I am struggling with the words to describe the travesty and the indignation that would be associated with polluting the Buffalo River. I know agriculture has a place in our society, but a farm with 6,500 hogs on a tributary of the Buffalo is totally out of place. I have enough business experience with a large agricultural conglomerate to know that accidents will happen at such hog farms.
Holding pits will overflow and other disasters will happen. The runoff will ultimately flow into the Buffalo. Just last year we were celebrating the 50 year of the Buffalo being designated a National River. We owe a huge debt to our politicians who fought for the Buffalo and especially to Dr. Neil Compton. Are we going to turn our backs on all that effort and sacrifice?
I have paddled challenging water from the Rockies to the Appalachia.
I have two medals from the Whitewater Open Canoe Nationals. Still, my favorite river is the Buffalo. I have paddled it for more than 40 years and something still happens to me when I descend into the Buffalo River Valley.
Among the memorabilia in my home office is a picture of the Buffalo taken by Tim Ernst. At the bottom is a cutout with this quote from Doctor Compton upon his first trip to the Buffalo in 1932. “This journey to the unknown Buffalo did implant the seed of interest in our native land so that for me from then on an honest comparison was sought between our rivers, forest, mountains and prairies and those in other parts of America and the world. And for our people a feeling not so much pride but of sympathy and understanding for their unpretentious manner, their honest approach to the uncertainties of life, their wry and whimsical method of expression and their tried-and-true moral values.” It is utterly unthinkable to let a group of bureaucrats jeopardize a beautiful national treasure and a true symbol of Arkansas values.
GARY W. JOHNSON
Springdale
Opinion, Pages 5 on 04/22/2013