Hog farmers are frantically draining manure lagoons as Hurricane Florence bears down on the North Carolina coast, bringing with it threats of catastrophic waste spills if the now Category 4 storm brings as much rain — up to three feet, according to some estimates — as feared. Thousands of farm animals in the path of Florence could also be killed.
North Carolina, the nation’s second-largest producer of hogs with 9.3 million at 2,000 permitted farms. They’re raised in CAFOs — concentrated animal feeding operations — and live in row upon row of rectangular barns. Most big factory farms manage the pigs’ waste in open-air lagoons that could flood and potentially contaminate rivers and streams.
The monster storm, on track to become the worst hurricane in North Carolina history since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, has prompted hurricane and storm surge warnings from the South Santee River River in South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina, including both the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, Wilmington and most of the Outer Banks.
Of particular concern is an area just off the coast, where pigs outnumber people and the manure pits are often pink — the color of Pepto Bismol — from bacteria feeding on the waste.
Hurricane Florence: Carolinas Prepare For ‘Storm Of A Lifetime’
“When you fly over that area, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one,” Katy Langley, who lives downstream from many of the farms, told NPR of the multiple lagoons holding waste from the hog farms.
Langley works for the environmental organization Sound Rivers, which protects the health of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins. She is assigned to the Neuse River, which she worries could become contaminated with manure.
North Carolina soil is already saturated, heightening worries that the walls of the earthen lagoons — which contain not only hog manure, coal ash and other types of waste — could collapse. Though past hurricanes, including Matthew in 2016, caused spills from livestock farms, the lagoon walls remained intact.
“The fact that the soil is already wet means surrounding land has less capacity to absorb the water.” Frank Holleman, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told McClatchy’s Washington, D.C., bureau. “That means these lagoons are at greater threat of being overwhelmed.”
Pork industry leaders say environmentalists are exaggerating the threats and lagoon failures are rare. Brandon Warren, the president of the North Carolina Pork Council, told McClatchy farmers began hurricane preparations “long before the last few hours or days.”
“Our farmers take hurricane threats extremely seriously,” Warren said.
At Ivy Creek Farm in Goldsboro, workers spent part of the day pumping out the lagoon to make room for the rainfall. Marlowe Vaughn told NPR the animals at her farm will be safe, but she’s worried the farm is “going to get hit on the nose with this, so flooding’s our biggest concern.”
As well as monitoring lagoon levels, farmers are also moving animals out of flood-prone areas and moving them to higher ground, making sure they’ve got enough feed supplies in place in the event roadways are flooded, preparing for power outages with backup generators, the North Carolina Pork Council said.
With enough preparation, the lagoons should be able to handle up to three feet of rain, according to experts from North Carolina State University. But the lagoons at Vaughn’s farms have never been tested to that degree.
“We don’t really know,” she told NPR. “I mean, we try to pump down as much as we can, but after that, it’s kind of in God’s hands. We’re kind of at the mercy of the storm.”
This tweet shows the concentration of of factory hog farms in North Carolina.
This interactive tool shows hog farm locations by watershed.
Lead photo: Charlie Riedel / Associated Press