THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180379
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 36 lines
Eastern North Carolina's hog farmers were asked to prepare for rains from Hurricane Felix by spraying waste onto nearby fields to lower water levels in their hog lagoons.
``We've been working for the past six weeks to make certain that farmers lower the level of water in their waste lagoons,'' said Preston Howard, director of the Division of Environmental Management. ``We know that high levels and wash-over can cause lagoons to collapse.''
Division employees in coastal regional offices telephoned those coastal hog producers whose operations had been spotted for possible problems on Wednesday and asked them to being spraying.
``We know the conditions are less than ideal, but we'd rather keep the integrity of those lagoons,'' said Debbie Crane, spokesman for the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources.
But bursting hog lagoons were not the only environmental problem the state could face from heavy rains.
``It all depends on how hard it rains,'' Crane said.
His agency sent a team of seven public water supply employees to the Washington regional office to help coastal towns and cities monitor surface waters for possible contamination of drinking water supplies.
Heavy rains over the next few days could create too much flow for the region's sewage treatment plants to adequately handle, leading to bypasses at many plants and possible contamination of surface drinking water supplies downstream, Crane said. by CNB