Arkansasonline
An application for a hog farm permit will return to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to be reconsidered during a new public-comment period, the agency's appellate body decided Friday in a unanimous vote.
The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission's order reopens consideration of the permit for the 6,503-hog operation that sits within the Buffalo River's watershed. The effect of C&H Hog Farms on the country's first national river has been the subject of debate since the farm opened in 2013.
Under the order, the Environmental Quality Department must reissue its final decision to deny C&H Hog Farms' permit as a draft decision. Then it must accept public comments for at least 30 days before reviewing the comments and issuing a final decision.
The agency denied C&H Hog Farms' new operating permit in January, 21 months after the owners applied. The department took nearly a year before the denial to read and respond, as required by law, to the more than 19,000 public comments submitted on the permit application.
After Friday's decision, some in attendance speculated that a new permit decision could take another year and likely would be followed by another appeal process.
The order found that the department erred in not issuing its denial of C&H's new operating permit as a draft decision. The department had issued a preliminary approval in February 2017, a decision that public comments were accepted under.
C&H's attorneys argued that draft decisions are required for new positions taken by the department on whether a permit should be approved.
Administrative Law Judge Charles Moulton agreed, issuing an order in July recommending that the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission approve his finding.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality disputed Moulton's conclusion, contending that Ark. Code Ann. 8-4-203(e)(1), which was cited by both parties as the basis of their arguments, only asks the department to issue a final decision after a comment period, which the department did.
Commissioners approved the recommended order Friday with no vocal dissent and after little discussion. The meeting, which began at 9 a.m., was over by 10:30 a.m.
"It was procedural," said Bekki White, a commissioner who is also director of the Arkansas Geological Survey.
Commissioner Gary Wheeler, chief medical officer at the Arkansas Department of Health, agreed. The order did not require commissioners to decide on the merits of the case but instead asked for a decision on a "straightforward procedural question," he said.
Moulton told commissioners before the vote that he predicted, barring another procedural issue in the C&H permitting process, that "unfortunately, yes, the merits are going to come back to us." The comment drew laughter among some commissioners.
C&H's owners referred questions about Friday's vote to their attorney, Chuck Nestrud.
Nestrud had submitted a request July 30 for an alternative minute order to be adopted instead of the one drafted by Moulton that was approved Friday. Nestrud's proposed order asked Moulton to write that the department's "decision to deny the Regulation No. 5 permit without public notice is reversed, and this matter is remanded to ADEQ."
Ultimately, commissioners decided to incorporate the use of the word "remand" but not "reverse."
Commissioner Chris Gardner, a Jonesboro attorney, said he believed the word "reverse" signified a decision on the merits of the department's decision to deny the permit, rather than a decision on the procedure surrounding the denial.
"It's just different," Nestrud said after the vote, adding that it was not what C&H wanted.
Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said he was not surprised by the commission's unanimous vote. He said that in his experience, votes tend to align with the recommendations of the administrative law judge.
The group's attorney, Richard Mays, said they had opposed sending the permit back out for comment but said the decision is acceptable. After Moulton issued his recommended decision, Mays said resolving the procedural issue at hand may be best for everyone in the long run so that it doesn't get brought up in future appeals.
Watkins said his group plans to resubmit the more than 100 pages of comments it submitted in 2017 on the department's initial approval of C&H's permit application. The group also plans to submit more comments based on new information, including the department's recent finding that part of the Buffalo River and nearly all of Big Creek are impaired for dissolved oxygen or E. coli.
"I think we've got a lot of good information," he said.
C&H Hog Farms operates on Big Creek, about 6 miles from where the creek drains into the Buffalo River. The farm is the only federally classified medium or large hog farm in the area.
The typical hog farm doesn't need to renew its permit or apply for a new one without making major modifications because such operations are permitted under Regulation 5. But C&H is the state's only hog farm permitted under another category, Regulation 6, which is an expired program that issued permits that last only five years before requiring renewal.
C&H is operating under its Regulation 6 permit, which expired in late 2016, as it awaits a final resolution on its Regulation 5 permit application.
A 14.3-mile segment toward the middle of the 150-mile river, upstream and downstream of the confluence with Big Creek, is impaired. The amount of pathogens exceeds water-quality standards in that area. The rest of the river is not listed as impaired.
About 15 miles of Big Creek also is categorized as impaired, again because of pathogens, and the final 3.7 miles of the creek before it flows into the Buffalo is listed as impaired because of abnormally low dissolved oxygen levels but not for the presence of pathogens.
