Environment notebook

Manure-leak tests to begin at hog farm

Drilling to test for hog manure leakage is set to begin this week at C&H Hog Farms near Mount Judea in Newton County, according to an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality news release.

Little Rock-based Harbor Environmental contracted with Cascade Drilling of Memphis to conduct the drilling, which is expected to start Wednesday and last three or four days, according to the department.

The department hired Harbor Environmental as the contractor for the project for $75,000. The company designed the plan and hired Cascade Drilling as a subcontractor.

The research, which is to be conducted on C&H Hog Farms' private land, was requested by opponents of the hog farm -- including the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which filed a lawsuit -- earlier this year after they learned of research done in 2015 that showed what they said was an unexpectedly high amount of moisture beneath one of the farm's manure ponds.

Big Creek Research and Extension Team researchers disagreed on whether drilling was necessary, arguing that any leak would have been detected at other spots the team is already monitoring. The team works out of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and was formed by state officials after an outcry in early 2013 over the state issuing a permit to C&H in late 2012.

Only Harbor Environmental's appointed independent observer, Tai Hubbard of Hydrogeology Inc., will oversee the research after a legal dispute over who would be allowed to attend the drilling project.

The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, which opposes C&H's permit, sued the Environmental Quality Department in August, seeking to either allow their own hydrogeology expert to oversee drilling or to disallow the two members of the Big Creek Research and Extension Team the department had permitted to oversee it. The department settled with the group earlier this month, only allowing Hubbard, who was already allowed to oversee the drilling, to monitor the project.

C&H sits on Big Creek about 6 miles from where it converges with the Buffalo River. It is the only federally classified large hog farm in the river's watershed and is permitted to house up to 6,000 piglets and 2,503 sows.

The Buffalo River, the first national river, had 1.46 million visitors last year, the third-highest total since it became a national river in 1972 and the highest since a record count of 1.55 million was set in 2009.

Salamander misses 'endangered' mark

The Fourche Mountain salamander does not need the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned in July 2012 to have the salamander, along with 52 other amphibians and reptiles in the United States, to be listed as threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Petitioners requested that the salamander, found in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, be considered endangered because of declines in its range and poor forest-management practices.

The Endangered Species Act provides protection for species listed as threatened or endangered. The protection also requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to identify critical habitat that may need to be considered in protection efforts.

The wildlife service will not count the salamander among endangered species because the petition did not present "substantial or scientific or commercial information" indicating that action was needed, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service's explanation filed in the Federal Register.

The U.S. Forest Service already considers the salamander in its land-management plans and works with the Fish and Wildlife Service to care for the salamander and its habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release.

Arkansas is home to 36 endangered or threatened species, and 2,200 endangered or threatened species have been recognized nationwide.

More trash haulers licensed in county

More haulers of garbage to landfills are licensed in Pulaski County than last year after a random check earlier this year found 40 unlicensed haulers depositing trash, Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District Comptroller Desi Ledbetter told the district's board Thursday.

"Last year, the county had 87 licensed garbage haulers," Ledbetter said. The county has 139 this year.

Ledbetter said he thinks it's "just the tip of the iceberg."

"I think there's a lot more," Ledbetter said.

State law requires that commercial entities that haul garbage to the landfill be licensed. But Ledbetter said some landfill officials might ignore whether a hauler is licensed to go there because they benefit financially from tipping fees assessed per ton of garbage dumped.

Bid period extended for landfill closure

The period for companies to submit bids on the project to close a Mountain Home landfill has been extended to Wednesday.

The Arkansas Building Authority was accepting bids for the closure of the North Arkansas Board of Regional Sanitation landfill through 2 p.m. last Tuesday but extended the bidding period another eight days, with a new closing time of 4 p.m. Wednesday. Prospective bidders were required to attend a pre-bid conference Aug. 30.

The designer for the project is SCS Aquaterra of Overland Park, Kan. The building authority extended the deadline because of the "volume and complexity of questions" officials had received about the project, department spokesman Kelly Robinson said.

The landfill has been run by the Department of Environmental Quality in recent years, despite the fact that a regional solid waste district owns it. The Ozark Mountain Solid Waste District placed the landfill in receivership for the department to control after defaulting on the $12.3 million bond issue it used to buy the landfill several years ago. The landfill is one of two sites in Mountain Home -- the other being a scrap tire dump of 1 million tires -- that the district has placed in receivership with the department.

The landfill is over capacity and has had issues with leachate -- water contaminated with trash -- leaking from it.

The department has said the project would cost anywhere from $13 million to $18 million but noted the $18 million estimate was based on an old design for the project.

Metro on 09/18/2016

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