Hog issue complex?
By Mike Masterson
Posted: January 21, 2014 at 2:45 a.m.

Two avid supporters of the Buffalo National River in Newton County recently sent their concerns to state legislators.


They asked the representatives to do everything possible to prevent the potential pollution of the treasured stream by C&H Hog Farms. That’s the deeply controversial hog factory that the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) wrongheadedly permitted along a major tributary of the Buffalo.

Patti Kent, a Newton County property owner, and Pam Fowler of Jasper also were asking what can be done legislatively to stop the possibility of hog waste polluting our river as it has in water bodies in other states such as North Carolina. The hog factory (supplied and supported by Cargill Inc. at the hamlet of Mount Judea) is spread across 600 acres, much of which is widely underlain by fractured subsurface terrain called karst.

This mountainous limestone topography allows subterranean groundwater to rapidly flow through cracks and caves for miles into nearby streams. That means Big Creek, which is adjacent to or near the fields to be sprayed with C&H waste routinely drawn from two large lagoons, could well be threatened by contamination. Big Creek flows into the Buffalo National River about six miles downstream.

Two legislators’ responses cite a need for balance in resolving what they contend is a complex matter. Fowler included a photograph with her message to one legislator that shows a large highway billboard on U.S. 65 near Western Grove which shouts: “Come Enjoy the Buffalo River. It’s Not Polluted … Yet!”

Here (edited for space) are responses the women say they received: From Rep. Kelley Linck, R-Yellville: ”If I understand your thoughts correctly … you don’t believe this is a complicated issue at all. You believe that the only right solution is to do away with C&H Farm. There’s no possible way to pass legislation that makes C&H Farm illegal and mandate its removal. I’d be shocked if that legislation were to receive better than 2 votes out of the 135 legislators. Truthfully, I’d be shocked to see it receive a single vote.Do you think [you] can muster enough lobby support to move 50 percent of the Legislature to do something that currently zero percent supports? It cannot … happen. We will all continue to work for the best possible outcome in a situation none of us wanted to be in. … We will also work to not get caught in the same or similar situations in the future.” From Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville: “I can assure you we’re working to do what we can to ensure the continued protection of the Buffalo River and other extraordinary watershed resources. The current situation involving C&H is a complex one that, unfortunately, we learned about too late. It’s my sincere hope that the issue is settled in a way that’s fair to all parties and safe for our state’s water and air quality. Looking ahead, I believe there must be a balance between our ecological and agricultural concerns. We’ve got a beautiful state, and tourism is vital to our economy. But our state also plays a key role in feeding millions of people and agriculture’s just as critical to our state’s economic health. Making sure we find that fair balance is no easy task but one to which I’m committed. As to current efforts, I spoke with ADEQ this week. We should learn within days the full recommendations made by a panel we put together through the legislation passed at the end of last year’s legislative session. These recommendations should increase public notification requirements for future projects, allowing concerned parties to voice their concerns much earlier in the process. It’s a small step, but a step forward.”

I emailed the legislators about their responses but didn’t hear so much as an oink in reply by my deadline.

My response is that while there’s certainly no question that we humans need food to survive, unelected me sees nothing complex in legislating that hogs be mass-produced only in areas of Arkansas that don’t pose what scientists and others contend presents a clear danger to our state’s only national river. As to seeking “balance,” even I could not have found a more inappropriate and controversial place to embed up to 6,500 hogs. Where does anyone other than lobbyists for agriculture find balance in this worst possible location?

Matters became even less balanced after I learned the director of our state’s Department of Environmental Quality admitted to not realizing her agency had issued the factory’s permit in this hypersensitive watershed until it was approved. Neither the agency’s local office in nearby Jasper nor the National Park Service in Harrison were informed this factory was being permitted.

Simply put, this supposedly “complex” factory should never have been allowed in such a sensitive location, especially by the alleged guardians of our environmental quality. In fact, count me among those who remain surprised that the agency director still holds her political position, considering the way her agency so badly mishandled what amounted to an accommodation that (all complexities and balance aside) benefited Cargill and one family contrasted with a flagrantly unacceptable risk to a state’s national treasure.


Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him atmikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 11 on 01/21/2014

ARKANSAS POLLUTION CONTROL AND ECOLOGY COMMISSION
REGULAR COMMISSION MEETING
Friday, January 24, 2014
9:00 a.m.

ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
5301 NORTHSHORE DRIVE
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72118

AGENDA
(Item #03)

I.     Call Meeting to Order - 9:00 a.m.                         

II.     Roll Call

III.     Approval of October 25, 2013, Commission Meeting           (Item #04)
     Minutes

IV.     Department Reports
A.     Director’s Report

B.     Status of Regulations Monthly Report               (Item #50)

C.     Division Permit Reports                              (Items #51-64)

V.          Public Comments

VI.     Commission Reports
A.     Chair Lynn Sickel
1.     Proposed Commission Meeting Dates-2014          APPENDIX I
-     Minute Order (Adopt)                         (Items #05)

2.     Stipends 2014                                   APPENDIX II
-     Minute Order (Adopt)                         (Items #06)

B.     Regulations Committee – Randy Young
               1. Regulation No. 11, Regulations for Solid      APPENDIX III
               Waste Disposal Fees; Landfill Post-Closure Trust     (Items #07-14)
               Fund; and Recycling Grants Program
                    - Docket No. 13-011-R                              
                    - Lesley Morgan for Arkansas Department of
                     Environmental Quality
     - Minute Order (Initiate)

2. Regulation No. 12, Storage Tank               APPENDIX IV
     - Docket No. 14-001-R                         (Item #15-21)
     - Lorielle Gutting for Arkansas Department
     Of Environmental Quality
     - Minute Order (Initiate)
3. Regulation No. 15, Arkansas Open-Cut          APPENDIX V
Mining and Reclamation Regulation               (Item #22-27)
     - Docket No. 13-008-R
     - James Stephens for Arkansas Department
     Of Environmental Quality
     - Minute Order (Adopt)

          C. Minerals Subcommittee Report                         APPENDIX VI
               - Commissioner Simpson                         (Items #28-29)

VII. In the Matter of City of Wynne-Denial of Temporary     APPENDIX VII
          Variance                                             (Items #30-33)
-     Docket No. 13-010-MISC                              
-     Notice of Denial of Temporary Variance
-     Minute Order (Adopt)

VIII. In the Matter of Tyson Foods, Inc.-Waldron Plant          APPENDIX VIII
- Docket No. 13-008-MISC                    (Items #34-35)
-     Motion to Reopen Docket and to Rescind
Stay Order
-     Minute Order (Adopt)

IX.     In the Matter of Big River Steel, LLC                    APPENDIX IX
          - Docket No. 13-006-P                              (Items #36-40)
               - Motion for Partial Relief from Stay               
                    - John F. Peiserich for Big River Steel,
                    LLC
                    - Minute Order (Adopt)
               - Response to Motion for Partial Relief from
               Stay
                    - David K. Taggart for Nucor Corporation and
                    Nucor-Yamato Steel Company
-     Minute Order (Deny)

X.     Administrative Law Judge – Charles Moulton
     A.      Recommended Decision
1. In the Matter of Saddlebock Brewing LLC          APPENDIX X
- Docket No. 13-002-P                    (Items #41-42)
-     Recommended Decision (Order No. 7)
-     Minute Order (Adopt)

2. In the Matter of Street & Performance, Inc.     APPENDIX XI
- Docket No. 12-017-NOV                    (Items #43-46)
     - Recommended Decision (Order No. 8)
     - Request for Oral Argument
          - John Peiserich for Street &
          Performance, Inc.
     - Minute Order (Deny)
     - Minute Order (Adopt)

B.      Settled Cases per Regulation No. 8
     1. In the Matter of American Composting,          APPENDIX XII
     Inc.                                             (Items #47)
          - Docket No. 12-014-NOV

2. In the Matter of Blue Steel Investments,     APPENDIX XIII
LLC.                                             (Items #48)
-     Docket No. 13-005-NOV                                                  
XI.     Annual Case Report                                   APPENDIX XIV
                                                            (Item #49)

XII. Regulation No. 2, Minerals Power Point Presentation     
-     Ryan Benefield

XIII.     Adjour

Public Notice Week: Something to celebrate
Jan. 20, 2014 @ 12:10 AM
FRANK GIBSON

SEVIERVILLE  
Residents of Mt. Judea, Ark., woke up one morning recently to learn that their small community is about to become host to a hog farm – population 6,503 hogs.

