Last week, the owners of the controversial hog factory in the Buffalo National River watershed changed their minds and refused to allow the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to drill a test hole deep beneath one of the factory's two manure lagoons.
It was an unexpected development and a sudden reversal of the agreement between state officials and owners of C&H Hog Farms.
But then, only days later, the owners changed their minds again and said they would allow drilling to proceed.
On, then off, then on again. I imagine a light switch.
So for now, unless this changes, or the driller can't make it, the Department of Environmental Quality says it will proceed with its plan to drill but a single hole beneath one of the lagoons to hopefully determine what's created the large, wet plume 120 feet beneath one corner of the lower waste pond.
C&H owner Jason Henson changing his mind about cooperating after the state had arranged for a drilling contractor sounded to me like those hog factory folks saying they didn't want to participate anymore since the initial drilling plan changed in a way they didn't like.
Why would Henson (the H in C&H) decide after weeks of cooperating with plans for the exploratory drilling to suddenly decline permission, yet several days later give the go-ahead again?
Like many others, including the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, I can only guess. Could he have been concerned with what the testing might reveal, perhaps what the Oklahoma State University geologist whose March 2015 tests discovered the plume suspected: leakage from the lagoon?
Something certainly had to have changed to cause Henson to suddenly pull his cooperation. The primary change I see was that the Department of Environmental Quality had revised its drilling plans to eliminate as exclusive "observers" two members of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team from the University of Arkansas' Agriculture Division.
Under the agency's plan, the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, whose sole interest lies in protecting the Buffalo watershed, also wasn't allowed an observer.
Many have come to view the agriculture-oriented Big Creek team as sympathetic to the factory owners, particularly since part of its advertised mission is to explore how a large swine factory can co-exist with a fragile environment like the Buffalo's watershed.
In other words, while it was widely assumed by the public that the Big Creek team would annually be paid $300,000 in tax funds over five years to aggressively monitor the hog factory's discharges to prevent the Buffalo's contamination, the "extension" part of the team's mission apparently was to assist the factory owners' efforts in helping make a success of the misplaced factory.
Had the state proceeded with its misguided plan to have only Big Creek observers at the drilling tests, I'd have been more uncomfortable than ever about the way this intrusion into our precious river's watershed has been oddly championed by state regulators from the day the state wrongheadedly issued the permit three years ago.
I can't overlook that it was the Big Creek team that employed this Oklahoma geologist who (acting on his own volition and using electronic technology) discovered the unidentified plume beneath the lagoon. Yet it was this same Big Creek team who then inexplicably chose not to reveal his disturbing discovery to the Department of Environmental Quality or the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission.
It wasn't until months later that the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance made the possible leak known during a commission meeting.
With credibility and public trust suffering already, the department and the Big Creek team must realize it won't bode well for them in the public eye should this plume turn out to indeed be raw hog waste. Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo, flows at the bottom of the hill and into the Buffalo less than seven miles downstream.
The Department of Environmental Quality responded to Henson's earlier denial of access by slapping C&H with a "Notice of Technical Incompleteness" regarding its permit. That meant C&H either had to allow the agency and its contractors onto the site to conduct the test, or would have to fund its own monitored testing. And its application for a permit was put on hold.
However, with permission now restored, the state said that when the drilling is complete, the deficiency notice will be moot and the factory's permit application will be reviewed.
I can't help wonder what our Gov. Asa Hutchinson is thinking of this multifaceted mess today, particularly since any consequences to bad decisions at this stage will unfold solely on his watch.
The Alliance echoed my sentiments by saying our state is investing so much public money, time and energy when it's apparent to all with common sense that this factory "has no place in the sensitive karst terrain of the Buffalo River watershed." That, my friends, summarizes the on-again, off-again, on-again controversy.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 09/11/2016