EMILY WALKENHORSTARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/MITCHELL PE MASILUN
Sharon Pierce of Mount Judea stands over Big Creek near its confluence with the Buffalo River. Pierce, who taught the owners of C&H Hog Farms in school, said she supports the operation but would be against another farm of that size moving into the area.
C&H Hog Farms, which houses 6,503 head of swine, sits 6 miles from the Buffalo River along Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo. The farm, a contributor to the area’s economy but a source of alarm for those who fear its effects on the watershed, is awaiting a new state permit allowing it to stay in operation with a small change in the number of sows and piglets.
Watkins
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/
MITCHELL PE MASILUN
Donna Dodson of Mount Judea is not opposed to the large hog farm, saying she’s all for people using their land as they wish as long as it doesn’t harm others.
Kris Jorgensen is an owner of Lost Valley Canoe and Lodging in Ponca. While many outfitters fear pollution from C&H Hog Farms could affect business, some in the tourism business believe agriculture and tourism can co-exist.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Little Buffalo River flows through Jasper in Newton County, a town that benefits from tourism related to the Buffalo River and its surroundings.
NEWTON COUNTY — Four years have passed since C&H Hog Farms began operating along a tributary 6 miles from the Buffalo River, but not much has changed for most folks in Newton and Searcy counties.
C&H has applied for a permit again, and people within the area remain divided about whether the farm presents a danger to the country’s first national scenic river.
The Buffalo National River drew Gordon Watkins to Newton County. He grew up on a Mississippi cotton and soybean farm but visited the river as a teenager in the 1960s. Years later, he and his wife moved into a log cabin he built in Jasper, near where Big Creek meets the Buffalo River.
He’s harvested vegetables and blueberries there and raised cattle. He’s dabbled in the cabin rental business and worked for the National Park Service.
Now, Watkins serves as a voice for the river. As president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, he speaks out against the presence of C&H — a farm that houses 6,503 hogs that moved into the watershed in 2013.
C&H has become the target of groups that fear its presence is an environmental risk to the Buffalo River, which attracted nearly 1.8 million visitors last year.
C&H, which sits on Big Creek, is awaiting word from the state on a new permit that would allow it to continue operation with only a small change in the number of sows and piglets allowed on the farm.
Many fear that manure from the farm — the largest hog operation ever to operate in Newton County — could find its way into the Buffalo River and pollute the water, like what has happened in other states.
Watkins attends every public meeting that has anything to do with the Buffalo River. Pointing to the alliance’s growing membership of more than 2,000, he says there is no decline in concern about the risk C&H poses to the river. If anything, he says, people are becoming more informed.
For him, and others, there is only one solution when it comes to C&H.
“The solution is dissolution,” Watkins said.
Not everyone in the surrounding area agrees with that assessment.
Many defend the farm’s owners — Jason Henson, Phillip Campbell and Richard Campbell, all of whom declined interview requests — and say they are contributors to the area’s small economy. As long as they follow the rules, supporters say, they should be left alone.
The dispute extends well beyond Arkansas, but it’s more personal for locals like Santana Smith, a 30-year-old Mount Judea resident who is related to the farm’s owners.
“It’s a touchy subject around here,” said Smith, who is reluctant to talk about the farm. “It ain’t hurting nothing.”
AN EMOTIONAL ISSUE
C&H Hog Farms is tucked away in the landscape of Mount Judea, a small community just north of the Ozark National Forest and south of the Buffalo River, away from much of the tourist hubs.
The Buffalo River stretches from Newton County through Searcy and Marion counties, where it runs into the White River. Nearly the entire watershed is in Newton and Searcy counties.
Unemployment is higher than average in the area, and the population is shrinking. Only one of the seven towns — Marshall, at 1,355 — is home to at least 500 people. Most residents either grew up in the area or moved there to be close to the river.
Evan Teague, vice president for commodity and regulatory affairs for the Arkansas Farm Bureau, supports the hog farm and helps its owners navigate the choppy waters where they’ve found themselves. He’s attended scores of meetings and hearings about the hog farm, and describes the four years since C&H began operations as “challenging,” “frustrating” and “disappointing.”
Thousands of letters have been sent in opposing the the farm, and critics are a frequent presence at state environmental meetings.
“It’s emotional, it’s physical, it’s tiring,” said Carol Bitting, a Marble Falls resident who has fought C&H’s operation and often finds herself at the same meetings as Teague.
The fight is just as personal for Bitting as it is for the others. She moved to Newton County in 1991. She was a “caver” at the time, exploring and mapping caves, and the Buffalo River area was perfect for that. She doesn’t want to see it fouled.
“It’s a job,” she said of the fight against the farm’s permit renewal. “It’s a constant job.”
Many in the Mount Judea area say the hog farm’s owners are good men who have gone above and beyond what is required to protect the environment.