“What really set me off was the fact that it was a done deal by the time we heard about it,” Gordon Watkins, a nearby farmer and president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, told the Arkansas Times in Little Rock.

State and local government officials had already approved the facility and said the public notice of the permit review process was “legally sufficient.” However, the instant replay showed the only notice the state gave was on the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s website. The only recourse left for Mt. Judeans is a lawsuit.

Stories like this abound all over the country, including in the Volunteer State. Despite that, numerous bills have been filed in the state legislature here in recent years to allow city councils and school boards among others to stop placing notices in newspapers and instead put them on their own websites.

Stories like this also prompted newspapers nationwide to create Public Notice Week to bring attention to public notices and how important they are to our democracy. It’s been that way since 1789. Open meetings and records laws as well as public notices allow citizens to know about and participate in their government.

Usually there is little to celebrate because bills to move or eliminate notices are always around. Some may surface yet in 2014, but this year is different. There is something worth celebrating.

Starting April 1, Tennessee newspapers which print public notices also will post them on the newspaper’s local website and upload them to a statewide aggregate website, www.tnpublicnotice.com, operated by the Tennessee Press Association. A majority of TPA’s 121 member newspapers has been doing both for some time.

TPA made a commitment and proposed legislation last year to formalize it. It requires newspapers to do the double posting – triple if you consider print – at no additional charge and provides that newspapers make notices easier to find with special links on their website homepages.

TPA executive director Greg Sherrill said the new law “ensures the best of both worlds.”

“Our leadership realized that an increasing number of our readers choose to receive their news and information from newspaper websites, which are consistently among the most-trafficked sites within any given community,” Sherrill said. “By making sure that notices are also available on these sites, newspapers can make public notices accessible to the widest audience possible. While online notices are convenient for many readers, they lack the security, durability, and ability for archival that the printed notices provide.”

Proposed changes here and elsewhere usually center on arguments that ending the practice of advertising notices will save the government money, but random checks show those expenses rarely exceed one-tenth of 1 percent of the agency’s budget.

Open government advocates question whether moving notices exclusively to government websites, in effect, eliminates public notice because it certainly removes the independent quality.

Government officials everywhere argue that the issue is about newspaper revenue. Newspapers acknowledge the revenue argument, but government officials don’t acknowledge how few people visit their websites. One survey last year showed almost 150 city and county governments didn’t have websites.

Proposals have contained no real standards for government websites. Bills here and in Pennsylvania provided they had to be available only 90 percent of the time. Citizens without computer access could get hard copies of notices at City Hall. Proponents didn’t explain how citizens would know when and where to ask.

Public opinion surveys in other states show that super majorities of taxpayers believe that the independent publication of public notices is worth the expense.

Webster’s defines the word “optimum” as “the point at which the condition, degree or amount of something is the most favorable or advantageous.” The new law and the services it requires newspapers to provide are about as favorable and advantageous as you can get short of a direct notice to every resident. Opponents of the change, admittedly some newspaper editorial writers, argue that notices should stay in the newspaper where the public already knows where to find them, and some previous proposals here and elsewhere have addressed that issue.

The solution: place an advertisement in the newspaper telling citizens about the government website.

What a novel idea.

Frank Gibson is TPA’s public policy director. He can be reached at 615-202-2685 or at fgibson@tnpress.com.

