Arkansas by Richard Mason : In 5 Years Swimming Will Be Prohibited In The Buff...

Arkansas by Richard Mason : In 5 Years Swimming Will Be Prohibited In The Buff...:        ARKANSAS                                          BY                          Richard Mason       In 5 Years Swimming...

In 5 Years Swimming Will Be Prohibited In The Buffalo National River

       ARKANSAS

                                         BY

                         Richard Mason

     In 5 Years Swimming Will Be Prohibited In

                    The Buffalo National River

Yes, I’m sorry to say, that is my prediction, and it’s really worse than having the river closed to swimming for a short period of time. If the Buffalo becomes contaminated from the waste produced by the Factory Farm (C & H Hog Farm), it means waste from the holding lagoons and the contaminants from the on the ground disposal have traveled into the ground water and through the subsurface Boone Limestone into Big Creek and then to the Buffalo River. After the River is polluted, even if the Factory Farm is shutdown, the amount of waste in the underlying limestone porosity will take years to stop seeping into the river. We could easily lose the Buffalo for a generation if it becomes polluted. In order to understand the gravity of this situation, let me give you my background and some pertain facts about Factory Farms.

I spent six years as a commissioner serving on the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology Board of commissioners and one year as Chairman.  I am a former three term President of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and a University of Arkansas graduate with a B. S. and M. S. in geology. I did my Master’s Thesis surfacing mapping a 36 square mile quadrangle where the weathered Boone Limestone is a frequent outcrop. While I was in college, I was a member of the Ozark Hikers. We didn’t hike a lot, but we spent almost every weekend exploring the many caves in Northwest Arkansas. Almost all of those caves are solution caves within the Boone Limestone. They are characterized by dripping water, flowing springs, and even good size streams, which are fed by the rain water seeping into the Boone Formation. I have spent hours with a rock hammer taking samples of the Boone Limestone, and untold hours inside the Boone Limestone caves. I certainly know the nature of the formation.

The Factory Farm has been permitted to have 6500 animals on site. Those pigs will produce the equivalent amount of waste of a town of 30,000. Just consider this: How would you feel if a town of that size decided to follow the example of the Factory Farm, put their sewage in a holding ponds, and then spread it out on a field nearby after it settled? Yes, that is unthinkable, but that is exactly what the Factory Farm proposes to do. However, it’s even worse than that. The farm is located on a geologic formation called the Boone Limestone.

Over millions of years, limestone slowly dissolves much as a lump of sugar does in your coffee. When the limestone dissolves it become something akin to Swiss cheese because the formation isn’t uniform in the composition. In other words some of the limestone in softer than other part. That’s why you end up with holes in the limestone, and those holes connect. Then, as rainwater or sewerage comes into the formation it fills the holes. It’s a lot like taking a sponge and pouring water into it. It will hold water until the holes in the sponge are filled, and then the water will began to come out. That is exactly what happens to the Boone Limestone, and when that water comes out it brings with it whatever has come into the formation along with the water. The landform where the Boone Formation is present on the surface, is called a karst topography, and the definition of a karst is: From a freshman geology book: Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves.

Multiply sinkholes and caves by a million times a million and you will have an understanding of how Big Creek and the Buffalo River receive their water. In my opinion, there is a near certainty that the Factory Farm sited on the Buffalo River watershed, will sooner or later, pollute the Buffalo River, and considering the destructive global warming trend, where torrential 10 to 15 inch rains are becoming commonplace, I believe, that if the hog farm area were to receive a record rainfall, such as the recent north Louisiana deluge, the hog waste holding pond's levees could be breached, and the resulting contamination would impair the Buffalo River to the point where it would take years to recover. It would make the river a sewer and hundreds of thousands of fish would be killed.

So what are the odds that the lagoons will leak and the manure spread on the fields in that area will penetrate into the ground water? Let look at some examples: *In 1995 Missouri had 9 hog factory spills within just five months. That killed as estimated 250,000 fish and 25 miles of stream habitat was impacted. In North Carolina a study of 11 lagoons that were 7 years or older found that half leaked moderately too severely. In Minnesota their Pollution Control Agency estimates the average rate of leakage in their lagoons that are leaking is 500 gallons per lagoon acre per day. In the first nine months of 1995 four states reported a total of 16 spills. (*Taken from The Environment and Factory Farms in Rural America/ In Motion Magazine.)

The residue from the holding pits will be scattered over 17 application fields. Eleven of these are adjacent to Big Creek, a major tributary to the Buffalo River. As rain falls on Northwest Arkansas, the hog waste that has been spread on the fields will dissolve and be carried into the subsurface by rainwater, and ultimately end up in the Boone Limestone. The flow route downdip to Big Creek and ultimately to the Buffalo River makes it almost a certainty that sooner or later the contaminated water will flow into Big Creek and then to the Buffalo. And even if the Factory Farm is closed down, the seepage into Big Creek and the Buffalo will continue for years.