“They’re just great community members and businessmen,” said Sharon Pierce, 64, who taught the owners in school. “They provide jobs for the community. They donate to the school. They volunteer in the community.”
Donna Dodson and Pierce don’t like the idea of a large hog farm in Newton County, but they said they support C&H and its owners, whom they trust. Pierce said she wouldn’t support another farm of similar size moving into the area, but Dodson said she would.
“I’m all for people being able to use their land in a way that they see fit, as long as they aren’t doing things that would erode their neighbors’ property or anything,” Dodson said.
A little farther away, people who are invested in tourism aren’t concerned about who owns the hog farm. It’s just in the wrong place, they say.
Sheila Roenfeldt is co-owner of Cedar Crest Lodge in Ponca. The lodge is upstream of Big Creek’s confluence with the Buffalo, but Roenfeldt believes pollution downstream would be associated with the entire river and affect tourism all along it.
“I don’t want the family punished, because it’s not about them,” Roenfeldt said. “[But] how do we call ourselves the Natural State and then allow this?”
The farm’s owners have said they follow the rules, and Watkins concedes that is probably true, but opponents say an operation of such size should never have been permitted within the river’s watershed.
“The problem is that the rules are inadequate,” Watkins said.
A HISTORY OF FARMING
Hogs have been raised in the Buffalo’s watershed for decades.
In 1992, worries that agriculture — specifically dairy and hog farms — could negatively affect tourism along the Buffalo River prompted state officials to stop granting new permits for five years.
During the moratorium, officials studied 16 existing farms. The Department of Environmental Quality, which conducted the study, was unable to provide a copy of the study. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s summary of the study reveals that most of the farms were not being operated to “minimize the amount of waste leaving the farms.”
In 1995, the Buffalo River Swine Waste Demonstration Project began working with farmers and governments to address proper manure management. Eventually environmental conditions improved, and the EPA touted the project as a success.
The moratorium ended in 1997, and the number of hog farms increased with the number of sows nearly doubling.
More hogs were raised on farms in Newton and Searcy counties then than are being raised there today. In 1997, 17 hog farms were permitted to hold more than 4,800 sows, 7,000 smaller pigs and 90 boars, according to Arkansas permit and compliance records. In 2017, five farms have about 4,000 sows, 5,700 smaller pigs and 15 boars.
C&H Hog Farms, which has 2,503 sows and 4,000 pigs, was the first and remains the only federally classified medium or large hog farm in the area.
POLLUTION CONCERNS
Opponents of C&H point to hog farm containment failures in other states that have polluted waterways, killing marine life and leaving streams impaired for years.
A large hog farm leak in Illinois five years ago is an example of the potential aftermath of such a spill. A farm housing more than 8,000 hogs spilled manure into Beaver Creek, a tributary of the 55-mile Iroquois River. The spill polluted 20 miles of the creek, killing 148,283 fish and 17,563 freshwater mussels, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The species were beginning to recover by 2016, the newspaper reported, but other hog manure spills killed more fish and contributed to the impairment of 67 bodies of water in Illinois.
Because of C&H’s large size, National Park Service officials contend the farm poses a bigger risk to water quality than other Arkansas farms. Park Service officials said C&H’s operations could slowly degrade the river for years before detection of lasting changes, and fixing any problems could take even longer.
Yet the agency also noted that agriculture, along with development, have likely contributed to slow degradation of the Buffalo for decades — much longer than C&H has been around.
Ongoing research since 2013 by the University of Arkansas System’s Agriculture Division, at a cost of $100,000 a year in state money, has yet to link C&H with any pollution in Big Creek or the Buffalo River. Monitoring for the study should be complete by mid-2019, according to Mary Hightower, a spokesman for the division. Drawing a conclusion that discerns something other than seasonal trends could take years, Hightower said.
Arkansas agriculture officials say no major failures have occurred in the state.
State inspections show that between 1996 and early 2017, hog farms spilled manure into waterways at least 16 times. More than 50 fish were killed in a pond in Pope County as the result of one spill in 1998, but the spills were not of the devastating scale that occurred in other states.
Records don’t always detail follow-up inspections, but in some cases the cause of the leak was addressed right away.
Spills, leaks, overflows and unauthorized discharges were noted 339 times in the 1,332 inspection violation records analyzed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. That figure does not count multiple spills in a single report, because multiple spills often were not quantified.
In the past 10 years, records indicate leaks have occurred less frequently as the number of hog farms has diminished.
The decrease also comes from improved education and training since the Demonstration Project in the mid-1990s, said Jerry Masters, executive vice president of the Arkansas Pork Producers Association. Masters said he spends at least 15 percent of his time working on C&H issues, even though the farm has largely been in compliance.
A RIVER-DEPENDENT
ECONOMY
Shops with canoes propped up out front, rustic cabins, motels and restaurants dot the hills along the Buffalo. They serve as reminders of what many locals consider a vibrant tourism industry, and a reminder of why protecting the river is so important.