The source of the pathogens is unknown, according to the department's report.
Nearly 1.5 million people visited the Buffalo River in 2017 and spent $62.6 million supporting 911 jobs, according to the National Park Service.
A Section on 08/25/2018
Democrat Gazette
Permit application for hog farm in Buffalo River’s watershed to be reconsidered
by Emily Walkenhorst
A contentious hog farm permit application will return to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to be reconsidered during a new public comment period, the agency’s appellate body decided in an unanimous vote Friday.
The order reopens consideration of a 6,503-hog farm in the Buffalo River’s watershed. The effect of C&H Hog Farms on the country’s first national river has been the subject of debate since the farm opened in 2013.
Under the order, the department must reissue its final decision to deny C&H Hog Farms’ permit as a draft decision instead. Then it must accept public comments for at least 30 days before reviewing the comments and issuing a final decision.
The agency denied C&H Hog Farms’ new operating permit in January, 21 months after the farmers applied. The department took nearly a year before its denial to read and respond, as required by law, to the more than 19,000 public comments submitted on the permit application.
After Friday’s decision, some in attendance speculated that a new permit decision could take another year and would likely be followed by another appeal process.
NWAonline
C&H's owners propose new hog operation near Arkansas River
The owners of the Buffalo River watershed's only large-scale hog farm are proposing to build a 10,374-hog operation near the Arkansas River and Cedar Creek in Franklin County, according to an application submitted to environmental regulators.
The farm is at least the second proposed by the owners of C&H Hog Farms within the past year for the state's northwest corner near Arkansas River bottoms. Both have met opposition from people concerned about smell and the potential effect on recreational activities, and both have been proposed in flood-risk zones.
C&H's owners previously discussed starting a large hog farm in Hartman Bottoms near the Arkansas River but have not submitted an application.
The proposal for Coon Tree Farm, which would sit along Coon Tree Road, would have three barns, three indoor concrete-lined holding ponds for manure that would be spread on 1,923.4 acres of row crop land owned by dozens of other people in Franklin and Johnson counties.
Philip Campbell, who is listed as president of the proposed operation on the application submitted to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, did not return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.
The application is for a Regulation 5 permit, which sets parameters for operations based on the individual site and proposed activity. The permit never expires.
Officials with the Arkansas Farm Bureau said Thursday that they were aware of discussions to open a hog farm in Franklin County but had not been involved in them. They said a farm with more than 10,000 hogs would be "pretty big" but said they did not know how it compared in size with other hog farms in the state.
The Department of Environmental Quality declined to comment on whether the farmers needed to submit any more materials for their proposed operation but said the permit is being reviewed. Typically the department has 120 days from the application date to reach a preliminary decision to approve or deny the permit. That decision then goes out for a 30-day public comment period, after which the department is supposed to review and consider the comments before reaching a final decision. The farm's application was submitted July 23.
The farmers are renting the Franklin County land from Rick and Susan Hurst, according to a document submitted to the department.
The storage capacity for the hog manure pits is for 365 days, according to the application. The department's minimum requirement is 180 days.
Campbell expects that 292,851 cubic feet of manure would be produced in 180 days. It's unclear how many pounds of manure that would be.
The bottoms of the manure holding pits likely would be about 12 feet above groundwater, according to the application.
The soil in the area is Caspiana silt loam and Bruno loamy fine sand, Campbell said in the application.
That area of Franklin County is a special flood-hazard area, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's flood maps. The lowest barn floor will be built 3.5 feet above the flood plain's flood elevation, according to the application.
The farm is about 3,000 feet northwest of the nearest residence, business, church or school and about 388 feet north of an unnamed tributary of Cedar Creek, according to the application.
Altus Mayor Veronica Post said she has heard concerns from several dozen people in the past few months as word spread that the area could become home to a large-scale hog farm. People stopped her in the grocery store and at church or called her at work, she said.
"With respect to those citizens, I do believe it would have a negative or detrimental effect on the environment," Post said.
The concerns often have to do with odor or the possibility that during regular rainfall manure could run off the property and into the Arkansas River, where people swim, boat and fish. Post said one neighboring farmer called and was staunchly opposed because of environmental concerns.
"It's a beautiful resource, it's a beautiful area," Post said.
Post said she hadn't heard from supporters of the farm but noted that those who oppose plans are often the most vocal.
