Hog Farming And The Dangers To The Air And Water

Hog Farming and the Dangers to the Air and Water

Hog farming in North Carolina has been around for thousands of years and has changed over the course of that time. The changes have included better farming techniques, bigger farms, more pigs and along with these changes more and more hog waste build up. This build up is becoming more of a problem because it not only is smelly it is endangering the environment. It pollutes the air and water around it. The waste is stored in hog waste lagoons which are just big holding ponds for waste disposal such as hog feces and urine. These lagoons may seem like a good idea to some because it gets the waste in one confines area and keeps it there and away from farms and civilization. But contrary to this thought it is not as safe as one might think. Because the waste just keeps building and building, due to heavy rains and just too much waste, and has now here else to go it eventually ruptures and spills over onto the ground and into nearby water ways and contaminates them with the waste products. Also when the waste is sprayed onto fields it leaks into the groundwater and runoff and contaminates the water that way. A couple of incidents that struck North Carolinians was “the overflow of waste after the torrential rains and flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 or the disastrous lagoon-overflow at Ocean View Farms in Onslow County in 1995, which dumped more than 20 million gallons o f hog waste into the New River, causing massive fish kills and contaminating drinking water. Hog waste also contributes to air pollution. Ammonia and Methane emissions leak unimpeded into the atmosphere, and dangerous foul odors from manure-pit gases waft over to neighboring communities, decreasing the quality of life for citizens living downward.” So with these problems many people or concerned for the health of the environment and want to try and limit hog farming so they can limit the effect of the waste on the environment, but there are many research teams coming up with ways to help reduce the harmful effects of the waste.

One of the groups doing this is a research group from NCSU. They are trying to come up with a more environmentally safe way to store the hog waste and they are working with North Carolina’s Attorney’s General Office and Smithfield Foods to do so. The agreement in the program is to use any “environmentally superior technology that is permittable by the appropriate governmental authority; is determined to be technically, operationally and economically feasible for an identified category or categories of farms as described in the