IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 5
portions of an industrial park, already served with water, sewer, and
electric lines, for the slaughterplant. A landfill located along the Beaver
River allowed Circle 4 to dump dead hogs at reduced prices.
Circle 4 has spilled 80,000 gallons of liquefied manure into an aquifer
used for drinking water. Between April and July 1998, workers were
hospitalized after exposure to high levels of hydrogen sulfide, methane
and ammonia. 134 In 1998, one worker was electrocuted by a high pressure
water sprayer used to wash down crates and pens after pigs leave.
Researchers are studying why respiratory illness rates (per 10,000) were
four times higher in Milford residents than in Utah as a whole and double
those for two similarly sized towns. 135 Between 1995 and 1998, when
Circle 4 was operating, respiratory illness rates in Milford doubled.
Diarrheal illness rates in Milford averaged eight times more in Milford
than for the state as a whole and spiked in 1997-1998. 136 Researchers have
not pinpointed the cause but hope to use DNA fingerprinting techniques to
trace the movement of pathogens and identify sources. However, the
illnesses are typical of illnesses experienced by neighbors of other large
hog facilities using liquid manure disposal methods.
Idaho is home to Sawtooth Farms, a newly-formed partnership of Bell
Farms and the Anderson Group in cooperation with a Twin Falls, Idaho
packer. Sawtooth plans a 250,000-sow operation filling a 15,000-head-aday
packing plant. 137
Neither Utah nor Idaho has prohibitions against corporate livestock
farming, packers owning or contracting livestock supplies, or packers
providing price premiums or long-term minimum price contracts for large
suppliers of livestock. Neither has laws that limit marketing alliances,
networking, or closed cooperatives for confined livestock operations. 138
Both states provide nuisance suit protection to hog factories, including
right-to-farm legislation. 139 Idaho has one of the strongest laws
specifically exempting farm animals and farming practices from protection
under state anticruelty statutes. 140 It should be obvious why hog factories
push for legislation to weaken state anticruelty statutes, making practices
that would be subject to prosecution if performed on companion animals
legal for farm animals. If the same laws applied to both, hog factories in
most states would not be allowed to reduce the per-sow cost of capital
investment in facilities by housing sows in crates that prohibit them from
walking or turning around, warehousing them by the thousands at a single
site. Without this major economizing factor, it is doubtful whether hog
factories could grow so large and still survive economically.
A Pattern Emerges
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