Good news: The Audubon Society is on board to help the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. Participate in the letter writing campaign here if you like.
For local folks in Arkansas, there’s a kickass float event planned for May 24th to help raise awareness! I’m betting it’ll be a beautiful day to come to the river with your kayak or other chosen transport and visibly join the fight to keep it unpolluted. 🙂
WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT, SOOJ? Well, a huge new hog farm is now operating right on top of Big Creek and the Buffalo River in beautiful northern Arkansas. The place is too close to the Creek and the River to be legal and in keeping with National Park regulations, but it’s there and operational anyway. The Buffalo is one of the last remaining National rivers that remains unpolluted. Those of us who don’t have any interest in turning a profit from running a pig prison (and filling the local ecosystem with massive amounts of poop, literally, day by day) want to keep it that way. So the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance is standing up now.
“The BRWA and the other Coalition members met with Cargill representatives (Cargill is the company which is the hog farm’s largest customer) and stated, in the strongest terms possible, that given the proximity of C & H to the Buffalo National River and its location on karst topography, the only solution is the removal of the hog factory from the watershed.”
This is the cause I’m championing on my tour this year, because the River is important to me. It’s gorgeous there, I’ve known people all my life who visit and float that river regularly, and it really is one of the last National rivers standing, where pollution is concerned. It may not make as much tourism cash for the state as a giant hog farm would make for the company that runs it, but I had no trouble deciding which side of that situation I wanted to fight for. You’ll see me post about this a lot. Please join me in supporting the BRWA however you can.