Cargill Inc., the multinational corporation responsible for placing the factory of up to 6,500 swine in the Buffalo National River watershed, has responded to sustained public outcries by saying it has no plans to abandon its grossly misplaced venture called C&H Hog Farms.
Sounds to me as if the Minnesota-based corporation is vowing to "root hog or die."
In an Aug. 20 letter, Mike Luker, president of Cargill's pork operations, tells Joe Nix of Arkadelphia that the privately owned corporation, after weighing its options in the precious and fragile watershed, has decided to stay put and make some modifications to its current operation.
Nix, by the way, has a long and distinguished history with fighting to preserve water quality in Arkansas, including the water-quality lab he started at Ouachita Baptist University in 1966 where he used undergraduate students to study many of the rivers and lakes in Arkansas through the years with funding from the EPA, Corps of Engineers and numerous others. Nix also was the second president of the Ozark Society, following the Buffalo River's first hero, Neil Compton.
Luker says Cargill will continue to support the farm and its family owners, and reported that changes in "environmental safeguards" (that should have been firm state requirements before a permit was even entertained ... then denied) include the following:
• Lining the factory's odoriferous holding lagoons and settling basins with a synthetic liner (ostensibly to minimize leakage into the groundwater system).
• Covering the settling basins (to minimize the God-awful odors and gas emanations).
• Installing a flaring system to burn off resulting gas emissions.
• Exploring leak-detection technology for these new liners, as well as water-treatment options and technologies, whatever exploring those means.
• Incorporating leading-edge technologies (also whatever that means because those aren't detailed).
Luker contends there will be ongoing open and transparent communication with environmental associations such as the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society, Canoe Club, and National Parks Conservation Association.
Karst expert and former University of Arkansas geosciences professor Dr. John Van Brahana, who has spent a year with his team of volunteers monitoring subsurface water quality and flow around this factory, said he finds it interesting that Luker made no mention of keeping open and ongoing communication with the National Park Service. It was among the group of relevant entities who were never informed of the initial plans to establish this factory in the watershed the Park Service actually manages and monitors.
Luker says Cargill does not intend to place any additional CAFOs in the Buffalo River basin, nor expand the present factory. Our state finally has taken similar action well after this place was ensconced.
I guess that means the corporation doesn't realize the problem that thousands of Arkansans and others have today doesn't involve the potential for other of its factories to threaten the quality of this national treasure. The objections are that our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) was so relatively quick and quiet in allowing this factory to operate in the sacred watershed in the first place.
In a closing worthy of Cargill's polished public relations specialist Michael Martin, Luker tells Nix: "We also pledge our continuous efforts to explore fact-based and science-based technologies and solutions that further safeguard the area where C&H operates. I realize a solution which satisfies all is probably unrealistic. I do wish to keep the door open for future dialogue and hope you consider doing the same."
I might as well repeat myself for effect here. It strikes me that Cargill could have saved (and still could) an awful lot of hard feelings and an enormous potential PR nightmare from potentially polluting the country's first national river with hog waste had it simply decided this endless battle in the public interest is neither morally nor financially feasible.
An exploding UA
The exploding growth of attendance over a decade at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville places it seventh among America's public universities offering doctorates, says the Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2002, nearly 16,000 were enrolled there. In 2012, that number had swelled to almost 25,000, representing a 53.4 percent increase.
That's a fact all Arkansans can and should feel pride in hearing.
The skyrocket was made even more apparent last week when news reports said 72 students who were to live on campus had been assigned temporary living spaces until the dust settles and they can be settled into one of the university's 17 residence halls and apartment complex. Housing contracts were set for 5,717 students. Part of the problem in properly dealing with the crush involves gender and affordability.
I have no doubt it will all get resolved in the next week when the final numbers are in. But it leaves no doubt in my mind that the flagship land-grant university for our state continues to steadily flourish and attract many of the better students in our state and those surrounding us.
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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.
Editorial on 08/31/2014