Franklin County Justice of the Peace Brian Lachowsky of Altus said he expected to be able to smell the farm from his home on Arkansas 186, about 4 miles from where the farm is proposed.
The farm would be about 5.6 miles southeast of central Altus.
Lachowsky is worried that a strong odor or manure runoff could harm tourism at wineries or activities near the farm.
Other farms in Alix Bottoms -- the area just south of Alix and just above the Arkansas River -- are row crop farms, Lachowsky said. He didn't know what types of fertilizer those farmers use, whether it's commercial fertilizer or animal waste.
He said he was concerned about the potential for a manure leak.
"The unknown is often very scary, and obviously they have a valid concern," Post said, referring to people who have contacted her about the farm.
Post and Lachowsky said they had not seen the farm's application so they couldn't comment on specifics in the proposal.
In a review of Department of Environmental Quality data and records last year, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette found that hog farms spilled manure into Arkansas waterways at least 16 times between 1996 and 2017, according to state inspections. More than 50 fish were killed in a Pope County pond as the result of a spill in 1998, but the spills were not as large as some that have occurred in other states.
Records don't always detail follow-up inspections, but in some cases the causes of the leaks were addressed right away.
Spills, leaks, overflows and unauthorized discharges were noted 339 times in the 1,332 inspection violation records analyzed by the newspaper. That figure does not count multiple spills listed in a single report, because multiple spills often were not recorded as separate spills.
In the past 10 years, records indicate that leaks have occurred less frequently as the number of hog farms has diminished.
By Tony Hilliard Special to the Democrat-Gazette
Posted: August 23, 2018 at 4:30 a.m.
The Buffalo River has been a part of my life since 1965, from Boxley to Buffalo City. For the past four years I've noticed the increased algae in the Tyler Bend area of the river. Last summer while canoeing to Gilbert, I just cried because the algae was by far the worst I had ever experienced in my 50-plus years of going to the Buffalo. It's worse this year.
Our national treasure is being vandalized.
The algae blooms are caused by excess nutrients in the water. The only source of those nutrients is animal manure. The math is simple, based on recent articles in the Democrat-Gazette. The writers noted that C&H Hog Farms, located on Big Creek, is built for 6,500 hogs, and an adult hog produces four times as much waste as an adult human. The National Park Service states that the Buffalo River has about 1.5 million visitors each year, creating almost 1,000 jobs and bringing in almost $100 million in revenue.
Assume all the tourists are adults averaging two days on the river (most are one-day trips). Assume all poop and pee only in or near the river with 100 percent of their waste entering the watershed. (The Park Service provides great facilities, so this is a huge overstatement.) Do the math: 1.5 million visitors times two days each equals 3 million days of manure in the Buffalo watershed.
Now, assume the hog farm averages 5,000 hogs, not 6,500. Assume these hogs are young with average manure only twice that of a human. The hogs pee and poop within the watershed year-round and the manure is spread within the watershed. That equates to 3.65 million equivalent days of manure going into the Buffalo River, compared to 3 million days of manure from all the tourists on the Buffalo River.
By itself C&H more than doubles the nutrient load on the Buffalo River from "outside" sources. Further, C&H concentrates that manure from the Big Creek confluence downstream, stealing that section of the Buffalo from us.
Nothing else changed within the Big Creek watershed which could contribute to this level of algae.
On July 27 a church group borrowed my trailer and canoes to float Tyler Bend to Gilbert on the Buffalo, 31 miles downstream from Big Creek. They encountered thick algae the entire trip.
On Aug. 4, because of that group's experience below Big Creek and the July 26 Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality alerts about the risk from algae downstream of Big Creek, I took our church youth group upstream to float Hasty to Carver. Big Creek enters the Buffalo right below Carver. The river was low but we encountered no green algae until we reached the Carver pool, when clumps of it began to appear. The extreme algae blooms on the Buffalo are directly tied to hog manure spread along Big Creek.
C&H stated the manure plan would not harm the watershed. They were wrong. C&H has followed their manure plan with no reported failures of their system, yet we have the July 26 Department of Environmental Quality alert and algae clogging the river. The extreme algae bloom was not on the Buffalo River five years ago. The only real change is the hog farm.
There is no way to fix the current hog farm except to end its operation. The Ozarks within the Buffalo River watershed are too porous to contain the manure spread on the fields. We have the mess below Big Creek to prove this point.
