Lawmakers quietly enact permanent ban on major farming practice: 'An ongoing concern'

You may love your bacon in the morning, but have you ever thought much about pig farming? One state is taking action to protect its community.

According to the Arkansas Advocate, the Arkansas Legislative Council has put a permanent ban on swine farms in the Buffalo River watershed area.

All of this began when a water permit was given to the now-closed C&H Hog Farms in 2012. In 2014, a temporary ban on water permits was put into Rule 6, "which regulates the Division of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) issuance of federal water permits under the Clean Water Act," per Arkansas Advocate.

The rule required DEQ to make the ban permanent after five years or eliminate it. In 2020, DEQ decided to make it permanent, but the Arkansas Legislative Council voted it down with concerns about how it would affect agriculture.

In 2023, the permit authorization for "liquid animal waste systems" was transferred from the DEQ to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

"Rule 5 permits, as they are known, are 'no-discharge' permits, which prohibits permit-holders from discharging anything into state water," per the Arkansas Advocate.

In summer 2024, DEQ added language that made the ban permanent in Rule 6. Additionally, the Department of Agriculture also added it into Rule 5 not long after.

At first, the ban was removed from the legislative agenda in December. However, with pushback and the help of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the bill protects the ban, but if further bans like it are to be placed, the legislature added additional hurdles to jump through.

Each side received hundreds of public comments. On the one side, people were concerned about what swine farms were doing to water quality; on the other, people wanted to protect one of the area's largest industries.

Parts of the Buffalo River and Big Creek "are on the state environmental agency's impaired waterbodies list for not meeting E. coli standards," per the Arkansas Advocate.

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The DEQ said, "The potential impacts of swine farms … on the Buffalo River has been an ongoing concern in Arkansas."

Pig farms aren't just contaminating water in Arkansas. The non-profit Waterkeeper Alliance used drones to show it happening in North Carolina. The waste was going into nearby waterways and creeks.

Additionally, a documentary on hog farming shed light on the damage the industry does. For instance, while it is a $10 billion industry in North Carolina, it also generates 10 billion gallons of feces.

The Arkansas ban was years in the making, so if you want to make a difference in your community, you can also take local action on causes that matter to you.

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