Hog farm will test vaporizer

But not enough waste to install it, Florida company says

The Florida company planning to vaporize manure at a Mount Judea hog farm will test the equipment but will not permanently install it, the company president said last week.

Plasma Energy Group will test the technology at C&H Hog Farms over a 60-day period later this year to gather data on air emissions related to the plasma arc pyrolysis vaporizing technology, company President Murry Vance said. The company could then use that data if it tried to sell its product to another hog facility that might need an air permit to install it, Vance said.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality would oversee the testing, he said.

C&H Hog Farms doesn't have enough hogs to produce enough waste to break even if it invested in the technology, Vance said.

"We thought it was marginal, probably, from the beginning," Vance said. "They were willing to use it even though it wasn't economical."

For the technology to make economic sense, Vance said, a facility would need to house about 5,000 sows and already be spending about $200,000 annually on hog waste.

C&H, a large, concentrated animal-feeding operation, is permitted to house up to 2,500 sows and 4,000 piglets at a time on its land on Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River.

Plasma arc pyrolysis typically involves the conversion of material into synthetic gas. In the case of C&H, Vance has said the waste won't be turned into synthetic gas because the quantity of material won't be large enough. The method proposed for the C&H farm would break down the hog waste and vaporize it using an electron discharge and some heat, then condense the water vapor into "semi-pure" water that is put back into the plant.

An official with C&H Hog Farms did not return voice mails left for him. An official with JBS, which supplies hogs to C&H Hog Farms, did not return voice mails left for him.

Jason Henson, one of three owners of C&H Hog Farms, had previously told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the owners were pursuing the technology because of its potential to reduce hog waste on the facility's property, which might appeal to environmental groups concerned about the hog waste at C&H.

Environmental groups were not happy with the proposal, which they called "experimental" and "risky," posing a threat to the Buffalo National River.

Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, said he wasn't surprised to hear that the technology would not be installed permanently at C&H.

"One of our first reactions was that it was not economically feasible," he said.

C&H Hog Farms, which environmental groups say poses a threat to the water quality of the Buffalo River with the amount of hog waste stored on-site and applied to land, has proposed various changes to its facility to assuage the groups' concerns.

C&H started talking to Plasma Energy Group about plasma arc pyrolysis technology in 2014. The Department of Environmental Quality warned Plasma Energy Group in October 2014 that testing the technology could result in enforcement action if the technology resulted in gas discharges that would require an air permit.

The department had been unable to determine whether Plasma Energy Group needed an air permit because it did not receive enough data from the company on projected gas discharges from vaporizing hog waste. The company had vaporized some materials before but hadn't done so with hog waste until it did some testing last summer at Sandy River Farm in Conway County.

About a year ago, C&H officials applied to the Department of Environmental Quality to add covers on the hog waste lagoons that would capture gas emitted from them and then send it through an upward pipe to flare and burn it.

Earlier this year, Ellis Campbell, a farmer in Newton County, asked the Department of Environmental Quality for permission to apply up to 6.6 million gallons of hog manure from C&H on nearly 600 acres of his farm fields in the county. That would allow C&H to reduce the volume of hog waste on its site and stay within its permit.

The Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- is a popular tourist spot, with more than 1.3 million visitors in 2014 who spent about $56.5 million at area businesses, according to National Park Service data.

Small hog farms have existed in the Buffalo River watershed for years, but C&H is the first large-scale hog facility in the watershed.

Last summer, the state imposed a five-year ban on new medium or large hog farms in the watershed.

Metro on 05/02/2016

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