A million tons of feces and an unbearable stench: life near iNC ndustrial pig farms

A million tons of feces and an unbearable stench: life near industrial pig farms

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-industry-pig-farms



North Carolina’s hog industry has been the subject of litigation, investigation, legislation and regulation. But are its health and environmental risks finally getting too much?

by Erica Hellerstein and Ken Fine





....................................While legal, hog farms’ longstanding practice of disposing of excess waste by spraying it as mist on to nearby fields has proven controversial. Farms’ neighbors have complained that the system literally brings excrement to their doorsteps, allowing the liquefied waste to ride the wind to their property. In May, Shane Rogers, a former EPA and USDA environmental engineer, published a report that concluded that this is exactly what happens.

The study, which was filed in court documents on behalf of plaintiffs suing Murphy-Brown, relied on both air and physical samples collected from the exteriors of homes located near Murphy-Brown hog fields. The homes were selected randomly, and “at every visit and every home, I experienced offensive and sustained swine manure odors to varying intensity, from moderate to very strong,” Rogers wrote.

To test for the presence of pig-manure DNA, Rogers and his team collected DNA swab samples from the exterior walls of homes and from the air itself. In total, they collected 31 samples from the outside walls of 17 homes and submitted them for DNA testing; 14 of the 17 homes tested positive. ..........................................