NWA EDITORIAL: Protection first

Buffalo River findings reflect need for urgency

From the moment Arkansas' Department of Environmental Quality granted in 2012 a permit for the operation of a large-scale hog farm near a tributary of the first national river in the nation, the National Park Service could read the algae ... er, tea leaves.

The surprise issuance a state permit for operation of C&H Hog Farms "most certainly threatens the water quality of [the] Buffalo National River," the superintendent of the national river wrote at the time. Polluting the waters of the Buffalo would predictably hurt endangered species and, perhaps more important to state government sensibilities, tourism and the local economy based so fundamentally upon it.

What’s the point?

Findings of intensified algea in the Buffalo River need to also intensify the state’s response to protecting the nation’s first national river.

The fight for the Buffalo River's protection has been raging ever since. Truth be told, though, it's raged for decades against constant pressure from environmental threats. Apparently, designation of a national river only goes so far to ensure a natural resource as vital to the state of Arkansas as it is incredible to the human experience is protected from the profit-driven hubris of mankind.

Arkansas government seems to walk a very fine line, balancing as if on a split-rail fence. Lose balance and the fall could be into clear, environmentally healthy waters of the state's best-known natural amenity or it could go the other way, into pig waste. We know which way we'd want to go.

Now we hear from the U.S. Geological Survey that federal research shows an increased level of pollution in the groundwater of the Buffalo River's watershed.

That sentence should make the hearts of any nature-loving Arkansans skip a beat or two.

The Buffalo River had 70 miles of algae this year, a distance that represents nearly half the river's length.

It needs to be said clearly that the research does not tie the presence of algae to C&H Hog Farms.

It sure does make you wonder, though, doesn't it?

The findings come from multiple studies by the survey, the National Park Service and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which most recently has denied a new operating permit for C&H Hog Farms. Among the agency's reasons is concern that the farm could be contributing to water quality issues in Big Creek, which it is closest to, and thus into the Buffalo River into which Big Creek flows.

Such research is painstakingly slow when it comes to pointing a finger at a specific cause or contributor of pollution. So, yes, other animal agriculture could be contributing to the levels of elevated nutrients that cause ecosystem-damaging algae.

That such findings can take years is precisely why Arkansas must be aggressive in protecting this state (and national) treasure. By the time researchers figure out what's happening, then the political process runs its course, we could be talking years -- decades even -- before damage can be undone.

Doesn't it make more sense to jealously protect the river from damage in the first place, rather than cleaning up a mess later that could have been avoided?

Commentary on 11/30/2018

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