A new threat to the Buffalo

[WhiteTara]

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/a-new-threat-to-the-buffalo/Content?oid=4718195

For over three years now, a fight has raged over C&H Hog Farm, a large concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Mt. Judea that houses some 6,500 swine near Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo National River. Environmentalists have long feared that liquid hog waste — which the farm spreads on its surrounding acreage — would seep into the region's porous geology and find its way into the beloved river. Last August, the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission enacted a five-year moratorium on new large-scale factory hog farms in the Buffalo watershed with the backing of Governor Hutchinson and the legislature. The ban did not affect existing permits, such as the one held by C&H.

But a facility near Deer (Newton County) called EC Farms may have found a loophole that will allow it to serve as a disposal site for up to 6.7 million gallons of liquid hog waste annually.

EC Farms is owned by Ellis Campbell, a cousin of C&H owners Richard and Phillip Campbell. Until this year, it held a permit for a relatively small hog-farming operation — about 300 animals — but the farm seems to have been closed since 2013. The permit, however, remained active. This summer, EC Farms applied for a permit modification (rather than a new permit) that would allow it to "land farm" hog waste originating with another facility — specifically, C&H. When the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality granted the modification in July, the state environmental regulator gave the go-ahead to EC Farms to spread millions of gallons of pig manure on its property each year.

More water protectors...may they all succeed.