In 2015, 29 leisure and hospitality businesses employed an average of 258 people and paid $2.6 million in wages in Newton and Searcy counties. Harm to the Buffalo could be a serious risk to jobs and livelihoods in those counties.
“I don’t think [C&H] should be here,” said Aaron Jones, 26, an employee of Lost Valley Canoe in Ponca, which is upstream from the farm. “Not on America’s first national river.”
Monte Smith, 59, owns Silver Hill Float Service in St. Joe in Searcy County, which is downstream of C&H. He said he fears a spill could close the river to canoeists for an entire season.
Not everyone in the tourism business feels as threatened. Some believe agriculture and tourism can co-exist.
Teresa Morris, 63, manages Buffalo River Float Service in Yellville. She said she is more concerned about waste from tourists and feral hogs in the watershed than C&H.
Agriculture is the other major private industry within the river’s watershed, but it’s impact is more difficult to measure. The number of animal farms large enough to require federal employment data disclosure is low, but a Bureau of Labor statistics data specialist said doubling the numbers of farms that report offers a fair estimate of the industry’s employment figures.
In 2015, four Newton County farms employed 12 people and paid $346,513 in wages. If doubled, eight farms would employ 24 people who earned about $693,026 in wages. The bureau did not have any information for the two cattle farms noted in Searcy County.
Mount Judea residents see C&H as an important economic factor in their unincorporated community. The hog farm is set to pay $8,823.64 in property taxes this year, and some residents say they would welcome an additional farm.
“I think they’re young people trying to make a living in this country,” said Velma Norton, co-owner of Norton Country Store. “Why don’t they leave them alone and let them make a living?”
Many leaders have declined to take a position for fear of alienating people on either side of the issue. Darryl Treat, president of the Searcy County Chamber of Commerce, said his group can’t afford to be divisive with the county’s population and economic opportunities in decline.
“We have serious economic challenges,” Treat said. “We have to be working together.”
STILL WAITING
The Environmental Quality Department is considering more than 900 public comments on whether to issue a new permit for C&H.
Department officials have reviewed public comments since April from people who live within the watershed as well as those who live outside the area but visit on occasion. Officials would not estimate when a final decision on the permit will be made.
The more optimistic say they hope to build long-term support for the farmers and the environment with less arguing, but that seems a long way off considering the current climate surrounding the permit request.
“It’s created a lot of polarization,” said Beth Ardapple, who lives near Mount Judea. “Our best prospect for the environment is to support these [farm] owners to protect the environment and also to have good, strong regulations and monitor closely.”
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was in Little Rock today and touted his effort to loosen clean air and water rules at a meeting at the Don and Randal Tyson Conference Center at the Arkansas Poultry Federation.
In the #NaturalState talking #WOTUS w folks representing rice, pork, cattlemen, electric utilities & other vital industries
The @EPA's #StateActionTour brought @EPAScottPruitt to AR. He's now listening to AR Agriculture stakeholders' responses to the #WOTUS rule.
.@EPAScottPruitt wants to give farmers and ranchers certainty in a new #WOTUS rule. Listening to ideas of Arkansas landowners today. #arpx
“Arkansas is The Natural State, a place where we place a high priority on clean water. We hope that Administrator Pruitt learned today about the damage and environmental consequences that the Trump Administration’s clean water rollbacks will cause to our citizens and waterways. ""The Clean Water Act makes it plain that science should lead policy, not the other way around. Arkansans expect the EPA to lead the fight to protect our most precious resources. Sadly, Administrator Pruitt is taking a different approach. "Since assuming office back in February, Administrator Pruitt has proposed rolling back dozens of existing environmental protections – recklessly creating new threats to the health and quality of life of Arkansas families. The Arkansas Sierra Club is committed to protecting our water and natural resources here in The Natural State. We will continue to strenuously oppose the Trump Administration’s environmental rollbacks at every opportunity, because our state's air and water are worth fighting for."
Undisputed jewel
By Mike Masterson
Posted: July 16, 2017 at 1:48 a.m
NWAOnline
My affection and concern for the welfare of our Buffalo National River, the first so designated in the country back in 1972, is redundantly apparent to readers.
We have what no other state does in this natural treasure, which with benefits brings serious responsibility for its care. Other than the majesty of its towering bluffs and clear flow through the scenic mountains, the Buffalo brings so much value to our state and an otherwise economically deprived region.
A National Park Service report released in April shows revealed we hosted 1.78 million visitors to Buffalo National River in 2016 who spent nearly $77.6 million in communities around the park. That supported 1,200 jobs in the area while generating a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $90.2 million
The recreation and escape this God-given natural wonder provides so many Arkansans and Americans are irreplaceable should this river become fouled with raw waste from the 6,500-swine factory our state's Department of Environmental Quality (wheeze) permitted into the sacred watershed just six miles upstream and along a major tributary.
