Cleaning Up Hog Waste in North Carolina

Working to show hog farming can be clean and profitable

Hogs on a factory farm in North Carolina. Photo courtesy USDA.

Hog Waste Pollution

The traditional means of disposal for hog feces and urine has been open-air lagoon pits (basically big holding ponds for waste) and sprayfields. The lagoons sometimes rupture after heavy rains, and the fields on which waste is sprayed leak polluted runoff into streams and rivers.

Many North Carolinians will never forget the overflow of waste after the torrential rains and flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 or the disastrous lagoon overflow at Ocean View Farms in Onslow County in 1995, which dumped more that 20 million gallons of hog waste into the New River, causing massive fish kills and contaminating drinking water.

Hog waste also contributes to air pollution. Ammonia and methane emissions leak unimpeded into the atmosphere, and dangerous foul odors from manure-pit gases waft over to neighboring communities, decreasing the quality of life for citizens living downwind.

Update (September 2007) - In July 2007, North Carolina became the first state in the nation to ban the construction or expansion of lagoons and sprayfields on swine farms when it passed the Swine Farm Environmental Performance Standards Act. Our fact sheet [PDF] provides more details and analysis on the new law's  provisions.

Update (July 2007) - Our economic analysis shows how cleaning up hog systems can boost North Carolina's economy by $10 billion. Read the news release and download the report Economic Impacts of Installing Innovative Technologies on North Carolina Hog Farms [PDF]

The hog problem

North Carolina is the number-two producer of hogs after Iowa, with hog farming a billion dollar business. During the 1990s, the industry exploded, growing from 2.6 million hogs in 1988 to almost 10 million today. While hog production is an important economic engine in the state, the huge number of hogs produces a mind-boggling amount of waste that pollutes the water and air and endangers public health.

Pollution solutions: new clean technologies for waste disposal

Managing the waste of millions of hogs presents a significant environmental challenge – but studies show the problem is not insurmountable. Over the last six years researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU) have evaluated five new technologies that do a better job of controlling air and water pollution generated by the pork industry (see results of the NCSU research). Environmental Defense and a group of farmers together have come up with a plan to help farmers get these promising new technologies on their land and show that hog farming can be both clean and profitable.

Taking the lead on sustainable hog production

The years of research at NCSU were spurred by a landmark agreement between North Carolina’s Attorney General’s Office and Smithfield Foods and other pork producers to encourage the transition from traditional lagoons to more environmentally friendly methods of waste disposal.

Now that the technologies are a reality, the next step in the process is to make alternative technologies more affordable, and the best way to do that is to test them on real farms.

Environmental Defense has been working with Frontline Farmers, a nonprofit, grassroots organization comprised of swine producers and their families in North Carolina, to develop a timely, affordable, voluntary plan that will help turn academic research into on-the-ground reality on hog farms.  The groups share a commitment to making clean technologies affordable and widely available to farmers who want them.

How the program would work

Environmental Defense and Frontline Farmers propose that the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor Mike Easley work together to pass legislation in 2006 that establishes an incentive-based Early Adoption Program designed specifically to reduce the cost of alternative hog waste technologies. The program would put better systems into place immediately on 40-100 hog farms in North Carolina, a plan based on the recommendation of the NCSU researchers.  Farmers who volunteer to participate would be eligible for substantial financial assistance to defray the cost of better waste systems.

The state is set for putting cleaner hog waste systems on farms across Eastern North Carolina, where most hog farms are located.  Putting these systems on a significant number of farms as soon as possible will help reduce costs for all farmers and spur potentially lucrative new markets for waste byproducts – benefiting farmers, the economy and the environment.

Posted: 09-Jan-2006; Updated: 09-Jan-2006