Arkansas Advocate

Arkansas permanently bans large-scale swine operations from the Buffalo River watershed

By Ainsley Platt,

After 13 years, large-scale swine farms are banned — permanently — within the Buffalo River watershed, ending a saga that started when Arkansas environmental regulators quietly approved a general water permit for C&H Hog Farms in 2012.

The Arkansas Legislative Council reviewed and approved the regulations containing the so-called permit moratorium during its Friday meeting without discussion. It marked the culmination of over a decade of efforts from environmental advocates and their allies to prevent a similar large-scale swine farm, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from taking root in the watershed. The moratorium specifically applies to medium and large swine CAFOs that meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition.

It’s also the end of a year-long battle that began when the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment began updating Rule 6, which regulates the Division of Environmental Quality’s issuance of federal water permits under the Clean Water Act. A temporary moratorium had been contained in the language of Rule 6 since 2014.

But the language of the temporary moratorium required DEQ to either move to make the prohibition permanent after five years or similarly take the measure out of the rule. 

DEQ went with the first option in 2020. But the ALC voted down the moratorium after legislators expressed concerns about the impact on agriculture.

The temporary moratorium stayed on the books.

In 2023, the legislature transferred the authority to issue other state permits for liquid animal waste systems from 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 waters — and they also contained the Buffalo River watershed permit moratorium.

Last summer, DEQ again unveiled proposed changes to Rule 6 that included making the permit moratorium permanent. A little while later, the Department of Agriculture released its proposed version of Rule 5, which also included permit moratorium language.

The proposals were instantly controversial, and each one received hundreds of public comments. The battle lines were relatively clear — on one side were those who had been fighting for the moratorium since the now-shuttered C&H Hog Farms opened its doors in 2013. Moratorium supporters worried about how the waste from such operations could impact the water quality of America’s first national river. On the other side, the Arkansas Farm Bureau and other agriculture supporters argued that such a moratorium would hurt the state’s largest industry and infringe on property rights.

Arkansas Farm Bureau decried DEQ’s efforts for infringing on the “right to farm” in written comments submitted to the division as part of the rulemaking process. They said the number of swine farms in the area has “precipitously declined” since the 1990s. Meanwhile, nitrate concentrations in the watershed have increased, they said.

“Obviously, something other than agriculture, particularly swine farms, is affecting the perception, albeit unfounded, that there is an impact on the Buffalo River as its water quality remains extremely high,” the Farm Bureau’s Evan Teague wrote.

Segments of the Buffalo River and Big Creek, which is part of the watershed, are on the state environmental agency’s impaired waterbodies list for not meeting e. Coli standards. While no specific source of the bacteria is cited, DEQ said in one of the reportsaccompanying the list that swine farming could be a contributing factor.

In its response to Arkansas Farm Bureau’s comments opposing the moratorium, DEQ said science and the history of the watershed supported the prohibition.

“The Division does not concur with Commenter’s conclusion regarding the history of swine farms in the Buffalo River Watershed,” the division wrote in its response. “The potential impacts of swine farms … on the Buffalo River has been an ongoing concern in Arkansas.”

The proposed rules were pulled from the Legislative Council’s agenda in December. During the 2025 legislative session, some lawmakers sought to repeal the moratorium via legislation and prohibit DEQ and other agencies from putting in place similar moratoriums going forward. After pushback — and the involvement of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders — the bill was changed in the final days of the session to explicitly protect the existing moratorium in its current form, while putting into place hoops that state agencies would have to jump through to get a similar ban in place going forward.

What started with a bang ended with a whisper — there was no discussion about the moratorium during the Rules Subcommittee meeting on Thursday, nor during the ALC meeting on Friday.