With that in mind, I found the latest local economic impact information collected by the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance especially relevant. The analytical project is part of an examination of tourism industry in Newton County where the hog factory is located.
Gordon Watkins, chairman of the alliance, told me, based on information from the Tourism Trust Fund managed by Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, that during calendar year 2016 tourism-related businesses in the county paid $130,120 toward the state's 2 percent Tourism Tax.
"This equates to a remarkable amount of gross revenues generated by these Newton County tourism businesses in one of the poorest counties in Arkansas," said Watkins. "This is a significant sum, especially considering the multiplier effect, as this income is spent with and amongst other local, non-tourism businesses, such as gas stations, hardware stores, restaurants, cleaning services, carpenters, etc."
Watkins said the primary tourist attraction in Newton County is, of course, the Buffalo National River. "So by comparison how much does one hog operation with a handful of employees contribute to Newton County?" he wonders.
Well, the alliance website says only about a dozen jobs mostly paying at or near minimum wages are created by the factory while property values within a few miles tend to decline by an average of 6 percent. And who knows what the impact to a resource such as the Buffalo that accounts for about $38 million in revenue to Arkansas would be should the river become fouled from hog waste?
So, my friends, you can continue to count me among the many thousands across our state who remain deeply troubled, even angry, that this wholly preventable and unnecessary state of jeopardy to our special river even exists and is even being nurtured rather than discouraged by the state.
Posted: July 1, 2017 at 2:11 a.m.
I was asked the other day which among a career of stories I consider most memorable.
That proved more difficult than expected once I began to reflect across 46 years.
For instance, there was the case of Shelby Barron, a black mason in Hot Springs, who was wrongly indicted on rape and robbery charges only to be freed after evidence proving his innocence was published.
Beebe's Millicent Lynn was found floating in a lake near Hot Springs and the medical examiner ruled her death suicide until stories raised questions that led to her exhumation, where a bullet hole was discovered through her head.
There also was Richard Fuller, a Cummins inmate whom the medical examiner ruled died from heart infection. Stories questioned that finding. His body was exhumed only to have a second autopsy determine death from manual strangulation.
Afterwards, while heading the investigative team at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, came a year-long investigation into mistreatment and corruption in federal Indian programs. That prompted U.S. Senate hearings and reforms.
We discovered the Indian Health Service had been regularly injecting developmentally disabled women with Depo-Provera to prevent pregnancy without their knowledge or consent.
Two years later, we published another series revealing an astounding number of nursing homes nationwide were misusing powerful anti-psychotic medications to control the behavior of many sane residents in order to cut expenses. That also led to legislative hearings and reforms.
Young David Michel died in 1980 after suffering a head injury in a shooting incident on a Little Rock parking lot. The medical examiner initially ruled his death an accidental fall. Subsequent stories a year later in the Arkansas Democrat, however, showed the injury to the top of Michel's head was caused by a rifle butt, and a witness to the beating emerged. The revelations led to an arrest and murder conviction.
I spent a year at the Democrat digging into the 20-year-old case of Marvin Williams, a 21-year-old black veteran who was married and employed in Conway when he died in the Faulkner County jail. Police said he'd fallen on the courthouse stairs. But an inmate said he witnessed Williams beaten to death in a cell by two white men in uniform. The resulting stories led to a special grand jury that indicted two former Conway officers on murder charges. They were later acquitted at trial.
Ronald Carden of Bigelow had been convicted of murdering a "Jane Doe." But evidence discovered and published in a three-month investigation proved his innocence and a judge freed him.
In Chicago, a series of investigative stories explored the deaths of more than 20 black men in police custody in two years. Those articles led to exhumations and into the medical examiner's office. Ultimately, the FBI launched an investigation and the Chicago Police Department announced sweeping new reforms in the way suspects were treated in the city's lockups. Later at the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, another investigative series on deaths in custody prompted national legislation that required all deaths in local jails and lockups to be reported to the U.S. Justice Department.
Also in Chicago, I discovered the state had been secretly busing developmentally disabled people from its 5,000-patient facility at Dixon, Ill., into sleazy nursing homes owned by political contributors in order to fill those homes' Medicaid-reimbursed beds. These places were ill-equipped to handle such patients' unique needs. As a result, many were dying, including Donna Sonnenberg, whose sad story led to the first criminal conviction of a Chicago nursing home owner for neglect.
During a summer consulting at Red Bank, N.J.'s Two River Times, I wrote about three mentally ill patients being burned to death 17 years earlier in a halfway house at nearby Sea Bright. Police then reopened that cold case, which led to the arrest and arson conviction of two men 18 years later.
