OPINION

MIKE MASTERSON: Woes elsewhere

Tracking ‘pig2bac’

A story by Brian Bienkowski appearing in Environmental Health News says bacteria spread from industrial hog factories (like the one our Department of Environmental Quality [wheeze] permitted into our Buffalo National River watershed) is contaminating some nearby North Carolina homes, lawns and even the air.

Citing evidence presented in an ongoing federal court case, Bienkowski said the bacteria, named pig2bac, represent a marker specifically for pig waste laden with abundant pathogens, many of which cause human illness.

He specifically quoted 2016 research by Shane Rogers, a professor with New York's Clarkston University, who tested air, land and exterior walks of 17 homes near a Smithfield Foods factory.

The story says Rogers is an expert witness in a suit brought by hundreds of North Carolina residents against a Smithfield subsidiary. The professor says he discovered 14 of 17 homes near the factory tested positive for pig2bac bacteria. Rogers reportedly discovered from "tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of hog feces DNA particles" in six dust samples collected from four homes.

Bienkowski quoted Rogers: "It's far more likely than not that hog feces also [get] inside client's homes where they live and eat."

Residences tested were between 615 feet and nearly a mile from the factory's hog barns, between 458 feet to more than a mile from its manure lagoons, and between 71 feet and two-thirds of a mile from where liquid manure is spread on fields.

Originally owned by Cargill, C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea has since sold to JBS of Brazil, the world's largest meatpacking organization. The factory has such spray fields near and along Big Creek, a major Buffalo tributary, and fewer than 400 feet from the Mount Judea school and surrounding homes.

"The pig2bac identifying marker is conservative for the presence of pig feces," Rogers testified. "This means that pig feces [have] to be in relatively high concentrations to facilitate its detection."

Every state with hog factories should be paying attention to cutting-edge science unfolding in once pristine North Carolina, a leading hog producer. Bienkowski wrote that for years researchers and community members have warned that the enormous waste from such factories negatively affects their neighbors' health and property values. A nonprofit group found 60,000 North Carolina homes are within a half-mile of such places or hog waste lagoons. C&H has two such pits containing millions of gallons.

"In Duplin County, the epicenter of industrial hog production in the state, more than one-fifth of the 4,660 homes are within a half mile of a confinement hog farm or a manure pit," Bienkowski wrote "Many residents have taken to litigation to fight the odors and pollution, but the state is trying to limit such lawsuits."

I asked UA geoscience professor emeritus John Van Brahana how he believes North Carolina's contamination woes relate to Arkansas.

"I continue to be amazed by the politics surrounding the hog factory at Mount Judea," he said. "The claim that the Farm Bureau and Arkansas Pork Producers want 'science, not emotion' has a hollow ring, for the science we, the (Karst Hydrogeology of the Buffalo National River team) have published, in total indicate that levels of E. coli, dissolved nitrate, dissolved trace metals (zinc and copper, among others--these are elevated in pig food and pig waste) are much higher in springs from groundwater that lie closest to some fields used for spreading feces and urine.

"Dissolved oxygen, so essential for ecological and stream health, is markedly less in Big Creek during summer months currently than it was prior to dumping huge quantities of untreated hog waste in the basin. Big Creek is impaired, and [the Department of Environmental Quality] continues to not list it as such, based on political pressure. Algal blooms in the Buffalo, which thrive on excess nutrients delivered from streams and springs, were worse last summer than locals can recall. These facts are disregarded, or countered with irrelevant and confusing statements that ignore common sense, rigorous science and the recorded history of CAFOs elsewhere.

"Countries far less environmentally friendly than ours place greater restrictions on CAFOs because they've clearly been shown to contaminate waters not only in karst lands, but aquifers and rivers that drain CAFO areas. Misrepresenting facts to make dollars for a special few by deliberately manipulating regulations demands a widespread public outcry to those accountable for protecting our environment."

Gordon Watkins, who heads the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, believes North Carolina's woes are relevant here: "Impacts from CAFOs spread far and wide and impinge on the rights of people far beyond a CAFO's fencerows because it amounts to bacterial trespass. What's their pig poop doing in my house, my air, my water? It also shows the chilling influence the 'CAFO/Big Ag' lobby and its efforts to restrict the rights of citizens to fight back. A similar effort is going on nationally in the form of HB848 which is before the House."

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

Editorial on 05/16/2017

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