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New Community Voices Section
No one knows the impacts of factory hog operations better than the rural North Carolina
citizens who live downwind and downstream. How have some people's lives and communities changed with the demise of the family farm and its replacement by
industrial-sized hog production facilities? Hear citizens tell, in their own words, what's happening to their quality of life and how they are fighting back in their communities.
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The North Carolina Supreme Court Hears Chatham County Appeal
The North Carolina Supreme Court will determine within the coming months whether local governments lose or retain the authority to adopt ordinances regulating large hog farms. This
decision, which is to be made early next year, will be important in determining what part local governments will play in protecting the health and wellbeing of their citizens.
N.C. Environmmental Defense Calls New Hog Farm Law Hollow:
The N.C. House of Representatives voted last week to extend a moratorium on new hog
farms, but not to improve waste standards for existing farms. We're calling on the legislature
to require all the state's hog farms to replace hog waste lagoons. The legislature first enacted a moratorium in 1997 to allow time for the development of alternative waste technologies.
The moratorium alone does little to solve the swine waste crisis. It's like punishing your teenager by threatening not to raise any more kids.
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DOLLARS AND SENSE: An Economic Analysis of Alternative Hog Waste Management Technologies (November, 2000):
This report shows that pork producers can afford to replace outdated lagoons with new systems for managing harmful hog waste and concludes that new technologies will increase
pork production costs by only pennies per pound and will better protect the environment and public health. The report also calls on the NC General Assembly and the state Environmental
Management Commission to mandate the phase out of open-air lagoon systems on hog farms and calls for corporate hog producers that own the hogs to be held responsible for
environmental problems.
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SMITHFIELD AGREEMENT: Lagoon Phase-out Pact between NC Attorney General Easley and Smithfield Foods (August, 2000):
Environmental Defense, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), and the NC Chapter of the Sierra Club applaud the announcement that NC Attorney General Mike
Easley has reached an agreement with Smithfield Foods to eliminate the use of open-air waste lagoon and sprayfield systems on the more than 170 company-owned farms in North
Carolina within five years. Smithfield Foods is the largest hog producer in the world.
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HURRICANE FLOYD: Environmental Defense's Perspectives (March, 2000):
Hurricane Floyd flooded more than 300 livestock operations leavung human and environmental devastation in its aftermath. Find out our take on this tragedy
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HOG LAGOONS: PITTING PORK WASTE AGAINST PUBLIC HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT (June,1999):
North Carolina has more than 2,600 registered hog operations using at least one, and often
more, open-air pits dug in the earth to process the waste from the state's 10 million hogs. The most recent number of active open-air pits totaled more than 3,800, with the number of
abandoned pits at nearly 550. The vast majority of these pits (often referred to as "lagoons")
are located along waterways and on lands that drain to the state's coastal waters, which have tremendous economic and ecological value for North Carolina. Environmental Defense
highlights the severe threats to public health and the environment associated with these lagoons and calls for the adoption of a solution package
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