C&H has a right to build what they want on their property, but they do not have the right to steal or vandalize their neighbor's property. Pollution from C&H Hog Farms is stealing our property, our national treasure, and vandalizing it.
I beg the Department of Environmental Quality to uphold its denial of C&H's permit to operate the hog farm within the Buffalo River watershed. I beg Cargill and Farm Bureau to withdraw their support for any hog farm in the watershed. They are endangering a significant number of tourism jobs and revenue by this shortsighted support of a hog farm in the wrong location.
To the members of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, I'll take any of you on a canoe trip from Hasty to Mount Hershey so you can see for yourself. It's an 11-mile float. You can see the Buffalo above and downstream of Big Creek and the hog farm. You don't need any help seeing the problem, it's very evident. The editor has my contact information.
Both sides are invited. Name the date or do it without me; just do it before the weather cools.
I love that river.
------------v------------
Tony Hilliard of Little Rock is a lawyer at Ramsay, Bridgforth, Robinson and Raley LLP law firm in Pine Bluff.
Editorial on 08/23/2018
Groups say Arkansas' impaired-waters plan falls short
State regulators' proposals do not go far enough in addressing impaired waters in the state, representatives of environmental groups told the agency during a public hearing Friday.
Representatives of groups focusing on the Buffalo River and its related rivers, and the Illinois River and its tributaries, argued for requiring some of the waters to have total maximum daily load studies that would place restrictions on the facilities that discharge into those waterways.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which created the impaired-waters list, will accept public comments until mid-September before finalizing the list and sending it to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for final approval.
A representative with Oklahoma-based Save the Illinois River Inc. argued that some Illinois River tributaries listed in previous years should be listed in 2018 and asked the department to provide data showing that the tributaries did not need to be listed.
About 14 miles of the Buffalo River and about 15 miles of its Big Creek tributary are listed as impaired on the basis of water samples that showed high E. coli levels, according to Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those waterways are listed as impaired, but they are under Category 4b, which means they don't need total maximum daily load studies because of other work being done on them. In their case, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality determined that a watershed management plan for the river that was completed this year is a sufficient substitute.
A Category 5 listing carries the requirement of a total maximum daily load study.
During a 15-minute question-and-answer period, Caleb Osborne, the department's associate director in charge of the Office of Water Quality, told about 40 people that total maximum daily load studies take years to do. The watershed management plan and the river commission are active and can do work alongside other advocates now, he said.
"So we're going to know if our work gets us there or not," he said, referring to C&H Hog Farms, a 6,503-hog facility along Big Creek about 6 miles from where the creek meets the Buffalo River.
The department will do another list in two years, Osborne said.
Many disagreed with the department's choice.
While some said they liked the watershed management plan, they noted that the plan is not regulatory and can't address permitted facilities that people may believe are contributing to water degradation.
Therefore, it's not sufficient for ensuring the river's improvement and eventual removal from the impaired-waters list, said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.
"Are we supposed to ignore the 800-pound hog in the valley?" he said.
Watkins noted that the Buffalo River is an extraordinary resource water and deserves more protection.
Jessie Green, executive director of the White River Waterkeeper, mentioned that the department does not have an implementation plan for anti-degradation, or rules designed to prevent any degradation of extraordinary resource waters and other waters under the Clean Water Act. Under the act, rivers like the Buffalo are supposed to be protected from any degradation, and potential degradation is supposed to be considered when permitting a facility.
Other commenters referred to a study on how water flows into and out of Big Creek, which they believe supports their theory that C&H Hog Farms is contributing pollution to the creek and then the Buffalo River.
A dye-tracing study conducted in 2014 by retired University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, professor John Van Brahana showed the path of water under the karst terrain near the Buffalo, they said. Water flowing in the Buffalo's watershed doesn't follow the expected rules of water flow, meaning water can move upstream through cracks in the ground.
Research conducted by the Big Creek Research and Extension Team shows that C&H Farms is not the source of E. coli, said John Bailey, director of environmental regulatory affairs for the Arkansas Farm Bureau, after Friday's hearing.
E. coli levels are higher upstream from the farm, and soil filters any manure spread on the farm's land, Bailey said. Recent research has not shown high E. coli levels at drinking water wells on the farm's property, he said.
The state department stated that the reason for the high E. coli levels, noted in the list as "pathogens," was unknown.