Keep The Buffalo River Pristine

Recently I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to tour the Fay Jones-designed Faubus house in Huntsville. About 30 years ago when I was a graduate student at the University of Arkansas, my mother and I stopped by the house. She was an interior designer and had heard how unique and gorgeous this house was and wanted a tour. In my youthful 20s I knew who Faubus was and expected to find an angry, bitter racist who would turn us away at the door. Instead I encountered a gracious, warm Southern gentleman who proceeded to give us an extended, unexpected tour of his residence. Years later after reading Roy Reed’s excellent biography of Faubus, I learned of a very different and important key political decision the governor made while in oftce. Faubus was the closer, the fi nal influential Arkansas leader to take a position against the Corps of Engineers and saved the Buff alo River.
This is Gov. Mike Beebe’s final term in oft ce. He has certainly done some good things for this state, but I wonder what his legacy will be. During the past year, he has allowed the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to permit the fi rst confined animal feeding operation in Arkansas less than six miles upstream from the Buffalo River. He has allowed the head of the state agency, Teresa Marks, the remain in oft ce even though she has made many public comments stating that she was not aware that the fi rst feeding operation permit was going through and did not think this permit would be controversial. What state does she live in? Beebe has also authorized $340,000 in state taxpayer funds to conduct water quality testing and geological characterization for a highly toxic and polluting industry.
This is corporate subsidization on the backs of poor Arkansans. Isn’t there a better use for these funds, such as supporting education? How does Arkansas benefit from this hog factory? It is anticipated to cost the Arkansas taxpayer close to $800,000 over the next 5 years to monitor and analyze this operation. Will taxes from this hog factory recoup the cost to monitor this operation?
This river is venerated, not only for its beauty, but people from all over the country come to experience its fast clean fl owing waters. River tourism brings in revenue to all the communities that embank the river, and the state of Arkansas to an estimated $38 million per year. The risk of contamination on the river is very high. This is a fragile ecosystem and even a small seepage will be devastating. Any way you slice it, the hog factory does not make economic or environmental sense.
Will Mike Beebe’s legacy be that he allowed one of the best things in Arkansas to become yet another poster child for corporate pollution? I hope not. Now is the time to remove this operation and keep the Buffalo as clean and pristine as possible.
TERESA TURK
Fayetteville

On January 13, 2014, the Department of Justice filed its Answer to BRWA's Amended Complaint. The next step in the agreed schedule is for the government to produce the Administrative Record on February 4, 2014.

Cargill says no ‘flood’ of hog factories planned for Arkansas
Becky Gillette Eureka Springs Independent
Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Cargill, the company buying the pork produced by the C&H Hog Farms located near the Buffalo River, has thus far responded to about 300 letters or e-mails from people concerned about how the operation might impact the nearby Buffalo National River.

Mike Martin, Cargill director of communications, in an interview this week with the Eureka Springs Independent, said that “Cargill has no plans for further expansions or additional CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) in Arkansas; C&H Hog Farms isn’t the first of a ‘flood’ of CAFOs planned for the state.

“We don’t have plans to have our contract suppliers increase operations or add additional farms in Arkansas,” Martin said. “Eighty five percent of hog production has left Arkansas in the past ten years. It is unlikely that will come back. This is simply a case where a family farmer wanted to expand his operation.”

Martin said C&H Hog Farms has put into place proper controls to prevent environmental problems.
“Be aware of the fact that in the immediate area where C&H Hog Farms exists near Mt. Judea, historically there have been more hogs in that area than there are now,” Martin said. “At one point, there were 11 hog farms in that watershed with a larger aggregate number of hogs than the 2,500 sows at C&H. Almost all of those farms have disappeared. They have gone out of business or moved. That is true of hog production in Arkansas in general.”

Martin said some production has been moved to states like Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri that are closer to the main sources of food for hogs – corn and other grains. He said another factor of hog production moving out of Arkansas is increasing regulations restricting farming in the state.

