Protect the watershed

In January the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality denied issuing a new permit for the controversial industrial hog facility in the Buffalo River watershed because the application did not include critical information such as a groundwater flow study and emergency action plan. The hog facility has appealed that decision through the appropriate legal process at the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The hearing is scheduled for Aug. 6-8. But now some lawmakers are considering legislation for the special session that would undermine that process and force the state to issue the hog facility a permit despite the evidence that it threatens the river. Stay tuned!

This is a national river—the first national river in the country—that belongs to all.

This ill-considered confined animal feeding operation should never have been permitted in the sensitive watershed in the first place. Now it’s clear that proponents of corporate agriculture are determined to see that it remains there and no doubt they hope to see operations expanded. The argument that this is the “only way to feed the world” has been undermined by rising rates of pollution that threaten clean water all over our country. Can we feed the world and at the same time kill the planet? We won’t survive without clean water.

LIN WELLFORD Green Forest