We feel sympathy for Gov. Asa Hutchinson whose private office next to the Governor’s Mansion has suffered a rat infestation so bad the governor is unable to use the office. Major renovations removing walls, beams and insulation are necessary. A reporter who visited recently said although the rats have been killed, rat urine can still be smelled in the governor’s private office.
Governor, we understand you not wanting to work in an office that stinks of rat urine, but how about waking up to the smell of pig poop if you live near the C&H hog factory located near the Buffalo National River? Despite a major public outcry, including many citizens writing to the governor and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, and despite costly citizen-funded legal challenges, the state has failed to protect the people and environment in the vicinity of the 6,500-head hog factory. In fact, the research group receiving state tax money that is supposed to be evaluating the impacts of the hog factory is so dominated by Big Ag interests that it has refused to allow drilling underneath the hog waste lagoons even with scientific evidence suggesting that the lagoons are leaking waste.
The governor gets major credit for being one of the very few Red State Republicans who has been successful helping low-income people have access to health insurance coverage through an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program. Hutchinson deserves credit for calling a special session and using a unique legislative strategy to preserve not just health care coverage, but a huge positive impact on the state budget and the health of the state’s hospitals and other healthcare providers.
Parallels can be drawn between the success keeping the Medicaid expansion and the battle against the hog factory near the Buffalo. It made no fiscal sense to turn down $1 billion per year in federal money for the Medicaid expansion. And it makes no fiscal sense to allow one hog factory that employs only seven people to endanger the top outdoor recreational area in the Natural State responsible for 900 jobs, an estimated 1.4 million visitors per year and an economic impact of $57 million.
While the governor gets the rats under control in his private office next to the mansion, how about thinking about those in Northwest Arkansas who have to breathe in sickening fumes from the C&H hog factory? When it comes to protecting other’s from animal wastes, the governor and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality have been missing in action.
If you think rat urine stinks, try hog waste. Imagine not being able to open your windows or work outdoor because the smell turns your stomach. Or being unable to visit the cemetery where your ancestors are buried because the air is so foul. Or human and animal illnesses that weren’t a problem before the hog factory surfacing causing great concern. Those are just some of the impacts believed to be linked to dumping millions of gallons of untreated hog waste in a karst area where the ground is riddled with holes that allow for quick transport of surface wastes to underground water supplies.
Recently, musicians from Still on the Hill, Kelly and Donna Mulhollan, who are doing a CD on the Buffalo National River, were hiking to the popular Sam’s Throne overlook. But what was the awful smell? It was the unmistakable stench of hog waste.
Like with the Medicaid expansion, it is ridiculous to put the area’s jobs and tourism economy at risk because of one hog factory that employs only seven people. And since Arkansas ponied up more than $125 million in incentives for the Big River steel mill (or the Big River steal, as some are calling it) that now appears doomed to failure because of a worldwide glut of steel and low prices, how about just buying out C&H and shutting it down? It would cost a pittance of what the state has invested in Big River steal.
Governor, good luck with kicking the rats out of your private office. Now how about killing some “rats” in Northwest Arkansas by protecting the people and tourism economy of Northwest Arkansas by putting pressure on the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to shut down a hog factory permitted without public notice in violation of regulatory laws.
So many rats, so little time!