Ed Brocksmith, a founder of Save the Illinois River, told the department that the state should get numeric standards for nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen that are of concern on the Buffalo and the Illinois rivers. The area where the Illinois River flows into Oklahoma has phosphorus levels that are higher than Oklahoma's numeric criteria.
In July, Save the Illinois River sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency objecting to its approval of the department's 2016 303(d) list, arguing that no change in total phosphorus had been shown to justify the removal of Osage Creek and Spring Creek in the Illinois River's watershed from the Category 5 list.
The EPA said in its approval of the 2016 list last year that those creeks could be Category 4b because of existing efforts to improve the Illinois River.
Those creeks were not listed as Category 4b in the 2018 draft.
By Mike Masterson
Posted: August 18, 2018 at 2:06 a.m.
Since our state’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) has decided to shirk its fundamental responsibility by using proxy groups without regulatory authority to simply monitor the ongoing contamination in portions of our Buffalo National River and its major tributary, Big Creek (both classified as impaired), I’ve decided to volunteer my assistance.
As an amateur, I’ll nonetheless try to help identify the potential primary source of the documented low dissolved oxygen levels, excessive algae from too many nutrients, and the health threat from pathogens and bacteria living inside those blooms.
The way things stand, the department has proposed classifying Big Creek and the Buffalo under a draft impairment category 4(b) reported to the EPA. Had it classified these streams differently, it would be required to identify and rectify the sources of impairment and address them. By opting for draft category 4b, the department conveniently allows itself to avoid determining the source.
Deep within the records of one of those monitoring groups, (the Big Creek Research and Extension Team out of the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture) I found numbers that might well point to the obvious primary cause.
First, though, I researched the effects of excessive levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, both present in swine and other animal waste, when too much of either winds up in streams and lakes. Phosphorus is essential for plant life. Yet when an abundance of this fertilizer winds up in natural waters, the stuff can speed up a process called eutrophication (a reduction in dissolved oxygen in affected waterbodies caused by an increase of mineral and organic nutrients).
Excessive nitrogen in natural waters can cause severe illness in infants and domestic animals. Common sources include septic systems, animal feed lots, agricultural fertilizers, manure, industrial waste waters, sanitary landfills, and garbage dumps.
In excess, phosphorus and nitrogen will stimulate algae growth, which then reaches critical mass and dies. That condition ties up available oxygen in waterbodies, leading to dissolved oxygen depletion called anoxia, which is harmful to aquatic life.
That sure sounds to me like what’s happened to Big Creek and our beloved Buffalo National River to land each on the latest list of impaired streams.
My left eyebrow raised even higher when I got to page 83 of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team’s spring 2018 report. It belatedly revealed monitoring results from waste-spray fields at C&H Hog Farms.
The recorded data for 2015 showed Field 5a near Big Creek, where raw swine waste is regularly spread, lost 77.3 percent of the applied phosphorus to runoff, while Field 12 lost 45.9 percent. The runoff amounts for nitrogen were measured at 52.9 percent for 5a and 24.8 percent for Field 12.
That’s a lot of fertilizer spilling into Big Creek and through the Buffalo watershed. And that’s only the documented runoff from two of at least 16 spray fields. It doesn’t account for the unknown amounts of these contaminants that have been seeping for years into groundwater that steadily flows through the watershed’s fractured karst (limestone containing many fractures, voids, caves and solution channels) subsurface.
As I understand it, the original plan, approved by the Department of Environmental Quality, was for vegetation to absorb the raw-waste nutrients applied to the spray fields. But what happens when the constant overload of fertilizer overwhelms the fields’ ability to absorb and utilize it is then followed by a storm event?
The stuff not absorbed by plant life inevitably either runs off into Big Creek or soaks into the subsurface to drain rapidly downhill (proven by dye testing) through the karst for miles toward the Buffalo six miles downstream. It also becomes bound to those subsurface soils and stored as “Legacy P” (phosphorus buildup) to then be steadily released over many years.
Andrew Sharpley, the UA professor who directs the Big Creek team, has written about how storm events cause runoff from fields loaded with excessive nutrients. For example, a 1999 report in which he was the lead author says in some agricultural watersheds, 90 percent of annual algal-available phosphorous drainage originates from only 10 percent of the land area during just a few relatively large storms.
The report cites the example of more than 75 percent of annual water discharge from watersheds in Ohio and Oklahoma occurring during one or two severe storms, contributing over 90 percent of their annual total phosphorus exports.
