After appealing the state's denial of a Regulation 5 permit in the Buffalo National River watershed, owners of C&H Hog Farms are trying to cover their interests by applying for another form of five-year permit.
Meanwhile, the C&H appeal winds on toward an August hearing before an administrative law judge. The factory continues operating on its expired Regulation 6 general permit while regularly spraying untold gallons of raw waste onto fields around Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo.
At the risk of being obtusely technical (and thus boring) today, I'm relaying my understanding of what's happening with all this C&H permittin' and denyin' and reapplyin'.
C&H began operating in 2012 as the state's only holder of a Regulation 6 general permit. There also exists a Regulation 6 individual wastewater discharge permit. Both are issued by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough).
In determining compliance, the agency follows the USDA's Agricultural Waste Management Field Handbook. The book contains technical federal environmental requirements that should be met for a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) like C&H to become permitted.
Such demands are especially relevant in a region whose karst-riddled subsurface is highly fractured, cavernous and filled with voids that allow groundwater to travel far and fast. Exercising such caution only reflects due diligence and common sense.
Yet the agency decided in 2012 to quickly and quietly issue C&H its permit. It was awarded without insistence upon critical geologic and groundwater flow studies, in-depth evaluations of berms and liners of two lagoons (together holding 3 million gallons of raw waste), and other requirements clearly listed in the field handbook.
Although it had staff geologists fully capable of conducting karst and groundwater studies in 2012, not one examination was assigned. In effect, the agency welcomed C&H to a Newton County hilltop to begin raising 6,500 swine six miles upstream from what was voted recently as the state's most popular attraction.
C&H's general permit expired in 2017. The Department of Environmental Quality by then had eliminated that particular permit altogether. C&H then applied for a CAFO-specific Regulation 5 permit which, among other favorable aspects to the factory, would have no expiration date.
While differing in some aspects from the Regulation 6 general permit, the Regulation 5 version was still subject to the field handbook's stringent requirements. Someone at Environmental Quality obviously regained their senses and realized the wastewater requirements exist for a reason and should be followed.
That left C&H owners holding the bag since for the first time they were told they had to conduct the groundwater flow testing and other demands. We are taking about some expensive and extensive (yet necessary) testing being enforced five years after it should have been done.
C&H's request for the new permit was properly denied because these specific requirements were missing from its application. The owners understandably cried foul. It wasn't their fault the agency had inexplicably failed to follow its own guidelines when issuing the permit in 2012.
So with Environmental Quality's general permit expired and discontinued, and the Regulation 5 application denied, C&H was left only with a Regulation 6 individual permit as a hopeful long-shot. However, that permit doesn't fit C&H's situation since its intended focus has been with industrial wastewater facilities rather than CAFOs.
So here we are awaiting results of the C&H appeal of the Regulation 5 denial and watching the CAFO's latest permitting attempt. The way I see it, those necessary requirements cited in the USDA handbook present a formidable hurdle that must be satisfactorily met if this factory is allowed to operate, period.
I do feel for the C&H owner/operators who were recruited and supported by Cargill Inc. and agricultural lobbyists into pioneering their CAFO into the heart of our sacred Buffalo watershed.
The owners did everything the state required. Several highly placed officials in the Department of Environmental Quality are responsible for allowing this fiasco by initially ignoring the USDA's prescribed actions designed to protect sensitive environments and ecosystems.
Because this monumental failure falls squarely on the agency's shoulders, the state should be willing to make these owners financially whole, then insist on a full cleanup and closure.
Even then, geoscientists familiar with the porous watershed fear the fractured ground beneath the factory and its spray fields already contains untold amounts of raw waste that have settled into subterranean voids, which could take a very long time to clear.
The USDA's regulations here are neither arbitrary nor vague. They exist for significant reasons, based on the known effects and science behind permitting any waste-generating factory.
At the same time, I'm pleased to see the Department of Environmental Quality finally step up and acknowledge it should have insisted on all relevant groundwater, geologic and lagoon safety issues being fully resolved when they should have been nearly six years ago.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 04/24/2018