“It is a combination of tighter environmental regulations on farming, higher costs in the form of taxes, and more government oversight by federal agencies such as EPA and others,” Martin said. “It has made it a more challenging environment for farmers. As far as C&H is concerned, Cargill doesn’t own the farm. The farm is owned by three families who have lived in that area for several generations. They have been hog farmers for about a dozen years. About two-and-a-half years ago they asked if they expanded, would Cargill agree to take additional piglets? The lead farmer, Jason Henson, is a very responsible steward of the resources and is known for following rules and regulations. He has never been cited for anything at all. We said we would accept additional piglets if they expanded the operation.”

Martin said C&H Farms went to an engineering firm that specializes in building or expanding farms, and had plans drawn up for construction of hog barns and waste lagoons that complied with existing laws, as well as Cargill’s requirements. The farm then applied for what is known as a general permit for CAFOs. The farm received the first general permit CAFO in Arkansas.

“The environmental safeguards on that farm far exceed anything required by the state or federal government,” Martin said. “It has a nutrient management plan as part of the overall permitting process and focuses especially on hog waste and hog manure, which is basically used as fertilizer for hay fields in the immediate area. It comes down to doing it properly, being a good steward of resources, having a nutrient management plan approved by the State of Arkansas, and following that.”

Martin said that animal manure has been used for fertilizing crops for thousands of years, and Cargill believes that protection of the environment can co-exist with animal production.

“Those who oppose C&H Hog Farm are opposed to it on a ‘what if’ scenario that may never occur,” he said. “Certainly neither the farm owners, Cargill or anyone else wants to see harm come to the Buffalo National River. But anyone honest about the situation knows there are already sources impacting the Buffalo National River that have nothing to do with hog farming. There are actual real impacts to the river right now that are not being addressed.”

Martin said the owners of C&H Farms have been very transparent about their operations, even holding media tours of the farm.
“Both Cargill and the owners of the farm believe people have a right to see what is going on there,” he said. “There is nothing to hide. It is a pretty straightforward farm. I’ve seen people refer to the size of the farm and number of animals as large. In today’s context, it is a small- to medium-size hog operation. It is not by today’s standards a large operation. Farms have gotten bigger over time. It is a function of productivity and technology that has allowed farmers to produce more per acre or per animal. Farmers have become more productive in feeding a lot of people.”

http://www.eurekaspringsindependent.com/single_story.asp?StoryID=5228

Hog factory opponents move forward to protect the Buffalo River
Becky Gillette Eureka Springs Independent
Wednesday, January 08, 2014

The holidays brought new filings in the lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental groups challenging the permit for the controversial C&H Hog Farms in Mt. Judea near the Buffalo River, and the attention of one of the largest newspapers in the country, The New York Times.
Hannah Chang, the attorney with Earthjustice representing the environmental groups, said she was not terribly surprised to learn that The New York Times was doing a story on the hog factory.

“The problems CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] and factory farms are having in states other than Arkansas is well known,” Chang said. “There is a great deal of concern about it. It has affected a lot of other communities in other states. It goes beyond just this one facility.”

Chang said another reason The Times was interested in the article is that the farm was the first such facility in Arkansas to get a general permit for a CAFO. The general permit streamlined the process, avoiding controversy by minimizing public notice and not requiring notification of agencies such as the National Park Service, which is charged with protecting the Buffalo National River – the nation’s first National River.

“Other states have been experiencing the CAFO problems for years, so it is part of a much bigger problem,” Chang said. “It is a really big deal for this to be the first one in Arkansas and the first in the Buffalo River watershed to get this general permit. It is on the front lines of something new that could be moving into the state.”

The lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Arkansas Canoe Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Ozark Society. The plaintiffs allege that the USDA Farm Services Agency and the Small Business Administration (SBA) violated federal law in providing $3.2 million in loan guarantees for C&H Hog Farms, which began operating April 15, 2013.

Ozark Society President Robert Cross said the article was good exposure for an important issue.
“We are particularly pleased because we believe Cargill, who is the giant agriculture company behind this, should know that the people of the country realize the dangers of this type of operation not just in Arkansas, but around the country,” Cross said. “We are concerned with the particular location of this one and surprised Cargill would support one so close to Buffalo National River because of the possibilities of environmental damage.”