It gets even more ominous. In another article, Sharpley wrote that phosphorous buildup in soils can require up to a century to return to normal.
In other words, the excess phosphorus C&H applies today (and over five years) can be expected to continue leaching into Big Creek and the Buffalo. For me, this means even Best Management Practices (BMPs), which Sharpley and the Watershed Management Plan tout as solutions, may only exacerbate the problem.
A person close to the matter offered a clear overview: Sharpley’s earlier research tells us what’s going on at C&H. C&H fields are receiving more phosphorus than the pasture grasses can use (approximately 80,000 pounds in excess per year, according to C&H’s Nutrient Management Plan). These fields were already saturated with the stuff. When we have only a handful of severe storms each year, up to 90 percent of the annual load of phosphorus is transported to Big Creek and through the watershed.
Earlier research shows it’s happening, he further explained. In 2015, the Big Creek team managed to capture such an event and a large percentage of the phosphorus and nitrogen C&H applied to those fields was shown to have run off into Big Creek. However, most fields are not monitored, nor are the amounts of nutrients entering the subsurface drainage network. Nutrients are increasing downstream from C&H and, lo and behold, Big Creek and the Buffalo are now impaired.
Hopefully this helps identify a potential primary source of our national river’s serious problem. Now, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, what will you do to resolve these disgraceful impairments?
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
KUAF Public Radio
Buffalo National River Issues Hazardous Algae Alert, New Independent Algae Survey Team Forms
By JACQUELINE FROELICH
The new alert, which regards a significant algae bloom in the Buffalo National River, warns visitors to avoid primary contact with algal infested waters. In the meantime, a survey team led by independent scientist Teresa Turk this month will assess the extent of algal growth in the waterway.
Listen to the full broadcast here
No recuse for Buffalo
The state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission did not demand Gov. Asa Hutchinson's February 2018 appointee, Mike Freeze, recuse from a vote regarding C&H's 6,500-head hog farm. Curiously, Administrative Law Judge Charles Moulton didn't either.
Referring to a recent article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: The alleged result is a man that twice sent letters supporting C&H prior to his appointment, a man that remains a paid member of the Farm Bureau State Board of Directors, and a contributor to C&H's legal team, has since appointment voted to allow C&H to continue to operate on an expired permit, and failed to recuse himself.
Mike Freeze has been cut some slack by the commissioners who serve with him, but he has yet to clearly exhibit the ability to compartmentalize his personal entanglements from his tasks as a commissioner of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission.
So an observer could be forgiven for concluding Mike Freeze has failed to dutifully serve the people of Arkansas, and is simply continuing his past behavior.
If Mr. Freeze were to resign, I have no doubt the governor would be far more admired for accepting the resignation.
DUANE WOLTJEN
Fayetteville
It's troubled me for years that our Department of Environmental Quality (cough) relies on the Big Creek Research and Extension Team, with an obvious agricultural bent toward protecting C&H Hog Farms, to authenticate any contamination leaking from that facility into adjacent Big Creek.
Dr. Andrew Sharpley with two team members-to-be, including the extension agent for Newton County, were working with the C&H owners in their capacity with the University of Arkansas extension service before former Gov. Mike Beebe formed that team from within the university's Division of Agriculture.
When the university accepted that watchdog responsibility to document and prevent harmful effects to our Buffalo National River, Sharpley became its chairman. At the time they were called the Big Creek Research Team. The agricultural term "extension" was later added reportedly at the suggestion of a university extension service employee.
For me and others, the team's focus on agriculture rather than environmental sciences represents a conflict of interest that has shaken trust in anything it reports, or doesn't. Sharpley has been grilled about his biases in a deposition where he denied any conflict of interest.
I was especially troubled by his actions in initially failing to readily disclose to the Department of Environmental Quality the results of Dr. Todd Halihan's 2015 electrical resistivity imaging tests, which revealed an apparent subsurface fracture beside one of the factory's waste containment ponds.
I'm also bothered by the failure to acknowledge increasing levels of fertilizer-generated nutrients found in the Buffalo tributary Big Creek until the mess became bad enough to deem the creek impaired.
This and more indicates an unacceptable agenda to assist and protect C&H rather than as an impartial watchdog over the Buffalo, portions of which also are now officially contaminated.