While writing since 2001 as purely an opinion columnist, there was the shameful 1989 death of Marshall's Janie Ward during a teen party outside town. The medical examiner left her manner and cause of death as undetermined while acknowledging additional investigation was needed. Was it ever! A California medical examiner came to Arkansas, exhumed her body and determined her death had been a homicide from a blow to her neck and spinal cord. A special prosecutor was named and despite documented falsehoods, obstruction, gaps and contrived evidence, he took her politicized case full circle for four years back to an undetermined manner.
I've lately been involved in writing about how our state wrongheadedly allowed a hog factory into the precious Buffalo National River watershed at Mount Judea. Yet another book.
As you might imagine, picking the most memorable has proven impossible.
Some good news, valued readers. I will continue to write three columns weekly (rather than two as previously announced) with one change. Saturday's offerings will be available only online beginning next week, while Sunday and Tuesday will remain in the printed version. Thanks for your support and for reading.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 07/01/2017
Arkansasonline
By Fran Alexander
Posted: June 20, 2017
"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."
-- Wallace Stegner, 1983
If someone would just explain to me why protecting air, water and land from pollution and erosion is a bad idea, I could just shut up and go away. However, after 50 years of trying to find a logical, reasonable explanation for the rape, pillage and plunder of the Earth and its creatures, humans included, so far the prevailing mantra I've heard for such behavior is, "jobs!"
And, oh yes, there's also that one about man having dominion over the earth. Dominion is not the same thing as destruction, so if the gods are keeping score, we humans are in serious trouble.
"Baloney," I say, to the jobs excuse. Those doing this damage, and the politicians they hire to make their actions legal, don't have such gushing empathy for their fellow man that they are harvesting the Earth's resources purely to employ folks. Unless people spend most of their lives with their heads in the sand or are incurably naive, surely they've noticed it's the mighty moguls of industry and conglomerations of corporations who benefit from laying waste to landscapes and once-healthy environments. Oftentimes the more rapacious among them discount human damage with as much disregard as they show for environmental damage.
On the governmental side of things, we are not paying enough attention to what's going on in the backrooms of power. Our nation's federal lands, which include parks, wilderness areas, forests, rivers (like Arkansas' Buffalo River, the nation's first national river), monuments, seashores, ocean habitats, tribal lands, wildlife refuges, and cultural and historical sites, are in danger of being downgraded, defunded, privatized, turned over to states, and/or cashed in by those in control of Congress and the White House.
There's a loud circus in Washington, D.C., right now distracting our focus away from more serious things. Rest assured those who have long been quietly licking their chops to extract even more public resources are busy at work. At this moment, they are probably composing yet another executive order or policy change that will remove more protections, which they demean as "regulations," out of the hands of the public and into the jaws of the highest bidders.
Signed in April, the president's executive order titled "Review of Designations Under the Antiquities Act" is a directive to Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the Interior, to "review" federal monument designations. The integrity of this 1906 act, which gives presidents the power to protect land, will most likely be tested on Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, set up by Obama before leaving office. However, about 20 national monument lands over 100,000 acres in size could be affected if Congress or the president can find ways to rescind the current law so that they can sell, transfer or reduce these properties in size. Guess who'll be waiting for that moment with wallet in hand.
Throughout global history there has been a life and death power struggle for resources. Private gain extraction industries (timber, oil, gas, coal, uranium, etc.), which possess tremendous political clout and endless money, are pitted against a public consisting mostly of individuals, non-profit organizations or tribes struggling to keep public lands and water sources safe and intact. Fortunately, these businesses are in direct conflict with another huge industry that provides even more jobs. Tourism, centered on our country's unique natural landscape, is a multi-billion-dollar business bringing economic lifeblood to hundreds of communities and thousands of people. But, tourism's existence depends on keeping our outdoor treasures clean, safe and original.
Natural wonders are easily destroyed. Imagine, for example, what gas and oil fracking near Arches National Park might do to the scenery and to the delicate rock marvels in that landscape. Arctic drilling, uranium mining in the Grand Canyon's watershed, strip mining for coal, off-shore oil exploration, clear cutting of forests, pipelines across waterways, pig farms near rivers, etc. are all exploitation practices that destroy our natural world. (For more on federal land issues, read this post.)
Woody Guthrie sang, "This land is your land, this land is my land." We must remember those words if we are to become active stewards in this custody battle over what happens to our country. Tell your congressmen and the president, " Get your hands off our land!" And mean it.
Commentary on 06/20/2017
Fecal Microbes Found In Kewaunee County Wells Raise Concerns About Dairy Manure, Septic Waste
Tests Show Waste From Cattle Contaminates Majority of Wells, Especially After Rainfall Or Snowmelt
Coburn Dukehart
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
June 8, 2017
Buffalo Baptism
by Mike Masterson
June 3, 2017
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Jason Henson of Newton County told a civic club his C&H Hog Farm is operating as designed in the Buffalo National River watershed, and the Department of Environmental Quality (wheeze) makes sure it does.
That's the state agency which in 2012 permitted the factory into the most environmentally sacred and karst-riddled region of our state.
