A state commission Friday renewed a 180-day pause on issuing environmental permits to prospective medium or large hog farms in the Buffalo River watershed.
The Pollution Control and Ecology Commission approved the moratorium on a voice vote with no audible dissent or discussion among the 11 members present.
The commission first enacted a 180-day moratorium in April after the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel petitioned to begin a rule-making process that seeks to ban medium or large confined animal operations and concentrated animal-feeding operations for swine from the watershed in the future.
The moratorium was enacted to allow for officials to see the rule-making process through, said Charles Moulton, the commission's administrative law judge who drafted the moratorium. It expired Wednesday.
The proposed rule would amend the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality's Regulation 5, which governs liquid animal-waste systems, and Regulation 6, which covers national pollution discharge elimination systems.
Hog farms can seek permits under either regulation. Regulation 6 is used by any facility discharging waste directly into surface water, including the C&H hog farm in Mount Judea that has drawn contention since the public learned of its permit approval from the Environmental Quality Department at the start of 2013.
The proposed rule would not retroactively affect C&H, and no hog farm applications are pending.
"Our rule-making does not pertain to C&H," said Ross Noland, an attorney representing the petitioners. "We're not messing with C&H."
The rule seeks to mitigate the potential environmental impact of medium or large hog farms in the watershed, Noland said. That impact could increase if more farms go in or severe weather damages animal waste containers.
The rule's petitioners are to go before the state House and Senate agriculture and public health committees on Dec. 5 for review of the rule, after which it would be reviewed by a rules and regulations committee, Moulton said.
The commission would vote on whether to adopt the rule after that. Legislative approval is not required, but review is commonly sought by state agencies.
Last week, two former Arkansas congressmen urged state legislators to review the rule. Former U.S. Reps. Ed Bethune and John Paul Hammerschmidt, both Republicans, said large-scale concentrated animal-feeding operations in the watershed jeopardized one of the "crown jewels of the Natural State."
A medium-scale, swine animal-feeding operation is defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as one housing between 750 and 2,499 swine each weighing 55 pounds or more, or 3,000 to 9,999 swine weighing less than 55 pounds. A large-scale swine operation is defined as housing 2,500 or more swine each weighing 55 pounds or more, or 10,000 or more swine weighing less than 55 pounds each.
Eleven people spoke before the commission Friday at the Environmental Quality Department's headquarters in North Little Rock, most of them expressing concern over the only Regulation 6-permitted large hog farm in the watershed, C&H, which abuts Big Creek about 6 miles from its confluence with the river.
Those who spoke said the hog farm threatened the quality of the Buffalo National River as a recreation and tourism area, and some said the farm, which opened last spring, was already fouling the waters that drain into the river.
Jason Henson, owner of C&H, argued before the commission that data from the University of Arkansas, which is studying the hog farm's environmental impact, showed no significant effect on the water.
Additionally, some people who commented were concerned about a new waste-disposal method -- converting hog waste into synthetic gas -- being considered by C&H and a Florida company, Plasma Energy Group.
The Environmental Quality Department has informed the companies that because of the lack of data predicting the method's environmental impact, the department could not determine whether the companies needed an air-quality permit.
In email sent to Plasma Energy Group founder Murry Vance, the department's permit branch manager, Thomas Rheaume, said the company could face enforcement action if it tests the method and later discovers the air emissions from the process would require an air permit.
After nearly an hour of comments, the commission took up the moratorium -- the day's only agenda item -- and passed it in less than a minute.
Last week, a federal judge said he would file an injunction against loan guarantees for C&H and require the Farm Service Agency, which conducted the original environmental assessment of the hog farm, to redo the assessment.
Ruling in a civil suit filed by several conservation groups, U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said the agency ignored several federal laws during its review.
Last month, the commission approved changes to Regulation 6 that would notify county judges, mayors, school superintendents and adjacent property owners when someone applies for a general permit for a concentrated animal-feeding operation under the regulation.
Metro on 10/25/2014