phosphates will pollute Big Creek and the Buffalo and should mandate ADEQ to revoke the C & H permit.
Seven days later Marks responded by letter and roundly disagreed with Bates claims.
“A review of the data provided to ADEQ shows the correct soil type was provided and entered into the (phosphates) index spreadsheet,” Marks wrote.
Perry Wheeler, a spokesman for the National Parks Conservation Association, said Wednesday that Bates’ meeting today with Marks will be private, to discuss issues generally.
He said there’s no plan for a press release following the meeting.
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County With Controversial Hog Farm Tells Fayetteville To Butt Out
08 Jun 2013 11:27 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
County With Controversial Hog Farm Tells Fayetteville To Butt Out
Posted on: 9:25 pm, June 7, 2013, by Austin Reed and Shain Bergan
Newton County officials passed a resolution earlier this week asking Fayetteville leaders not to interfere in a hog farm in the county that detractors say may be harmful to the environment and the Buffalo River.
The Newton County Quorum Court drafted and passed a measure June 3 that “opposes the interference in the livelihood of these families by the City of Fayetteville and other entities,” the resolution states.
Fayetteville city councilmember Adella Gray shot back at Newton County officials Friday, saying that while she understands their need for autonomy, the possible pollution of the Buffalo River reaches farther than the confines of Newton County.
The issue started in April, when the Fayetteville City Council unanimously passed a non-legally-binding resolution opposing a hog farm aldermen said could pollute the Buffalo River. Although the farm is a few counties away, Fayetteville’s resolution claimed the 6,500-head hog factory farm near Harrison could poison the river and hurt Northwest Arkansas tourism revenue.
See 5NEWS reporter Austin Reed’s story
above to hear what Newton County officials and Gray had to say Friday about the newest development in the issue.
Fayetteville’s resolution opposing the hog farm brought out local protests against the farm, along with area farmers who, on the other side, believe the government already places too many restrictions on family farms.
The hog farm’s owner even held an event to allow the public to tour his farm, to see his pollution safeguards.
Members of the public on both sides of the issue spoke up during the public comment section Fayetteville’s council meeting on the matter in April. Helen Mitchell, a local realtor, said the possibility of pollution and water contamination is obvious and hog farms have decimated the environment of other areas outside of the state.
Alderman Sarah Marsh and Mayor Lioneld Jordan, the resolution’s co-sponsors, said they have heard from several citizens on the matter and realize it is important to them that the council do whatever it can to keep pollutants from hurting the Fayetteville area.
Beau Bishop with the Arkansas Farm Bureau told the council pollution is not likely, adding that the eighth-generation family heading the hog farm operation has taken out $4 million in loans to start the farm.
“This is their livelihood,” Bishop said. “All they’re guilty of is following the letter of the law.”
Alderman Justin Tennant told his fellow council members he did not feel right voting against the hog farm when so many farmers are already struggling to make a living because of increased regulations, but then cast his vote for the resolution opposing the farm.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency found the hog farm would have no significant impact on the local environment and the river, a claim the City Council’s resolution calls “hard to imagine”.
The resolution, drafted by Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams, states hog droppings have the ability to pollute the river and keep people from canoeing or hiking along the river locally.
“Hog excrement…smells very much worse than chicken or cow manure,” the resolution states. The state of Arkansas “would never allow a city of 6,500 people to just use lagoons that can easily overflow after a storm and flow into the nearby creek to store and ‘treat’ human waste.”
Bishop refuted the resolution, saying hog excrement does not have the same ill effects human excrement can have on the health of those nearby.
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Animal Waste Threatens America’s First National River, Public Health, and Arkansas Tourism
08 Jun 2013 11:24 AM
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Anonymous member
(Administrator)
Animal Waste Threatens America’s First National River, Public Health, and Arkansas Tourism
Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 15:28
Written by Press Release
Groups seek review of assessment that led to federal loan guarantee for industrial swine facility in the Buffalo National River Watershed
Mount Judea, AR--(ENEWSPF)--June 7, 2013. A coalition of conservation and citizen groups sent a letter of demand yesterday requesting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) take action to ensure that the authorization of loan guarantee assistance to C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea, Arkansas complies with the law. C&H is an industrial hog factoryundefinedunder contract with Cargill, an international producer and marketer of agricultural productsundefinedthat will have 6,500 swine when fully operational and is located on the banks of the Big Creek tributary that flows directly into the Buffalo National River. The groups assert that the loan guarantee to the hog facility hinges on a flawed environmental review process that violates the law and does not follow USDA’s own regulations.