And because of the state agency's politically efficient draft 4(b) category of these impairments, the department is not required to discover why. Being listed 4(b) means it need not determine the source of low dissolved-oxygen levels and the river's massive algae overgrowth containing pathogens, some harmful to humans.
Adding to the politicized aspects of such failure to protect both Ozark streams, the governor has appointed two members to the state's Pollution Control and Ecology Commission who are openly supportive of the mislocated factory with 6,500 waste-generating hogs.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed Commissioner Mike Freeze in February, even after Freeze had sent two letters to the Department of Environmental Quality avidly supporting C&H. He is a fish farmer and a paid member of the Farm Bureau's State Board of Directors that also contributes to C&H's legal team.
Because of his obvious conflict, Freeze was asked last week to recuse from voting in the commission's review of a finding by Administrative Law Judge Charles Moulton. Moulton recommended denying a motion by C&H attorneys seeking to allow the factory's original discontinued operating permit to remain active indefinitely. Freeze said he refused to recuse because he supposedly knows more than when he was appointed in February and therefore could be impartial (cough).
Then commissioners voted 8-3 to approve Moulton's recommended denial.
The other commissioner I believe clearly supports the factory in its present location is Bruce Holland, a former legislator and cattleman, who also directs the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. His deputy director, Ryan Benefield, was the Department of Environmental Quality's assistant director when that department approved the factory's original 2012 permit. Holland's position matters because his commission is among the groups supposedly assigned to monitor Big Creek.
Freeze and Holland voted against Moulton's recommendation that determined C&H's coverage under its original Regulation 6 general permit had indeed ended in January when its application for the Regulation 5 permit was denied.
C&H lawyers had argued to commissioners that the factory's original general permit coverage should continue indefinitely anyway until being replaced by a Regulation 6 individual permit.
To swallow that illogical argument, one would have to agree the factory's Regulation 5 permit application (and resulting process requiring almost two years to process before being denied) was an exercise in futility. The judge's recommendation was approved despite Holland's and Freeze's no votes, along with that of retired farmer Rusty Moss of Dermott.
The argument in favor of continuing C&H's general permit coverage until it is replaced by an indefinite individual permit was in this instance ludicrous, as Moulton's opinion more politely pointed out.
And the willingness of Holland, Freeze and Moss (none lawyers) to vote against Moulton's reasoned findings I believe spoke volumes about any self-proclaimed greater knowledge and impartiality.
In light of such obvious bias among some commissioners responsible for policing pollution and enhancing ecology (not assisting agriculture), I'm hoping our governor will embrace fairness and balance by appointing commissioners from the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and the Sierra Club.
KARK News
Jessi Turnure
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) released a list of lakes and streams Thursday that fall below its standards.
The proposed list is part of a report the Federal Clean Water Act requires Arkansas to submit to the EPA every two years.
The final list to the EPA will only include Category 5 impaired bodies of water, the worst ranking that means these assessment units may require the development of a total maximum daily load (TMDL), the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards.
According to the proposed list, Category 5 waterbodies identified as high priority include Bayou De L'outre, Mulberry River and Hicks Creek.
A notable body of water landed in Category 4, which means its quality falls below standard but does not require a TMDL because the issues can be addressed through already-established, state-controlled measures.
ADEQ found four parts of the Buffalo River's watershed have the potential for bacteria, two segments of the Buffalo River and one segment of Big Creek with pathogens and a second segment of Big Creek with dissolved oxygen.
"We have not had listings in this location before," said Caleb Osborne, the associate director of ADEQ's Office of Water Quality.
However, since the findings are based on about five years of records, the state agency wants water sports lovers to know they do not have to cancel their plans.
"That should not hinder them from their use and their enjoyment of the river," Osborne said.
Some question if the issues stem from a controversial hog farm in the watershed.
"Some folks might try to draw a correlation or relationship between those two," Osborne said. "Based on the information we have right now, we can't say that because the type of data and information we have doesn't lead us in that direction."
Osborne said many factors could contribute to the problems, even recreational activity.
While ADEQ continues its research and efforts to restore the quality of the watershed, the public can weigh in on the proposed list during a hearing Aug. 17 at 1 p.m. at ADEQ's headquarters.
"We want the public who has an interest in the water that is in their county or their neck of the woods to take a look, to better understand what's going on around them and share feedback for us," said Osborne.
You can also email comments to WaterbodyComments@adeq.state.ar.us before Sept. 10.
To see the 2018 proposed bodies of water in the form of an interactive map, click here.