THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 20, 1995 TAG: 9502200069
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Recent scientific studies show that contaminants from hog lagoons are getting into groundwater in North Carolina.
One North Carolina State University report estimates that as many as half of existing lagoons - perhaps hundreds - are leaking badly enough to contaminate groundwater.
A vast city of swine has risen practically overnight in the counties east of Interstate 95. It's a megalopolis of 7 million animals that live in metal confinement barns and produce two to four times as much raw waste, per hog, as the average human.
All that manure - about 9.5 million tons a year - is stored in thousands of earthen pits called lagoons, where it decomposes and is sprayed or spread on crop lands. The system creates odor, but industry officials say it's a proven and effective way to keep harmful chemicals and bacteria out of water supplies.
New evidence obtained by The News & Observer of Raleigh says otherwise. In addition to the report on leaking lagoons contaminating groundwater, the newspaper found:
The industry also is running out of places to spread or spray the waste from lagoons. The state's biggest swine counties already are producing more nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich manure than available land can absorb, state Agriculture Department records show.
Scientists are discovering that hog farms emit large amounts of ammonia gas, which returns to Earth in rain. The ammonia is believed to be contributing to algae growth that's choking many of the state's rivers and estuaries.
Pork industry officials say they are supporting research into hog waste and odor problems. They say no one works harder than they do to prevent the contamination of water supplies - a resource that they also must use.
But there's also no precedent for the expansion of high-density hog farming in North Carolina. Nowhere else has this waste-intensive industry grown so much so fast, with so little known about long-term consequences.
What is known is that eastern North Carolina, with its sandy soils and a shallow water table, is especially vulnerable to groundwater pollution. Yet the state has weaker environmental regulations for hog farms than any major hog-producing state.
Compared to Missouri, Iowa and Virginia, North Carolina has lenient standards for lagoon construction, buffer zones and allowable seepage of wastewater into the ground. It minimally enforces the rules that are in place.
The state adopted stricter standards in 1993, calling for farmers to draw up waste management plans, but even those rules won't be fully implemented until 1997. By then, North Carolina hog farms are projected to produce up to 16 million swine a year - and the raw waste equivalent of a country of 32 million people.
During the last two years, several studies conducted on Eastern North Carolina hog farms have documented leakage in a large proportion of lagoons. Waste pits without clay liners showed the most severe leakage.
The studies, described in papers prepared for academic publication, concluded that lagoons were causing local pollution around hog farms.
In one study, Rodney L. Huffman, an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at N.C. State University, and other scientists selected 11 lagoons that were at least 7 years old, then dug a series of test wells.
Their findings: More than half of the lagoons were leaking moderately to severely. Some lagoons that were described as having little seepage still produced groundwater nitrate levels up three times the allowable limit.
Another research project looked at groundwater quality in test wells in fields where hog waste had been sprayed as fertilizer. Researchers found evidence of contamination almost everywhere in the sandy soils beneath the spray fields.
Pork industry officials say that any pollutants from leaking lagoons are filtered out by the soil. They contend there is no direct evidence that a private well has been contaminated by a leaking lagoon.
But the fact is, no one really knows whether the wastes are reaching drinking water sources. A two-year, $157,000 study funded by federal and state grants is just getting under way to see whether lagoon wastes are reaching drinking water supplies. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
This aerial view taken Thursday of a farm owned by Carroll's Food's,
one of several companies with major hog production operations in
North Carolina, shows wastewater from a lagoon being sprayed on a
field near the operation.
KEYWORDS: WATER POLLUTION by CNB