Speaking to Harrison's Kiwanis Club, Henson, who's the "H" in the C&H partnership with cousins Richard and Phillip Campbell, told the gathering he was baptized in the Buffalo and would never do anything intentionally to harm the country's first national river.
I found it more than interesting that John Bailey, now with the Arkansas Farm Bureau and an avid C&H supporter, was seated alongside Henson. In his former career, you see, Bailey was the water permits manager who helped prepare the permit that allowed the factory to set up shop along Big Creek at Mount Judea.
Reporter James L. White of the Harrison Daily Times quoted Henson saying the factory will have up to 2,500 pigs at a time. Once born, they stay for 19 days, then are sent to a finishing farm where they are prepared for slaughter.
He also said they overdesigned the factory's retention ponds where manure goes to avoid seepage into groundwater or nearby Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo River.
Henson further said C&H is permitted by the state to spread manure on hundreds of acres under strict regulation.
For example, before being applied, the factory must analyze nutrients in manure and the fields it's being sprayed on. They spread a tenth of an inch of liquid manure on a field, which immediately begins to bond with the soil; dry chemical fertilizer must be activated by rain. "Henson said other farmers don't meet the same environmental scrutiny," the story reads. "In fact, when they first began the operation, [Department of Environmental Quality] officials were on site every 10 days to monitor the operation, and even the federal Environmental Protection Agency inspected the farm--they remarked on its cleanliness."
Henson believes C&H will be good for the future of agriculture to show that agriculture and the environment can successfully co-exist. The story concluded by saying Henson and other farmers don't have any intention of harming the ecosystems. "We're just not going to do it," Henson said.
I
t's a good thing that Henson appeared publicly to give his side of this ongoing controversy that has raged ever since the Department of Environmental Quality quietly and quickly allowed it into the sacred national river watershed. The wholly unsuitable and inappropriate location for a large hog factory has always been my only concern. The abilities of Henson and his family to operate a hog factory and keep it clean have never been at question. It's also misdirection and hogwash for any special interest to insinuate otherwise. The bottom line is this corporately supported factory, licensed to accommodate some 6,500 swine, should never have been allowed here.
Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, read White's story. "As a news report of a presentation to a civic club, this is understandably an oversimplification of a very complex issue, but there are some points I take issue with. It's not accurate, and minimizes the waste rates, when [Henson] says 'They will spread a tenth of an inch of liquid manure on a field.' In reality each field receives varying amounts and it's more accurate to state, as shown in their annual report, they applied 2,532,275 gallons last year."
Watkins contends it's also misleading to say the waste, "immediately begins to bond with the soil."
"If that were the case, the Big Creek Research and Extension Team and National Park Service would not be seeing increased nitrates, E. coli and low dissolved oxygen in Big Creek. This statement also completely ignores the presence and implications of porous karst," said Watkins.
"I don't doubt C&H has no 'intention of harming the ecosystems around them,'" he continued. "I'm sure they did not set out to intentionally damage Big Creek and the Buffalo. I think they simply did not understand the implications of operating this scale of an industrial CAFO in this location. But [the Department of Environmental Quality] should certainly have understood and dropped the ball when they approved this permit.
Watkins also said "the county extension agent perpetuates the fallacy that C&H and other industrial facilities like them are 'farming' and are necessary to feed the world. Most CAFO pork goes to China. Corporate supplier JBS of Brazil keeps the money, and Mount Judea and the Buffalo get stuck with the waste. Big Ag and their industrial model of CAFOs are largely responsible for the decline in small family farms."
As for Bailey's presence to hear Henson talk about the factory he as a former Department of Environmental Quality manager was instrumental in approving, Watkins added: "Bailey helped write the original C&H permit while working for [the agency] and now works for Farm Bureau, who has made C&H their poster child. It shows the cozy relationship and revolving door between state agencies and powerful lobbyists representing special interests."
Commentary on 06/03/2017
Farmers protect environment for future; Hog farm co-owner addresses questions
By JAMES L. WHITE jamesw@harrisondaily.com
Harrison Daily Times - Harrison, Arkansas
Posted: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 7:00 am | Updated: 7:04 am, Tue May 30, 2017.
Jason Henson, co-owner of C&H Hog Farm near Mt. Judea, recently spoke to the Harrison Kiwanis Club and reminded attendees that farmers are front-line environmentalists.
Club member Herb Lair introduced Henson, recognizing that he is a winner of the Farm Bureau Leadership Award and a ninth-generation Newton Countian. Lair said studies have shown cattle farming is actually more dangerous to the environment than hog farms.
Henson explained that C&H will have up to 2,500 pigs at a time. Once born, they stay for 19 days, then go to a finishing farm to be prepared for slaughter and the table.
They overdesigned the retention ponds where manure goes in order to avoid any seepage into ground water or possibly nearby Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo River, so as to exceed state standards.
