Save the Buffalo River! America's first national river threatened by Cargill factory hog farm [View all]

[BlueToTheBone]

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/americas-first-national-river-threatened-factory-hog-farm.html

This is a very good article about the fight going on to save our state. In the south, SPP built an illegal coal fire plant (since litigated and settled); in the northwest they are trying to destroy the oldest mountain on earth to string 345Kv power lines into Oklahoma and Missouri and then there is this going on as well. Oh, and don't forget the Mayflower contamination from the pipeline spill into Lake Conway and the estuaries.

snip
In June, Dr. John Van Brahana, a a renowned hydrogeologist and an expert in Arkansas’ karst geology, sent a letter to AQED asking that the permit for the CAFO be suspended until more research could be done to see how the hog waste will affect the flora and fauna of the nearby rivers.

Brahana notes that the Big Creek area – where C & H Hog Farms was permitted – includes karst geologic conditions with a fragile ecosystem. In karst areas, groundwater flow enlarges the dimensions of the conduits through which groundwater flows. The groundwater moves as quickly as water in a stream, but the path of that flow is difficult to predict and would be capable of transporting sediment, organic matter, fecal waste, and dissolved solids from the factory farm. Within this geology, if a waste-lagoon were to breach, there would be little opportunity for it to be naturally remedied or lessened.

The letter goes on to read: “I know of no active karst consultant who recommends that a CAFO be sited on karstified limestone, particularly upgradient from so sensitive a natural resource as the Buffalo National River, with its direct-contact use by canoeists, fisherman, and swimmers.”