Members of Arkansas' environmental rule-making body will consider next week whether to extend a six-month ban on certain concentrated animal feeding operations near the Buffalo National River.
The announcement came on the same day that two former U.S. representatives from Arkansas publicly urged the state Legislature to move ahead with their review of the proposed changes.
The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission will discuss whether to extend the moratorium on medium- and large-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations within the Buffalo National River watershed for another 180 days, according to a commission agenda published Friday.
The original six-month moratorium, drafted and signed by the commission's administrative law judge, Charles Moulton, was approved in April and expires Wednesday. The moratorium accompanied a petition by lawyers representing the Ozark Society and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel to permanently amend Arkansas environmental regulations 5 and 6, which govern permits for concentrated animal feeding operations and the management of liquid animal waste. The changes would only apply to the Buffalo National River watershed, a geographic area that includes about three-quarters of Newton and Searcy counties and about one-quarter of Marion County.
The moratorium would not affect small-scale swine concentrated animal feeding operations or poultry, cattle or other feeding operations of any size. It also could not be applied retroactively to C&H Hog Farms, the controversial large-scale concentrated animal feeding operation built in Mount Judea in early 2013, about 6 miles upriver from the Buffalo National River along the Big Creek tributary.
According to the text of the proposed moratorium extension, the moratorium passed in April was intended to maintain the status quo regarding hog farming near the river while state legislators had the opportunity to review the proposed rule changes and voice any concerns to commissioners.
But because the various committees charged with reviewing the proposed changes never managed to do so, Moulton is prepared to extend the moratorium. After the proposed rules were submitted to the Bureau of Legislative Review, they were assigned to the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees. In September, the committees declined to review the proposed changes, instead referring them to joint meetings of the House and Senate's Agriculture and Public Health committees.
Although members of the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission aren't required to seek legislative approval to make or approve rule changes within existing law, commissioners risk drawing the ire of lawmakers when they disregard their input, said former U.S. Rep. Ed Bethune.
"Any commission or bureaucratic agency is always interested in what the legislators think on something," Bethune said Friday. "If they do something that's politically unpopular or just nonsense, the legislators are sure to come in and try to undo that. That's why I think it's a wise thing to circulate these rules through legislative bodies and sort of take their temperature."
Bethune, a Republican who represented Arkansas' 2nd District from 1979 to 1985, co-authored a letter to Arkansas Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, and other legislators, urging them to quickly convene the relevant committees and review the proposed regulatory changes. He also urges the congressional members to support the changes.
Calls to Lamoureux were not immediately returned Friday.
Bethune's letter was co-authored by former U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, a Republican who represented Arkansas' 3rd District from 1967-93.
Bethune, who sponsored legislation that ultimately became the Arkansas Wilderness Act of 1984, said that the presence of large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations within the Buffalo National River watershed represented a looming threat to one of the "crown jewels of the Natural State."
"It just pains me to see an operation such as [C&H Hog Farms] go in," Bethune said. "I know they're monitoring it; all that means is that if we have an incident, Arkansas will be the first ones to tell the world of it. It would be a disaster."
Arkansas Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, another of the legislators to whom Bethune and Hammerschmidt's letter was addressed, said he found the proposed changes to regulations 5 and 6 a reasonable step toward protecting the Buffalo National River without retroactively punishing the owners of C&H Hog Farm.
"I'm not sure where the hangup is in the legislative process, but I expect review before the end of year," Dismang said. "The only problem we have is we're in the middle of budget session right now."
The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission will meet at 9 a.m. Friday at the headquarters of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, 5301 Northshore Drive in North Little Rock.
Metro on 10/18/2014