C&H is permitted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to spread that manure on hundreds of acres, mainly hay fields, Henson said, but only under strict regulation.
For instance, they must analyze nutrients in manure and the soil where it will be applied before application. They will spread a tenth of an inch of liquid manure on a field, which immediately begins to bond with the soil, while dry chemical fertilizer must have rain to activate it.
Henson said other farmers don’t meet the same environmental scrutiny. In fact, when they first began the operation, ADEQ officials were on site every 10 days to monitor the operation, and even the federal Environmental Protection Agency inspected the farm — they remarked on its cleanliness.
All that is done to protect the Buffalo National River, which Henson and his cousins who own the farm have long considered an important resource.
“It’s where I was baptized,” Henson told Kiwanians.
In the end, Henson believes C&H’s record will be good for the future of agriculture when it’s proven that agri and the environment can successfully coexist. Farmers don’t have any intention of harming the ecosystems around them.
“We’re just not going to do it,” Henson said.
Club president Nita Cooper, also the Boone County Extension agent, thanked Henson and told the crowd that as consumers they should thank farmers for their work to make sure everyone can eat.
“Have his back,” Cooper said.
When beef tycoons Joesley and Wesley Batista sat down with Brazilian prosecutors last month and told them all they knew about the corruption scandal known as Carwash, they also let the world in on a family secret.
The decade-long rise of the Batistas' global meat powerhouse -- JBS SA, a company founded by and named for the Batistas' father, Jose Batista Sobrinho -- wouldn't have been possible without a top politician on the take, hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and a series of sweetheart deals with Brazil's state development bank.
"It wouldn't have worked," Joesley Batista told prosecutors, according to videos of his testimony. "It wouldn't have been so fast."
Not since a former oil executive-turned-state witness kicked off Carwash three years ago has testimony in the case been so explosive and threatened to do so much damage to Brazil's economy and its political institutions. The fraud that the brothers described in at least seven hours of testimony is so pervasive that it has tipped Brazil back into political chaos less than a year after the nation's last president was impeached.
In addition to handing over documents believed to implicate more than 1,800 politicians, the beef magnates also provided prosecutors with an audio recording in which President Michel Temer appears to be endorsing Joesley Batista's payment of hush money to a jailed former lawmaker. S&P Global Ratings said May 22, five days after the testimony went public, that it may cut Brazil's sovereign-credit rating even further into junk territory amid concern that the allegations put Temer's ambitious agenda -- and even his presidency -- at risk. Temer has denied any wrongdoing.
The Batistas, led by the 45-year-old Joesley and older brother Wesley, shot into the global spotlight during the decade-long, $20 billion series of acquisitions that turned their family-owned slaughterhouse into the world's biggest meat producer.
When the two Batistas approached Brazil's prosecutor general last month offering to trade all the evidence they'd collected in exchange for immunity, the official had "no other alternative" but to give them what they wanted, he recently recalled.
The revelations raise questions about unfair competition abroad as the company gobbled up more than 40 rivals on four continents between 2007 and 2017. According to Joesley Batista, the state-run Brazilian Development Bank played a crucial role in JBS's expansion in the U.S. The lender injected about $3.2 billion in capital for the acquisition of Swift & Co. in 2007, the beef-producing units of Smithfield Foods Inc. in 2008, and the chicken producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp. in 2009.
In his testimony, Joesley Batista recounted how the decade-long scheme all started with a 2005 meeting with Guido Mantega, who served as the president of the Brazilian Development Bank from 2004-06 before taking over as Brazil's finance minister from 2006-14. JBS was then just a privately held slaughterhouse, but it had plans to be much more. While other Brazilian Development Bank executives present at the meeting in the bank's Rio de Janeiro headquarters appeared skeptical, Mantega showed "strong" signs of support, Batista said.
Mantega's lawyer didn't respond to email and phone requests for comment. The Brazilian Development Bank's press office and a JBS spokesman also didn't respond to requests for comment.
Joesley Batista said that with Mantega's blessing, JBS started looking for opportunities abroad. It quickly found one, and in September 2005 it made a $200 million offer to buy Swift Armour SA in Argentina. The state-run bank agreed to lend the company $80 million, and the Batistas allegedly paid 4 percent of the value, or $3.2 million, as a bribe to an associate of Mantega, Batista said.
Even with the bribe, Batista remembers thinking the terms of the loan were steep, but it was all they could get. "That's what it took for us to get the deal done," he told prosecutors.
The brothers claimed to have continued paying kickbacks to that associate until 2009, when they started negotiating directly with Mantega, Batista said. Batista said they paid $220 million in bribes overall, with most of the money being funneled into political campaigns. JBS and other companies under the umbrella of family holding company J&F Investimentos SA were the biggest campaign contributors in the 2014 elections, in which President Dilma Rousseff won her bid for a second term, according to Brazil's electoral tribunal.
