Just when I thought our state's politicized environmental protection agency made the biggest debacle of its checkered history by allowing C&H Hog Farms into our karst-laden Buffalo National River watershed, I learn the leaking Sanders Farm began operating in the watershed during 2015 without a permit or required nutrient management plan.
The massive Sanders operation (with an unknown number of sick hogs) near Western Grove apparently has been seeping raw hog waste from its barn area toward nearby Cedar Creek, which flows into Davis Creek and on into our Buffalo.
There are practically no regulations even on an operation this large because it's supposed to use a safe "dry litter" method of waste disposal; the state doesn't require a permit to allow dry litterers into the watershed.
What could have gone terribly wrong with this scenario did. It was revealed in July following a neighbor's complaint of waste leakage at Sanders, which triggered a month-long agency investigation followed by three additional months for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to respond. Yes, four months.
A news account the other day by ace environmental reporter Emily Walkenhorst says testing confirmed the environment around Sanders' 2,400 hogs (that rose to 3,200 last summer) has definitely been impacted by rain-soaked waste piles leaking into the soil.
And now a judge has given the owners less than 60 days to get their mess cleaned up and revegetate their property, if that's even possible.
I'm still aghast it took a citizen's complaint and a month for Environmental Quality to discover the Sanders factory was leaking this nasty stuff. Finally, this agency with a purported mission of protecting the environment for all Arkansans took the owners to court with plans to shut the polluting factory down and force the sale of their swine.
The news story said the factory had let some pigs roam freely, and stored piles of dry manure outside the necessary protection of barns (hence, the term dry), allowing rainfall to drain through it and into lower areas.
The department's investigation reported finding dark brown stormwater runoff crossing an adjacent county road and nearing Cedar Creek. Through its resulting analyses, the agency determined the runoff included hog manure.
The Sanders factory began operating in 2015 (three years after the agency permitted the controversial C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea along the Buffalo tributary called Big Creek).
Unlike C&H, the dry litter disposal method required no permit despite its enormity and potential for pollution.
Problems with the Sanders operation became worse last summer when a number of hogs became ill and some roamed the property rather than being confined. Being swine, they kept reproducing. But the Sanderses couldn't sell them because of the sickness, Walkenhorst reported.
I wonder whether this illness was reported to any agency. If so, why didn't anyone take action at the time? Equally important, why didn't the people of Arkansas ever hear about this factory being allowed into the Buffalo watershed two years ago?
"We were just totally overwhelmed," Patrick Sanders said after the hearing to determine what's to become of their factory. "We did make mistakes." I appreciate his honesty.
The court action filed by department attorney Tracey Rothermel led to a 10-day injunction against the factory by Circuit Judge Gordon Webb of Harrison.
The case was reassigned to Circuit Judge Gail Inman-Campbell, who allowed the Sanderses to keep their swine but allowed the factory 60 days to clean up the mess before revisiting the matter in her courtroom.
Rothermel contended the runoff from this dry litter factory in effect became liquid animal waste, adding that the factory had broken environmental laws concerning adequate site maintenance and by not acquiring a liquid-waste disposal permit. She argued unsuccessfully for the judge to order sale of the swine.
New medium and large confined animal operations using liquid waste disposal are banned in the Buffalo River's watershed by moratorium until 2020, pending five years of research on C&H Hog Farms' effect on the river. Thus far, the C&H study has discovered "limited impact" to the environment.
Sanders Farm, which has contained as many swine as a large CAFO, for some bureaucratic justification is considered a medium-sized concentrated animal feeding operation.
Call this malodorous maelstrom (sorry) whatever twists your tail. What I see are at least 2,400 swine, some having been ill, in an "overwhelmed" and badly misplaced leaking meat factory with no containment lagoons continually generating tons of raw waste into this sacred watershed and a circuit judge who, until January, has allowed this admittedly mistake-prone venture to continue and keep the swine. I wonder why?
Meanwhile, these owners apparently will root around for two months minus a liquid-waste disposal permit trying to clean up the documented impact of its contaminating mess in a wholly unsuitable location.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 11/28/2017