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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA million tons of feces and an unbearable stench: life near iNC ndustrial pig farms
A million tons of feces and an unbearable stench: life near industrial pig farms
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-industry-pig-farms
North Carolinas hog industry has been the subject of litigation, investigation, legislation and regulation. But are its health and environmental risks finally getting too much?
by Erica Hellerstein and Ken Fine
....................................While legal, hog farms longstanding practice of disposing of excess waste by spraying it as mist on to nearby fields has proven controversial. Farms neighbors have complained that the system literally brings excrement to their doorsteps, allowing the liquefied waste to ride the wind to their property. In May, Shane Rogers, a former EPA and USDA environmental engineer, published a report that concluded that this is exactly what happens.
The study, which was filed in court documents on behalf of plaintiffs suing Murphy-Brown, relied on both air and physical samples collected from the exteriors of homes located near Murphy-Brown hog fields. The homes were selected randomly, and at every visit and every home, I experienced offensive and sustained swine manure odors to varying intensity, from moderate to very strong, Rogers wrote.
To test for the presence of pig-manure DNA, Rogers and his team collected DNA swab samples from the exterior walls of homes and from the air itself. In total, they collected 31 samples from the outside walls of 17 homes and submitted them for DNA testing; 14 of the 17 homes tested positive. ..........................................
MineralMan
(146,338 posts)a problem. I worked at a dairy as a teenager. It wasn't even a large dairy, but it generated massive piles of crap, all of which had to be dealt with in some way. Most of it was spread as fertilizer in the orange groves nearby. That is not even legal today, due to today's strict regulations about food safety.
We eat pork and beef. We drink millions of tons of milk. It all has to come from somewhere. If you raise animals, you deal with their feces. It's always a problem.
Solutions? I have none at all.
John1956PA
(2,659 posts)In his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken provided an unforgettable, and humorous, description of the "underbelly" of waste management at large-scale pig farms.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,900 posts)sounds like the entire Trump Administration.
doc03
(35,389 posts)Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)Or cut them out altogether.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)bearing skanky traces of the inevitable GMO lifeblood, glyphosate.
Eat cheap, crappy industrial food, and you shorten your health span.
jalan48
(13,901 posts)rock
(13,218 posts)Nevermind.