The letter is intended to notify USDA and SBA that unless acceptable solutions are implemented by July 8, 2013, the groups will be forced to seek compliance with the law in court.
“We are compelled to move forward in our efforts to prevent this hog factory farm from proceeding without a thorough examination of the consequences,” said Emily Jones, Senior Program Manager, Southeast Region at National Parks Conservation Association. “The Buffalo River is the crown jewel of Arkansas’ natural beauty and our country’s first national river. We must protect it from the waste and pollutants spewed from an atrociously misplaced industrial facility.”
The 150-mile Buffalo River flows through the heart of the Ozarks in northwestern Arkansas and runs through rapids and quiet pools surrounded by massive multi-colored cliffs rising nearly 700 feet above the riverbed. The river’s watershed includes 700 species of trees and plants and provides habitat for 250 species of birds and a variety of wildlife. More than one million people visit the Buffalo National River each year to canoe, float the river, swim, hike, and camp in a spectacular and unspoiled setting, generating $38 million in local economic benefit for the region.
Among multiple errors and omissions, FSA’s environmental assessment incorrectly defines the acreage of the C&H facility, does not take into account nearby sensitive areas such as the Mount Judea Elementary School, and ignores the consequences of liquid manure running through the porous karst geology of the Buffalo River region.
In addition, the notice of FSA’s environmental assessment was never published in a local newspaper in the vicinity of Mount Judea, Arkansas and no public comments were received. The National Park Service (NPS) was not informed of FSA’s environmental review until February 2013 – two months after some $3.5 million in loans were already guaranteed by FSA and SBA to the C&H operation. In fact, in a subsequent letter to FSA, the Park Service proceeded to identify 45 problems with the environmental assessment and stated that it was “so woefully inadequate that it should immediately be rescinded.”
“It is incredible that no one, most especially those of us who live in the Buffalo River watershed, was notified about an industrial-sized hog farm so close to the river until after C&H was guaranteed millions by the FSA and SBA,” said Jack Stewart, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. “Considering the magnitude of the hog operation and the impacts to our health and the health of the Buffalo River, thousands of Arkansans would have fought the placement of this factory farm from the outset.”
“Due to the tragic lack of appropriate public notice, I learned of the granting of a loan to C&H Hog Farms with the loan guarantee by FSA and SBA several months after the fact,” said Robert Cross, president of the Ozark Society. “I then read the EA in detail. In my many years in industry and academia I have never seen such irresponsibility and negligence in carrying out a task having so much importance to the primary stakeholdersundefinedthe American public. Although 600 pages long, it is all virtually meaningless and obviously prepared with the thought that there would be no review. I do have faith in the American justice system in that FSA and SBA will be called to account as a step to stopping the hog farm in the fragile ecosystem of the Buffalo National River.”
A particularly glaring flaw in the environmental assessment is the hog facility’s Nutrient Management Plan (NMP), which contains significant errors, omissions and misrepresentations. C&H will dump additional phosphorus-laden hog waste onto fields that already have all, or more than, the phosphorus they need. Accordingly, if the hog facility proceeds, significant amounts of phosphorus will be available for runoff into groundwater, Big Creek and downstream to the Buffalo River, causing nuisance algae and significantly altering the ecology of the stream system. With this facility sitting atop extremely porous ground, the risk for contamination of the Buffalo River is exceptionally high, and this risk is at odds with the protections required for a national park.
Despite the numerous problems overlooked in the environmental assessment’s NMP, in the absence of any public opposition a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) was signed by the FSA on August 24, 2012. In December 2012, the FSA authorized loan guarantee assistance requested by Farm Credit Service of Western Arkansas on behalf of C&H for 90 percent of a $1,302,000 farm ownership loan. SBA guaranteed a separate farm ownership loan issued by Farm Credit to C&H in the amount of $2,318,136.
“We believe that FSA and SBA violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Buffalo National River Enabling Act with their loan guarantees to C&H,” said Marianne Engelman Lado, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest law firm representing the groups. “FSA also egregiously violated their own regulations requiring local public notice and proceeded through its entire environmental review and decision-making process with absolutely zero public input.”
In sum, Emily Jones at National Parks Conservation Association said, “The complete lack of public input to date, the inadequacy of the environmental review, and the severity of the potential environmental impact to Arkansas’ signature outdoor tourist attraction, make it imperative for the USDA to take corrective action and revise the environmental assessment and the decision to issue a loan guarantee to C&H Hog Farms.”
Earthjustice, Earthrise and local attorney Hank Bates are representing the Arkansas Canoe Club, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association, and The Ozark Society in sending the letter to the USDA and SBA.
Source: earthjustice.org
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