IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 3
and millions of dollars of publicly supported research directly benefiting
agribusiness and hog factories. A technology that is too costly for a
proprietor to clean up should be recognized as a technology that is too
costly for the proprietor to adopt.
http://www.iatp.org/hogreport/sec3.html (11 of 23)2/27/2006 3:50:08 AM
An abandoned lagoon at a chicken farm north of Raleigh has been visited
by state inspectors frequently since 1995. 74 Seven times between 1995 and
1998, inspectors found the lagoon overflowing into a stream and wastes
washing out of a saturated field. In 1997, a state-ordered study found
groundwater beneath the lagoon contaminated with nitrates and coliform
bacteria. After Hurricane Floyd, an inspector found wastewater washing
over the top of the lagoon. Despite more than $20,000 in fines, the farm
has continued to pollute. The retired egg farmer who owns the farm said
he was unable to spend the tens of thousands of dollars necessary to get rid
of an estimated five million gallons of wastewater.
Two abandoned hog waste lagoons were filled so high by waters from
Hurricane Floyd that they ruptured, spilling two million gallons into a
nearby creek. 75 One of the lagoons continued to leak for six weeks after a
state inspector ordered the owner to fix it.
For a retired North Carolina farmer who voluntarily closed his lagoon, the
cost was $24,000, $15,000 of which was paid by the State's cost-share
program. 76 The cost may have been so low because he was permitted to
spray the lagoon contents onto nearby land rather than pumping it into
tankers for transport to a safer disposal area.
In Jackson County, Michigan, ten "state-of-the-art" hog confinement
systems were built at a single site by Jackson County Hog Production
(JCHP). 77 This site had three open-air anaerobic manure lagoons. The
stench caused nearby residents nausea, headaches, respiratory ailments,
and sleep disturbances. It burned their eyes, noses, and throats. Litigation
brought by the community against the company to force it to deal with the
stench cost the community members $100,000. In 1992, the company
declared bankruptcy, leaving 30 steel buildings and three lagoons on
denuded areas surrounded by a chain link fence. After years of
polarization, suffering under the health and psychological impacts of the
pollution created, and failed economic promises and benefits, the
community was left with the cost of cleaning up the waste. The hog
factory owners went on to build facilities in other states to the West. 78
Abandoned liquid manure lagoons and storage pits are the legacy of failed
policy processes, greed, and flawed technology. Hog factories, sewerless
cities whose hapless residents excrete as much as three to four times the
waste of humans, are being built all across the United States. Given the
overproduction taking place in the industry and the evidence noted above