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Introduction: Success in North Carolina Can Serve as a National Model
North Carolina and Other States.
The two-year moratorium on new hog factories in North Carolina--in effect until September 1, 1999--provides a real opportunity to develop lasting solutions to the problems of factory hog farm pollution in the state. If North Carolina takes advantage of this opportunity by adopting the reforms outlined below, its success should serve as a model to other states grappling with these issues. Like North Carolina, most other states have failed to adequately address the environmental and public health problems associated with factory farms. Watch this website for updates on hog factory reforms in these states.
USEPA and USDA.
Lessons already learned in North Carolina should prove especially instructive to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). These two federal agencies are developing a strategy to control pollution from factory livestock operations in all 50 states. According to their plan most factory livestock farms will be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act, ensuring that factory farms are subject to permitting and planning requirements. Unfortunately, the draft federal strategy is inadequate. For one thing, it does not ensure that factory farms will use the best available technologies to eliminate water pollution, air pollution, and odor. Accordingly, the Environmental Defense Fund and a wide-range of environmental, community, and grassroots groups are calling for a temporary moratorium on new factory hog and other livestock farms throughout the country until meaningful controls are in place.
For more information, read the EPA/USDA's "Draft Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations." For a convenient online way to urge EPA and USDA to strengthen their strategy, visit Make Your Voice Heard!
What North Carolina Needs to Do Now
The temporary moratorium on new and expanded hog factories should remain in effect until North Carolina takes additional steps to control pollution and protect people who live nearby. The
state should also restrict new slaughterhouses until the reforms below are in place.
At a minimum, the following four key areas must be addressed:
- Hog factories should not be located too close to neighbors, or in floodplains, wetlands, vulnerable watersheds, or
other environmentally sensitive areas.
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- Hog factories must be required to use the best technologies available and meet strong performance standards to control water pollution, air pollution, and odors.
- Citizens and local governments should have more say in whether factory hog farms are constructed in their community.
- The pork industry must assume greater responsibility in ensuring that North Carolina's hog farms are both productive and environmentally sustainable.
All solutions must be based on justice for all peoples and the right to universal protection for all citizens from environmental and public health threats.
Four Key Solutions
1. Hog factories should not be located too close to neighbors, or in floodplains, wetlands, vulnerable watersheds, or other environmentally sensitive areas.
Most of North Carolina's factory hog farms were constructed before 1995, the year the state began imposing mandatory restrictions on siting. As a resu
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All solutions must be based on justice for all peoples and the right to universal protection for
all citizens from environmental and public health impacts.
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lt, waste lagoons and sprayfields
are often situated too close to neighbors' drinking wells and public water supplies. Scores of hog factories are located much too close to neighbors' houses, schools,
hospitals, churches, and recreation areas. Finally, many hog houses and waste lagoons are located in floodplains, wetlands, on the banks of creeks and rivers, and in other
environmentally sensitive places.
Legislation passed since 1995 has imposed mandatory setbacks to lessen the adverse
impacts on neighbors and the environment wherever new hog houses, waste lagoons, and sprayfields are built. Hog houses and lagoons have also been prohibited in floodplains. But
these new requirements still do not go far enough, particularly in areas where there is already a high concentration of hog factories.
State lawmakers should:
- Strengthen setbacks and other siting restrictions to ensure that new or expanded hog factories do not threaten the environment, public health, or neighbors' use and
enjoyment of their property. Establish stricter setbacks from property lines, drinking wells, and surface waters.
- Do more to restrict growth of hog factories (beyond stricter setbacks) in areas where the already high concentration of hog factories poses cumulative public health or
environmental threats.
- Give local governments (county commissioners and local health boards) broader authority to control the growth and siting of hog factories in their communities (see below).
2. Hog factories must be required to use the best available technologies and meet strong performance standards to control water pollution, air pollution, and odors.
Current hog waste practices --open-air waste lagoons and sprayfields--are simply inadequate. Too often these systems emit offensive odors and other harmful air pollutants, contaminate groundwater and drinking wells, pollute nearby wetlands and waterways, and threaten public health. (See Fact Sheets: Environmental Impacts for more information.)
In 1997, state lawmakers imposed a two-year moratorium on new and expanded hog factories to allow research
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Establish effective environmental performance standards for hog operations that will ensure
harmful impacts to people and the environment are substantially eliminated.
