Hog Waste Lagoons in Eastern North Carolina
Imagine not being able to enjoy your own front porch or back deck. Imagine not being able to open your own windows. All because the smell from a hog waste lagoon in your county is so strong that it makes everyone in the house physically sick.
But that’s not all. Research has shown that Eastern North Carolina residents who live near hog waste lagoons may have increased rates of asthma and weakened immune systems. Nitrogen may have polluted their groundwater and drinking water.
Source: North Carolina Conservation Network, “What’s At Stake: The Scoop on Hog Poop.”
“Public Health Time Bomb”
According to a 1999 report by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), atmospheric nitrogen and methane pollution, hog waste runoff, and hog farmers’ primitive sprayfield systems left North Carolina with a “public health time bomb.”
“We have abundant evidence that the old system of lagoons and sprayfields is damaging public health and the environment,” said Dan Whittle, attorney for the EDF.
Murphy-Brown of Warsaw, NC
Murphy-Brown LLC of Warsaw, North Carolina, is the world’s largest pork producer and is a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods of Smithfield, Virginia. According to its website, Murphy-Brown slaughters 14.5 million hogs each year (Source: www.murphybrownllc.com, retrieved August 11, 2007).
How a North Carolina Hog Waste Lagoon Works
According to Rolling Stone magazine, Smithfield hog waste is processed by first being collected from the hogs via a catchment pit located under hog pens:
“many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs -- anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.”
The holding ponds, called lagoons, are as large as 120,000 square feet and as deep as thirty feet. A single slaughterhouse can require hundreds of hog waste lagoons to process the waste, as a single hog produces three times as much excrement as a human being.
Spraying Toxic Waste in Eastern North Carolina
Rains easily cause the lagoons to overflow. To prevent this, farmers spray liquid from the lagoons onto nearby fields, where it is free to seep into groundwater systems. Farmers sometimes have to do this during rainfall, a task called “overapplication” which turns fields into sodden lakes of hog feces.
This voluminous waste is toxic. According to the EPA, Murphy-Brown dumps more toxic waste into North Carolina’s water than all but three other industrial operations in the whole of the United States.
Source: Jeff Tietz, “Boss Hog,” Rolling Stone, December 14, 2006.
Contact a Personal Injury Lawyer About Your Hog Farm Nuisance Case
If you and your family, or someone you know, has suffered as a result of a nearby hog farm lagoon, you may have a personal injury case. Hog waste lagoons not only make life unbearable. They may make you and your family seriously ill and negatively impact your property values.
A consultation with a personal injury lawyer may be in your best interest. If you’ve been waiting for legislation to take care of hog farm nuisances, and have not received satisfaction, you may still be able to take action in civil court and stop the hog producers who continue to pollute our state, endanger our children and hurt the quality of life that is so precious to us in North Carolina.
Call the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin today at 1-800-TEAM-JSF, or fill out our easy case details form right now. We will make every effort to let you know our opinion of your case within one business day.
