Don’t hog the Buffalo

It wasn’t the familiar game-day refrain of “Wooo, Pig! Sooey! Razorbacks!” echoing across the University of Arkansas’ Fayetteville campus Tuesday at noon. Yet it was surprisingly close and downright clever.

A diverse crowd estimated at 250 strong gathered at the corner of Maple and Garland Streets beside the university’s law school to wave shaking hands high in the air and continually wail: “Noooo pig pooey! Buffalo!”

They had taken time from their day to unite in protest of that state permitted industrial hog farm inside the watershed of the Buffalo National River in Newton County.

All these folks were trying to attract the attention of Tom Vilsack, the U.S. secretary of agriculture and former Iowa governor, who was delivering a talk at the law school that afternoon on an ironically similar topic.

The USDA’s local Farm Service Agency had approved a tax-supported loan for that concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on grounds that I and many others (including the National Park Service) believe was a flawed, erroneous and incomplete report.

The crowd that ranged in age from preschool to octogenarian was trying to get Vilsack to realize how many problems exist with the environmental-assessment portion of the report. They also wanted Vilsack to ask the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General to investigate the methods and manner in which the report was supervised by a loan officer whose wife, he says, is distantly related to one owner of the controversial C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea.

Inspector general’s offices in federal agencies routinely investigate possible management problems and potential conflicts of interest within the operation of those agencies. In short, they ensure integrity prevails in their agency’s dealings with the public.

And gosh knows, with the National Park Service alone noting 45 questionable instances in the environmental assessment for this particular farm, there’s enough smoke for an objective yet aggressive inquiry to clear the air over these Ozarks.

The energized crowd on this overcast weekday was displaying clever homemade banners that read the likes of “Don’t hog the Buffalo,” “Runoff happens!” and other signs that questioned Cargill Inc.’s decision to contract with the CAFO in this sacred location.

Unfortunately on this day, Vilsack’s security team made sure he didn’t see or speak with the citizens that his position and office exist to serve.

As our secretary of agriculture, I believe I’d have taken five minutes and visit with those who invested their time and energy to stand on a street corner so I might weigh the legitimacy of their concerns. But I’m admittedly a quaint old-schooler from the days when a public servant was still expected to be just that.

Afterwards, Vilsack did issue what to me seemed a cryptic statement. It read in effect that he and his staff were aware of the C&H controversy and find their agency’s role in the matter has been sound, although: “There are steps that can be taken. There is some distance from the river.” Hmm, steps, distance? I dunno.

Today, I say good for all the Arkansans who came from as far away as central Arkansas to raise their voices in unison against a phenomenally terrible idea.

It’s an idea supported by the state’s “environmental protection” agency that contends it had no choice but to endorse this source of potential pollution to the nation’s first national river,by a federal agency that seemed to bend over backwards to guarantee our tax monies will back the farm should it fail, and by a meat-processing giant contracting with the farm to purchase hogs from an anticipated supply of up to about 6,500 animals.

At this point, much like that impressive crowd, I (and others) have a growing list of questions and observations that deserve answers in the public interest. They include:

Each of C&H Farms’ cesspools is said to be performing as designed even if it leaks up to 5,000 gallons daily, records show. Since the cesspools are lined with clay rather than impervious membranes, I’m surprised that, with any substance as potentially polluting as hog waste, only clay is required.

There doesn’t appear to be a provision for specifically determining if more than 5,000 gallons a day are leaking. Yet it’s the operator of this farm who’s required to report a spill within 30 days of that event. Does that mean within a full month of when, if ever, he discovers a leak then reports himself for polluting? Really?

And since the Big Creek watershed reportedly comprises 6 percent of the total watershed of the Buffalo National River, who determines that this kind of potential leakage is acceptable into the Buffalo’s watershed and possibly into the river itself?

I also can’t find in the records any provisions for regularly monitoring the runoff into Big Creek (or other alluvial waters) for excess nutrients and the byproducts of runoff from the fields where waste will be regularly sprayed.

Finally today, most of us who oppose this hog CAFO certainly are not against farmers by any stretch. The growing public resistance is based solely on placing a potentially polluting industrial hog farm in the most environmentally sensitive and economically viable region of Arkansas-period.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.