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on alternative hog waste technologies. The state also directed that a plan be developed to phase out the use of open-air waste lagoons and sprayfields, to be replaced with more
effective waste systems. State agricultural officials drafted a plan, but it fell far short of the solutions described here. Now state environmental officials are
developing a more comprehensive phase-out plan. The Environmental Defense Fund has developed a proposed phase-out plan that should guide this state effort. (See Environmental Defense's Phase Out Plan in Resource Center.)
If North Carolina fails to adopt a meaningful phase-out plan, then the moratorium will have served as short-term damage control only, without providing any lasting solutions. However,
if a meaningful plan is ultimately approved and implemented, North Carolina may well lead the nation in controlling pollution from hog factories.
State lawmakers should at least:
- Establish more effective environmental performance standards for hog operations that will ensure harmful impacts to people and the environment are substantially eliminated.
- Require factory hog farms, old and new, to use the best available waste treatment technologies and practices for managing hog waste.
- Aggressively fund research and development of alternative hog waste technologies, and call upon the hog industry to do the same. Promising technologies and practices
do exist to treat hog waste more effectively -- some are already on the ground, while others are being developed and field-tested.
- Require all new factories with more than 250 hogs to obtain an individual federal Clean Water Act permit before they are allowed to stock animals. Existing hog farms should
be required to obtain individual permits as soon as possible.
- Require hog factories to monitor their environmental performance to ensure that they are in full compliance with all standards and permit conditions. This should include
routine groundwater and surface water monitoring.
3. Citizens and local governments should have more say in whether factory hog farms are constructed in their community.
Hog factories threaten the environment and human health, and emit odors that often jeopardize neighbors' use and enjoyment of their homes and property. Nonetheless, until
recently citizens were not even notified that a new hog factory was being built next to them or in their communities. Public notice is still limited only to adjacent property owners and to
county officials. Even if notified that a hog factory is being proposed for their neighborhood, there is little that citizens can do. Citizens don't even have the right to submit comments on
proposed permits for specific factory farms.
Local governments lacked power to zone hog factories until 1997, when most of the state's 2500-plus hog factories were already built. Even now, zoning restrictions only apply to the
largest factory farms. Local governments still don't have zoning authority over factory farms with fewer than about 4500 hogs.
A disproportionate number of hog factories are located in low-income communities and in communities with significant minority populations. The poverty rate (as measured by number
of poor households) in the top ten hog-producing counties in North Carolina averages 24% in contrast to the statewide average of 14%. (Individual counties range from 16% to 27%).
These same top ten counties in hog production have average black populations of 40%, as compared to 22% statewide. (Individual counties range from 25% to 59%.) (US Bureau of Census, 1990)
State lawmakers should at least:
- Restore full zoning authority to local governments for hog factories with 250 or more animals.
- Require factory owners to provide public notice in local newspapers of any proposal to construct a new hog factory or to expand an existing one. The public should have
ample opportunity to comment on proposed permits for new or expanded hog factories. Upon request, the state should hold a public hearing on proposed permits for specific hog factories.
- Require state environmental officials, as part of the permitting process, to assess the potential impacts on communities, including poor and minority communities.
4. The pork industry must assume greater responsibility in ensuring that North Carolina's hog farms are both productive and environmentally sustainable.
Many of North Carolina's hog farmers don't even own the hogs they raise. Instead, they serve as "contract growers," meaning that they raise hogs under contract for a major
company. These contract growers are responsible for constructing and paying for the waste management system and bearing the environmental risks associated with the vast amounts of
waste generated at factory farms. As the holder of the permit, the contract grower is responsible for any fines or penalties associated with lagoon ruptures, permit violations, and
other environmental problems. The pork companies that actually own the hogs being raised on these contract factory farms avoid financial and legal liability and generally get off scot-free.
Contract growers also bear the legal responsibility to close down and remediate (clean up) waste lagoons if the hog factory closes. In many cases, contract growers cannot afford to
foot the bill to clean up these waste facilities and instead simply abandon the lagoon altogether. Neither the contract grower nor the pork company is required to post a financial
assurance bond to ensure that money is available to pay for clean-up costs, leaving it up to the taxpayer to pay the bill. This is a major problem in North Carolina, as there are up to 643
abandoned hog waste lagoons that threaten water quality unless promptly and properly remediated.
State lawmakers should insist that:
- Pork companies share the responsibility to control the environmental impacts of hog production at their contract farms. Pork companies should also be legally liable for
violations of permits, waste management plans, and other environmental requirements.
- No hog factory should be permitted unless financial assurance (e.g., surety bonds) is in place to ensure that resources will be available to close and clean up waste lagoons
and restore the natural environment around them.
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