 In my opinion, as a former Chairman of the Commission, I don't believe the commission will act quickly enough to stop the impending disaster, unless outraged, public opinion makes them reconsider. However,   they do have the power to prevent the unthinkable from happing. The only way to stop the almost certain pollution of our National River is to have the Board of Commissioners rescind the hog farm permit. I don’t have the email of all the board members but I do have the one from El Dorado. His name is Robert Reynolds <robertreynolds@suddenlink.net. If you are concerned about our National River being polluted send him an e-mail and tell him.

Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas Food

Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas Food: Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas Food :           ARKANSAS                         BY              Richard Mason               ...

Small Town Values

        Arkansas

                         By

               Richard Mason          

                 Small Town Values

Well, if you live in China, you might think of a small town as being around a half million, but this is not about China, it's about Arkansas, so I'm going to call any town under 25,000, a small town. In a nutshell: I choose to live in a small town because it offers a better all-round quality of life than a large city. That's my take on small town living. Here’s why:

My job and vacations take me to large cities, but when I drive back down my driveway, I take a deep breath, and thank the good Lord I'm home, and home is in a small town.

I decided to write this column after returning from Dallas last week. Yes, I will admit rush hour traffic probably kicked off the column about the values of small town living. That rush hour traffic was actually at three o'clock in the afternoon, and it lasted—get this—for two hours? It probably lasted a lot longer than that, but it took me those two hours to clear Dallas traffic, and it crossed my mind that most of the folks who made up that that zoo of cars were just going about what they do every day.

Well, of course, you can get used to ten lanes of traffic, which will come to a dead halt if there is any blip, such as a fender bender—add another hour to your commute. But I think, the biggest problem in that mess of traffic are the hot-shot drivers who zip across lane after lane and cut in front of cars with inches to spare. That compounds the stressful driving.

As I eased along a 5 sometimes as fast as 15 mph it occurred to me that these commuters are working a 10 hour day, minimum, and on top of that, those two extra hours are the most stressful of a commuter’s workday. If you work a regular eight hour day, just think of how much of family life you would miss by not having those two extra hours a day with your family.

Well, you might say, good restaurants, major league sports teams, great shopping etc. are the pluses in big cities. Sure big cities have a lot, and jobs are easy to find, but are those amenities worth the incessant noise and hassle that automatically comes with big city life?  I don't think so, and here's a few more reasons why. Unless you have a private jet, leaving or traveling in your big city for nearly anything is tough. For instance, you might want to go hunting. Well, in small town Arkansas, many times, that is just a short walk, while trying to go on a similar hunt for a city dweller would be a multi-hour trip just to get there.

But I think raising a family in a small town is a paramount reason for living there. It is a huge advantage over city life. Just consider how many people become your friends when you live in a small town. My aunt lived in New York City until she retired, and she really only knew less than 25 people, most of whose lived in her apartment building. We met a couple on vacation a few years back and our conversation turned to our children. Our son had gotten married a few weeks before we went on vacation, and we remembered the wedding in detail. As my wife described the wedding the other couple—who also just happened to live in New York City—asked, "How many of your friends attended?" Well, we knew how many the church seated, so my wife said, "Oh, around 500." They were astounded. "How do you possibly know that many people?" He asked.

From my perspective having 500 people attend a wedding wasn't a big deal. If you are active in your church, members of any clubs, hunt and fish, you can easily have that many friends attend one of your children's wedding. Now, just think of your circle of friends and think about cutting them down to less than 50. That's small town 500 vs big town 50. Just think of the interactions that you would miss.

Of course having your kids in a sports program is about 10 times as easy and beneficial than trying to navigate across a city to deliver your kids to a football practice.

Yes, I'm for small town values, and my son said it better than I can. He was fourteen, and he left an overnight float trip on the Buffalo River to join us on a vacation trip to New York City. The first day after he arrived, we walked to Fifth Avenue, and as we stood there and looked at that sea of people, he said, "Dad, I think New York is a visiting place, not a living place." I guess that sums it up, and as I get ready to leave the house today, and drive down to the South Arkansas Arts Center to see a play, I know I'm in for at least an 8 minute drive.

Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas Food

Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas Food:           ARKANSAS                         BY              Richard Mason                               Arkansas Food We were...

Arkansas Food

          ARKANSAS

                        BY

             Richard Mason

                              Arkansas Food

We were driving north of Little Rock heading for the Ozarks, when we decided to have lunch. I noticed a nice looking café with plenty of trucks, and I figured, the pickup trucks were voting it was a decent place to have lunch.  We pulled in between two Ford 150s and walked into the cafe.

            “Y’all just have a seat anywhere,” said a lady at the cash register.

            We found a booth and settled in as our waitress came over. It was an immediate uptick. A rather tall, red-haired young lady with a nice figure came over and with an ear to ear smile, purred, “What would y’all like to drink?”

