Hog farming has a massive poop problem

Inside North Carolina’s search for solutions for its thousands of pig manure lagoons.

For this third episode of our video series with Vox’s Future Perfect team, we went to North Carolina, a state that for decades has been a battleground over the public health impact of hog farming.

​​Animal Charity Evaluators provided funding without editorial input for the production of this series.

I interviewed two people in North Carolina who do not appear in the video: Sherri White-Williamson, who heads the Environmental Justice Community Action Network, or EJCAN, a nonprofit working toward water testing in the area, particularly of private wells.

I also interviewed Jeff Currie, a member of the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina, and a Waterkeeper Alliance worker whose job it is to test the Lumber River watershed for contamination. The Lumbee tribe is primarily located in Robeson County, one of the areas with a high concentration of hog farms that we cover in the video.

Another feature of North Carolina that makes it more vulnerable to water contamination is its permeable, sandy soil in areas with a high concentration of hog farms. Experts told me this area used to be swampland, and was drained to make way for agriculture. My colleague Liz Scheltens mentions a similar historical context in a video she made about Lake Erie and cow waste pollution:

The location of hog farms in North Carolina is related to the history of tobacco farming in the state. When the public health effects of smoking became clear, the government stopped supporting it. Many North Carolina farmers started to diversify their practices, including raising hogs. That’s exactly how Tom Butler got into raising pigs — he was once a tobacco farmer:

Advocates and community members are also deeply concerned about the proliferation of large-scale poultry facilities in North Carolina, which accelerated when the moratorium on new or expanded hog farms was enacted in 1997:

The Align RNG map we show in this video, illustrating where a proposed methane pipeline might go, has been a source of heated debate in North Carolina. The Southern Environmental Law Center and other organizations have asked the state for more transparency about where the farms and the pipeline are located in order to get informed public input on the project. More details on this are in this story:

We contacted Align RNG and Smithfield for this story, and they both said they sought public input for the biogas project and touted the project’s potential for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. They also said that the state of North Carolina has “stringent” permit regulations that they adhere to.

Vox’s Future Perfect team covered this issue here:

And in a podcast episode, as part of their series on meat:

A similar debate about the promises of biogas is happening in the dairy industry as well:

ProPublica has a more in-depth investigation into the Smithfield agreement:

I learned a lot from Melba Newsome’s writing and reporting on this issue for North Carolina Health News:

Rick Dove of the Waterkeeper Alliance manages a website that tracks this issue:

[Vox]

Thanks for watching. It’s worth noting that North Carolina is not the only place where the lagoon and sprayfield system exists. A lot of large-scale pig farms in the US store and dispose of waste in this way. In states like Iowa that experience more frequent freezing temperatures however, farms store the waste in deep pits under the hog buildings. Other states require lagoons to be covered. And, small-scale farmers graze their pigs.

But I couldn’t find anywhere a version of a wastewater treatment plant that most advocates are calling for, aside from the pilot projects funded through the Smithfield agreement in North Carolina, one of which we show in the video.

It seems clear to me that changing this system would require an industry-wide sea change, led by corporations fronting the cost and more government regulation.

For our international audience: Does your country raise hogs in a way that looks different than this? If so, I’d love to hear about it below.
-Laura

[youngsixty]

The fact that we get free documentaries on YouTube by Vox is truly a gift 👍

[Dino]

Something that isn’t discussed is that hog waste can contain antibiotic resistant bacteria. When that waste flows into waterways, people downstream can get antibiotic resistant infections. The NC waterways discussed flow into the sounds and ocean where fishing and tourism are major industries.

[impendio]

Extremely good series, everyone should know these things. We can’t give away our future just for cheap meat today…

[crimsonghost]

It's disgusting that the health board made the church pay for the problems that the industry created.

[arvisvalit]

Pigs aren’t naturally inclined to wallow in their own filth. That is a stereotype created by the industry that breeds and exploits them. They are clean and intelligent animals but we treat them as machines.

[isimerias]

It’s an issue here in Quebec too. The government touts eating local but when this local produce is industrial hog farms that are poisoning our groundwater it’s quite ironic…

[marwin]

Here in Germany we have this problem as well, we also have increased nitrate levels in ground water. its not close to being this bad tho

[jedro]

This is simply a peek at a much larger issue related to the entire meat production industry. Meat prices have to go up (or maybe the conglomerates can simply accept a little less profit) or municipalities need to assist farmers if they are to afford these proven technologies.

[WorldsOkayestSorcerer]

My grandparents kept hogs. They stink in a way that I can’t even adequately describe. I can only imagine the gruesome stench of a farm solely dedicated to the mass raising of these animals. Imagining what the “lagoon” must smell like — let alone the danger to health it must pose — is enough to make my stomach do flips.

We have to re-think the way we get our food in this country. It’s going to come back to bite us in a catastrophic way.

[acmulhern]

Environmental issues are also human rights issues. Once we realise this and act accordingly we can tackle both issues at once.

[stephenshoihet]

Several years ago I watched a show where they were flying over pig farms to check out their waste usage and one had an impulse sprinkler that was stationary and discharging directly into a creek.

[Waddayatakamefor]

A very similar problem arises in the cattle industry and basically everywhere livestock is being raised and held. Large death zones in the oceans where literally nothing lives and the oxygen levels are very low while nitrogen levels are particularly high have been connected to manure runoff...

[Zeverinsen]

There are many viable solutions, but they must be forced into law in order to be implemented.
Corporations will NEVER do what's best for anyone or anything but their own profit, regardless of who it impacts and how, as long as it isn't someone who can make legislation.

[rontropics]

Those aren't "adult" pigs as stated. Pigs can live over ten years and most pigs are slaughtered in just 6 months.

[CP-]

North Carolina has a unique problem that is easy solved. They can do what other jurisdictions in North America have had to adopt. Cover their holding pits, and INJECT the manure into the field soil via the pumpout hose method. They will have to be state monitored for nitrate levels in the soil, and they must have adequate acres to use the manure for crop growth. If not, then the manure must be trucked to a distant field where it can be used safely, Or move the farm. I’m an independent hog producer and I’ve done this. It should not matter the size of the operation, it must be environmentally friendly, or it must be scaled back or closed.

[CPRodrigues]

That is such a GREAT piece of journalism!
Here in Brazil this issue is also present in many of our new farming frontiers, also damaging Amazônia in it's expansion.

[jkeelsnc]

I live in NC myself. The ironic thing is that I eat very little pork even in a state famous for pork bbq. The hog farms are a real problem and this problem needs to be corrected.

[Kimmaline]

I grew up across the road from a similar facility for chickens. We were extremely poor, on well water, and when my mom would do her typical disappearing act for days or weeks at a time, the owner of the chicken farm would come spray the manure on our pastures--claiming he was "helping" us by fertilizing the land.

I was *always* sick, and didn't even realize how abnormal it was until I got out and moved to the city.

[domramsey]

How is it even legal to keep animals like that?