In a letter last week, Joesley Batista said they were wrong to have participated in the scheme and apologized. "While we have explanations for what we did, we have no justification," he said. Batista said Brazil's "system" often creates barriers for businesses that want to carry transactions, and because of that, they opted to pay the bribes instead. "In other countries outside Brazil, we were able to expand our business without violating ethical values."
Bill Bullard, the chief executive of R-Calf, a cattle industry group in Billings, Mont., that's long been critical of big meatpacking companies, recalls when JBS first broke into the market.
"Not only was JBS able to make purchases for loans secured with bribes, they were able to jump into the U.S. cattle market and outbid potential U.S. investors for these assets," he said. "Through ill-gotten means, JBS has been able to gain control of a large portion of the U.S. cattle industry."
Business on 05/27/2017
If Buffalo Flounders
Legacy at risk
Posted: May 21, 2017 at 1:43 a.m.
I've known and respected Gov. Asa Hutchinson for decades, ever since he occupied the 3rd District seat held for 13 terms by my late uncle John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison.
To me and those who know him, Hutchinson's always been a well-intentioned, capable and honorable man.
That said, I'm concerned the legacy from his career as a dedicated public servant stretching from the U.S. Attorney's office to Congress to heading the nation's Drug Enforcement Administration and now as governor is at risk by one major environmental mishap on our Buffalo National River that could define him in the end. It's an unnecessary risk I'd never accept.
I'm talking about hog waste from C&H Hog Farms, which our Department of Environmental Quality (wheeze) wrongheadedly allowed into the Buffalo watershed, an act Hutchinson's predecessor Mike Beebe called his greatest regret in office. Today, abundant evidence from credible science-based sources warn a catastrophe is a distinct possibility.
Enormous amounts of waste continually generated by this factory of 6,500 swine leave the river susceptible to calamity caused by anything from flooding to a sinkhole (like the one last month in nearby Harrison). Waste seeping into and through subsurface water also could easily wind up contaminating the river.
Should any of these scenarios transpire on Hutchinson's watch, the blame will likely rest in perpetuity on his shoulders alone. That risk can--and should--be eliminated while it still can be.
Voting Arkansans realize part of any governor's role lies in reacting to competing interests and hopefully making the wisest choices for the entire population. Yet, sadly, we've embraced a political system where well-connected arm twisters with deep pockets more often than not get the access and considerations they seek.
Special interests have their lobbyists, events, associations, networks and campaign dollars to help further their narrow agendas with those elected to run our government. Everyday Arkansans have only their single voice, unless they band in common cause. Then their cry becomes a deafening chorus. Suddenly those they elected have no choice but to listen and respond.
In the case of this hog factory, the Farm Bureau and the Pork Producers Association regularly prove adept at pulling influential political strings and pushing familiar buttons. They also do their best to convince the rest of us that this meat factory, supplied and supported not by Ma and Pa Kettle but the world's largest corporate meat packer from Brazil, is another family farm trying to make ends meet in the face of criticisms by raving, emotional environmentalists who supposedly don't like or appreciate farmers.
I say hogwash. Nothing in such a ham-handed argument could be farther from the truth. Most Arkansans appreciate their farms, farmers and the country's first national river at the same time. And no one, especially me, believes the family that owns and operates this hog factory isn't doing its best to do so properly.
No, our state set the grossly inadequate requirements then quietly pushed this deal through without insisting upon careful water-flow and subsurface studies beforehand. Nor did they accurately calculate how many millions of gallons of hog waste could safely be spread onto finite fields around a major tributary of the Buffalo (waste that invariably seeps into the water table and porous karst). As a result, we wound up in this endless and controversial mess.
Can you imagine placing an equivalent human city of 30,000 on a karst-riddled hilltop above a major Buffalo tributary without a sewer system to safely cleanse the enormous amount of raw waste continuously flowing into the surrounding air, ground and water? It's beyond absurd.
This serious matter never has been about the Newton County family who owns the factory. It revolves solely around this being the worst place in Arkansas to implant a factory that, whether admitted by politicians or special interests or not, today poses a very real threat to the purity of the national river just 6 miles downstream.
Since our sacred river can't speak for itself, nonprofit groups such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society, the Canoe Club and Ozark River Stewards, along with others like University of Arkansas geosciences professor emeritus John Van Brahana and his team of intrepid volunteers, thankfully have stepped into the gap to, well, carry her water.
What can be done about this horror story needlessly created by the self-proclaimed guardians of our state's environmental quality administered by politicized appointees?
At this point, we need a governor staunch and courageous enough to inform every relevant special interest: "Sorry folks, but the welfare of the country's first national river surpasses your political agendas," then find an honorable way to resolve this mess. Otherwise, as Dr. Brahana and others already are finding, it's but a matter of time until our beautiful Buffalo becomes contaminated. Tick-tock.
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 05/21/2017