            Course, I was smiling like some Cheshire Cat, that is until my wife kicked me under the table and said, “We’d both like ice tea…unsweetened.”

            The big smile softened a bit as she yelled at the cook in the kitchen, “Tony, fix up a couple of unsweetened ice teas!”

            Well, the kitchen had a big open window, and I watched as “Tony” pulled out a couple of instant tea bags and poured hot water over them. Oh, well, I thought, instant tea is not a big deal.

            Our smiling waitress had left the menus before she took the drink order, and I was eying the chicken-fried steak or the catfish filets.

            “What can I get for y’all?” It was our smiling waitress again, and she had pad in hand to take our order.

            My wife, who of course, orders first said, “I’d like the grilled chicken salad, and that’ll be all.”

            It crossed my mind that never in a million years would I have ever ordered that, but it was my turn now, and I had a question about the chicken fried steak and the mashed potatoes with cream gravy.

            “Are the potatoes instant?”

            Well, our smiling waitress looked as if I had slapped her, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, Tony really fixes up those mashed potatoes, and most people like ‘em better than the real ones.”

            I took that to be a “Yes, the potatoes are instant.” Thinking back, I probably shouldn’t have asked about the other “sides” on the menu.

            “Uh, well hold off on the chicken fried steak…and let’s see; oh, are the peas and snap beans fresh?”

            I guess our waitress was thinking some rather negative things about me, because through some pretty tight lips, she said, “Naw, unless you mean freshly canned or freshly frozen.”

            The ordering was getting a little tense, and my wife was shooting daggers at me for asking nosey questions about the menu. I knew it was time to order and move on.

            “Uh, well, I think I’ll just have the snap beans and cole slaw for my sides, and instead of chicken fried steak, I want the catfish filets and French fires, and make those fresh cut fries.”

            “What? Fresh cut?”

            “Oh, forget it. Just fries, okay?”

            “You got it.”

            She walked away as my wife glared at me.

            “Richard, that was rude. She can’t help what the kitchen does.”

            “I know it, but it does bother me to see a café not use fresh produce just because it’s a little more trouble. Oh, I did see a strawberry shortcake on the desert part of the menu. It’s May and Arkansas strawberries are everywhere, and you can’t miss with catfish filets.”

            But I was wrong.

            About fifteen minutes later our waitress placed our order in front of us, and I took a deep breath; these aren’t catfish filets, quickly zipped through my mind. I’m an old trot-liner from South Arkansas, and I can spot a filet across the room, but I didn’t say anything. Actually, considering everything was either canned, frozen, or misrepresented, it wasn’t that bad of a meal. We were just finishing up, and I still had the strawberry shortcake on my mind when our waitress walked back to our table, “How were those catfish filets?” she asked. I couldn’t resist the comment, “Pretty good, but they aren’t filets.”

            “What?”

            “Nope; filets are the sides of the fish. They aren’t one inch wide and eight inches long. These are what I call a ’belly’ strips.” I didn’t say it, but after I filet a catfish, I throw the remainder of the fish away. I had just eaten the throw –a-ways.

            “Well, the folks that sells ‘em to us calls ‘em filets.”

            “Well,….say, let me have an order of the strawberry shortcake.”

            “Okay.”

            Our waitress headed for the kitchen, as my wife whispered across the table, “Richard, quit giving the girl a hard time. She can’t help it.”

            “I know, but everything on the menu could have been so much better if it had been fresh out of the garden and the catfish filets were really filets.”

            I’d just said that when the strawberry shortcake was set down in front of me. Yes, I know I had promised by wife to not say anything else, but when those baseball size strawberries were placed in front of me I couldn’t resist. They had California written all over them.

            “Oh….” I shook my head as I tasted the bland strawberry. I pushed it away and motioned for the waitress to bring me the check. As she handed me the check, her eyes spotted the strawberry shortcake. “What’s wrong with the strawberry shortcake?”

            “It’s strawberry season in Arkansas, and these strawberries aren’t Arkansas berries.”

            “Well, they’re what the truck brought us.”

            As we got up to leave my wife whispered, “Leave a big tip. She deserves it after putting up with you.”

            I did, and she probably did deserve it.

            Well, it’s sad to say, but this café isn’t a lone outpost of canned, frozen, or inferior food, it’s just the run of the mill Arkansas café fare. But it didn’t have to be. Arkansas food can and is some of the best in the nation, if it’s fresh, real, and properly prepared. A good chicken fried steak with real mashed potatoes, and fresh purple hull peas, and sliced fresh tomatoes is a joy to eat. I know it’s a little more trouble to serve fresh from the farm food, but it’s worth the trouble. If we really want good food, we must insist on it, and if the café or restaurant doesn’t serve it, we should vote with our feet and leave the place.