Cross said he didn’t think the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director [ADEQ] Teresa Marks came across very well in the article. Marks had earlier denied that the waste would leave the area of the hog farm where millions of gallons of untreated liquid manure will be spread on fields. But in The Times article, she said, “Will there be some of this waste that could reach the Buffalo River? Sure. Will it cause an environmental problem? No, we don’t think there’s going to be any environmental harm caused.”
In other states like North Carolina, heavy periods of rainfall have inundated sewage lagoons leading to million of gallons of waste pouring into local rivers where it has caused major environmental damage including massive fish kills. Cross said there couldn’t have been a worse spot to spray the hog waste than the fields in Mt. Judea. They are underlain with porous limestone karst that allows contaminated seepage to reach the groundwater and then Big Creek and the Buffalo River.

One of big concerns is that three of the fields abut the grounds of Mt. Judea School, which has 250 students.
“This is untreated hog waste that is being spread within a short distance of the school, as well as many of the homes there,” Cross said. “The fact is that the hog waste is untreated. We wouldn’t think of spreading our own waste in a method like that. It wouldn’t be allowed. But it is allowed to spread animal waste, which is just as dangerous as human waste. A hog generates four to eight times the fecal matter as a human, so at full capacity the 6,500 hogs could produce as much excrement as a city of 35,000. Spreading around untreated waste really gets to me as a retired professor of chemical engineering who has worked on sewage treatment plants.”

Even though waste hasn’t been sprayed on fields yet, Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (BRWA), said he has had numerous reports of offensive odors from as far as six miles from the facility, as well as in the halls and classrooms of the Mt. Judea School.

“Hogs have a distinctive stink and there is no mistaking the source,” Watkins said.
Cross said the permit process didn’t assess the economic impact on tourism or the environmental impact on local residents.
“Government agencies seem to be going out of their way to protect an industrial swine facility that will produce a handful of jobs, rather than our first national river that belongs to all of us and supports $38 million in local spending and five hundred local jobs,” he said.
In response to the lawsuit in December, the USDA and SBA denied violating any federal law. Earthjustice amended its complaint in late December adding some new facts and claims regarding violation of the Endangered Species Act.

“The government should be responding to that by the end of January,” Chang said. “We have agreed with the government on a briefing schedule. This is a case where we are asking the court to review what the agencies did in creating the loan. We filed the original complaint in August, and a lot has been going on since then. The state government is now using taxpayer money to do additional monitoring and studies, which is good because ADEQ gave it such a quick review but now wants to monitor it. Assuming everything goes forward as planned, briefings should be finished in early May, and then the court should decide to schedule oral arguments.”

Chang said the environmental groups have a strong case in showing that the federal agencies didn’t give the permit the proper scrutiny.
“That is a major weakness that the government just sort of rubber stamped it,” Chang said.

A positive outcome to the case could have nationwide implications if it makes it more difficult to get government-backed loans for CAFOs.
“We’re optimistic,” Cross said. “We are also looking at other legal options. There are certainly some other significant areas that can be explored. In this current lawsuit, the other side has such a weak case we believe we will prevail to have the loan guarantee withdrawn. We are hopeful the real force behind this, Cargill, will see the light one of these days and do something about this. The best outcome for everyone would be to have the farm moved.”

Cross said residents who want to have an impact on the issue should “not be quiet about it. Write to the governor. Write to the ADEQ. Write letters to the newspapers. Contact Cargill’s new president. Don’t let the issue die.”

Watkins said people should also write their state and federal representatives and ask that this facility be closed and no more be allowed in the Buffalo River watershed. People can visit the BRWA website (www.brwa.org) to learn much more and donate there, or on the sites of the coalition partners, to help support the efforts.

Billboard stirs hog farm controversy
 

Photo submitted 
This is a billboard on U.S. 65 South near Western Grove. Could it be warning of impending pollution from the ADEQ-permitted hog farm in Mt. Judea near Big Creek, a tributary to the Buffalo National River?


