Hog factories a major threat to area
Becky Gillette
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Halloween horror came early to Eureka Springs Monday when representatives from the Waterkeeper Alliance from North Carolina came to give personal reports backed up by photographic evidence of the devastating impacts from the production of eight to ten million hogs grown in the state’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Only this presentation wasn’t about mock horror done for fun during Halloween, but real life devastation of the environment and peoples’ lives from hog factories.

There were photographs of lesions on people and fish caused by the blood sucking pfiesteria organisms linked to hog waste, and grizzly images of hundreds of dead pigs dumped in metal “dead boxes” or even on the ground. There was also video footage of rivers turned to red, rivers clogged with slimy algae caused by the excess nutrients, and hog waste being sprayed directly into ditches and streams leading to major waterways.

Some attendees left the room, finding the scenes too difficult to watch. Even those already opposed to CAFOs, and in particular a new 4,500 hog factory in the Buffalo River Watershed, came away with an increased understanding of what could happen if Arkansas becomes the next target for siting large numbers of hog factories by an industry that is expanding because of increased demand from China for pork.

The Waterkeepers spoke Monday night after a similar presentation earlier in the day in Jasper. They visited the Mount Judea School, and said odor from the hog factory is noticeable from the school even though the factory hasn’t yet started spraying waste.

Larry Baldwin, the North Carolina CAFO Coordinator for the Waterkeeper Alliance, said CAFOs are one of the greatest threats to water quality in the U.S. and the world. Hogs grow rapidly, and produce eight to ten times as much waste as humans. The number of hogs being raised in North Carolina could be compared to the waste from 100,000 million people. But unlike with human waste, CAFOs are not required to install wastewater treatment plants. North Carolina CAFOs alone generate more waste than is produced by the entire country of Germany.

“These are not family farms,” Baldwin said. “They are factories that are controlled by the industry with little regard for the impacts to neighbor’s health and property. These hog factories have impacts far beyond their borders. It is a local issue with global consequences. Without clean water, there can be no healthy life.”

Baldwin also spoke of the high mortality rates from hogs being raised in close confinement. Twelve to 20 percent of the animals die. Some are taken to rendering plants where oil is extracted for cosmetics, and the remains used to make feed for animals – including hogs. Other times the dead hogs are simply buried in an area with a high water table where contamination from rotting carcasses can go directly into the groundwater.

Other concerns he discussed include high rates of asthma and respiratory problems from residents who live near the facilities or children who go to school near the factories; antibiotic resistance from widespread use of antibiotics in the hog’s feed or water; environmental justice and animal welfare concerns; and the potential to spread disease to other animals and humans.

“This is an industry that is out of control,” Baldwin said. “This is your water. This is your state. Don’t do it like we did it in North Carolina because we did it wrong.”

He said there are environmentally sound waste treatment systems that have been developed for hog factories, but the industry that makes billions in profits claims they are too expensive.

Rick Dove, a former commercial fisherman who is a founding director of the Waterkeeper Alliance, spoke about the devastation to fisheries caused by major tributaries like the Neuse River being “fertilized to death” by hog factories. “Year after year, North Carolina has seen hundreds of millions of fish killed,” he said.

“We had no massive fish kills until we got the CAFO industry,” Dove said. “Too many nutrients can make the river sick. You get low oxygen from too much fertilizer and the fish die. The fishery and river are important to the whole economic base where we live.”

The Neuse River, Dove said, was once a very beautiful river that attracted a lot of water-based recreation. But no one wants to swim in hog waste in waters contaminated with dangerous pathogens. The result has been devastating to the economy of the area, particularly tourism.

Dove had personal experience with pfiesteria. When he and his son were fishing and were exposed to fumes from pfiesteria, they experienced temporary memory loss. That memory loss has been so bad that some fishermen can’t remember how to get back to the dock or home.

“Once you bring in the factory farms, life will never be the same,” Dove said.

Kelly Foster, senior attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance, said not to expect environmental laws like the Clean Water Act to protect you because they won’t. CAFOs often claim to be “zero discharge” facilities, alleging no waste leaves the area so a wastewater permit is not needed. Although numerous studies have documented the hog waste getting into local rivers, the industry is so powerful that it has been able to evade properly treating its waste.

“The environmental laws are all written by the industry,” she said.

In North Carolina, the CAFOs are usually sited by streams or rivers, and the Waterkeepers believe this could be by design as a handy way to get rid of their waste. Foster said with the karst topography of the Ozarks, waste from hog farms is likely to leach into the ground and follow underwater fissures to emerge from the ground in a spring, river, lake or drinking water well. The Ozarks could be the “ideal” place for the hog waste to disappear.

Foster said the Ozark water bodies are in various stages of death from nitrification (over-fertilization from sources such as the poultry CAFOs). Hog factories would make the problem much worse.

“Stop them before they start,” Foster urged. “Organizing your communities is the only way to stop the CAFOs.”

Many states have put moratoriums on new hog factories. In North Carolina, there is a ban on new spray fields. But the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has adopted a “general permit” that makes it easy for CAFOs to get permits without – in the case of the hog factory near the Buffalo River – proper notification to state and federal agencies, and the public. The Waterkeepers said Arkansas could very well be a target for hog factories expansions because they have been blocked in other states from expanding, and Arkansas has made it easy to get permits.