Posted: Monday, January 6, 2014 12:46 pm |
Staff report | 0 comments

Swine versus scenery?

It's a quandary of food production: The same drive for efficiency that lowers the cost of eating also can damage our soil and water.
Take the case of one simple, essential, chemical element: phosphorus.
Phosphorus is one of the nutrients that plants need to grow, and for most of human history, farmers always needed more of it. "There was this battle to have enough available phosphorus for optimum crop production," says Kenneth Staver, a scientist with the University of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center, which sits between farm fields and the Chesapeake Bay on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
That's also the tension in this story: Agriculture on one side, and water quality on the other.
Traditionally, farmers got phosphorus from animal manure. So if you grew crops like corn or wheat, it was good to have poultry or hogs nearby. Your grain fed the animals, and their manure fed your crops. Everything worked together.
Then came industrial fertilizer: Big phosphorus mines; factories for making the other important nutrient, nitrogen; and railroads or highways to carry that fertilizer to any farmer who needed it.
"With the development of the inorganic fertilizer industry, it's possible to grow grain without having animals nearby. So you can de-couple the animal agriculture from the grain agriculture," Staver says.
And de-couple they did. Farmers concentrated on just one kind of production. So did entire regions. Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama, for instance, now produce the largest number of chickens undefined more than a billion of them every year. But they don't grow much chicken feed. They haul in grain from far away.
As that grain flows from fields to chicken houses, or hog farms, so do the nutrients in it, such as phosphorus and nitrogen.
Some of it goes into meat that people eat, but a lot goes into animal waste.
This is where the problem starts. Farmers near those chicken houses or hog farms often take lots of that manure and spread it on their fields, partly just to get rid of it and partly for its value as fertilizer. Crops, however, need much more nitrogen than phosphorus. When farmers use manure to give their crops an optimal amount of nitrogen, they over-supply phosphorus.
"This is happening everywhere," Staver says. "Where you have large concentrations of animal production, you tend to have a buildup of nutrients undefined phosphorus is the one that accumulates undefined in soils around concentrated animal-producing regions."
Wherever it accumulates, rain washes it into streams, lakes and estuaries, where it's an ecological disaster.
"It drives algae growth, so it ends up clouding the water. You don't get the light penetration to support the rooted aquatic plants that are important in the food chain," Staver says. "You also get these algae blooms, and when they die, they draw oxygen from the water. You get dead zones."
In many places, environmental regulators are trying to stop this buildup of phosphorus.
Until recently, it looked like Maryland was taking the lead. The state has a big poultry industry right beside the Chesapeake Bay, which has been choked with nutrient pollution.
Last year, Maryland proposed new rules that would have stopped farmers from putting more phosphorus on any fields that already have too much of it. It required soil tests to determine a key phosphorus index number.
Lee Richardson, a farmer in Willards, Md., was worried. "The word we were getting undefined if [your fields] were over 150, you weren't going to spread manure," he says. Most of his fields are over that level.
The manure ban would have hit him two different ways.
First, he grows chickens; if their manure couldn't go on his fields, it would have to go somewhere else. "Chances are, growers were going to have to pay to get it hauled away, and taken out of the chicken house," he says.
Second, his corn fields still need nitrogen. Without manure as a nitrogen source, he'd have to buy the manufactured kind of fertilizer, which is more expensive.
Richardson and other farmers protested, arguing that the new rules would inflict huge economic harm, while the environmental benefits are uncertain.
In November, the state of Maryland backed down. It promised to study the issue some more. Kenneth Staver, from the University of Maryland, says it's not that hard to imagine a solution to the problem.
"The obvious one is, find a way to re-distribute the phosphorus from the animal production facilities back to where the crop production is," he says. The manure would have to travel to the vast fields that farmers currently fertilize with fresh, mined phosphorus.
Hauling manure such distances would cost money. Staver says, it's the price of cleaner, healthier water.
If farmers have to pay that cost, growing chickens or hogs will get more expensive.
Then we, the consumers, would pay for it, through more expensive meat.