Meat: Murder for them. Suicide for us. Death for the planet.
5
Slightly off topic, but it is possible to be a healthy eater and not eat much or any meat without being a vegan. Can we dial down the fanaticism that says vegan and only vegan is acceptable?
I'm tired of claims that only perfection and absolutism are OK. It's important to work with people and moderation is a good start.
12
The CAFOs discussed in this article are not only dangerous during a storm. It has been well understood, for many years, that these large pig operations (from which much of our pork comes) are detrimental to the health of humans who live near them, harmful to the environment, potentially harmful to wildlife species, and they provide horrific living conditions for the pigs. It is my opinion, and the opinion of many, that CAFOs are an extraordinarily cruel and destructive way to create food.
Each and every consumer who purchases pork is contributing to these cruel and environmentally-destructive operations. And, consumers should keep in mind that pigs are every bit as intelligent as dogs; these defenseless pigs are well aware of their suffering.
We could enact stronger animal welfare and environmental laws and adopt stringent regulations to prohibit CAFOs or to better control them, but we haven't done so (and, given voters' recent choices, that appears out of range for the time being). It seems, therefore, that there may be only one way to control the powerful pork industry and that is to refuse to fund their cruelty and environmental destruction through the purchase of their pork.
If you care about the issues surrounding CAFOs, you have the power to create change (or at least remove yourself from being a contributor to the harms caused by CAFOs) . . . simply, don't buy pork.
14
Once again, the Republican state legislature legalizes private benefit, public risk.
5
Many of the folks making comments are contributing to the problem by eating pigs and other animals. I am sure more pork is consumed in NY than in NC. Just as NY (NYC in particular) exports its garbage to states where land is cheap, NY imports its meat from other states where land is cheap. While I agree that regulation is too lax here, you can do mitigate the problem by not eating animals.
46
Or at least eating less than the 200 pounds per year the average American eats. Hey, less colon cancer too!
6
If you want to see what the nation will look like in a few years( after Trump and Republican controlled Congress), it will be NC but on a larger scale. We have coal ash flowing into waterways carrying mercury and arsenic, total lack of planning for basic ecology much less climate change. Our Nov ballots contain two state constitution amendments with no description of what they mean. Basically they are attempts to further handicap our Democratic governor. Oh, and there are drowned hogs and chickens floating in our waterways.
77
@4Katydid
Don't forget the increased methane now that Trump has removed all regulations on releasing that poison into your air!
1
In related news that might further illuminate NYT readers and those who comment, the Republican supermajority in the NC legislature passed a bill this summer limiting the damages that residents can collect from these hog farms for pollution or befouling the air. These elected officials should be made to work in cleaning up the mess from Florence. Maybe if they wallow in it a bit, they will become somewhat enlightened as to what they are so busy protecting.
102
@Bruce
Thanks for enlightening info. These hog farms used to be fields of cotton. ie plantations with slaves. NC & SC need to be enlightened, but when its environment vs $$$ 'they have no principle!
1
This problem may finally receive some much more needed attention, now that the flooding is making it hard for those not living in the area to ignore. For a long time, Naeema Muhammad, co-director for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, has been trying to bring attention to the aerial spraying of the pig waste that fills the open air lagoons. It's an environmental disaster and it's making people living in that area sick. And I might mention that the conditions inside these factory hog houses, which are owned by Smithfield Foods, are totally inhumane. Check out the interview on "Democracy Now" to learn more. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/3/nc_lawmakers_side_with_factory_farms
7
"The poultry producer Sanderson Farms said in a news release that they’d lost an estimated 1.7 million broiler chickens." NYT: Please use quotes around such terms as, 'broiler chickens'. All animals exist in their right. Each individual animal has dignity, inherent value and uniqueness. Attaching the term, broiler to chickens is a tell - it tells of the implicit barbarism in such industries which turn living, sentien beings into products.
9
The NYT should do an investigation on the conditions in which these animals are kept. It is absolutely unacceptable that 5500 pigs would die most likely horrendous and torturous deaths due to this storm. Not unlike the horrendous and torturous lives they live before slaughter. Not to mention the millions of birds. Quite frankly I am glad they are out of their misery and hope the industry suffers because of it. I hope this brings to light the fact that industrial agriculture and animal husbandry are not sustainable for humans and certainly not for the animals. NY times I hope you will be more forthright in your reporting regarding industrial pig farming. I think you owe it to your readers and to the pigs.
12
It’s pretty rich to lament the deaths of so many chickens and pigs on one hand, while on the other they are routinely slaughtered mercilessly and needlessly. I find that kind of juxtaposition rather grim to contemplate, sympathetic as I am to the plight of the Carolinians waylaid by this devastating storm.
6
What about the animals?
9
Lagoons of pig manure flooded ... gross. Those in the contaminated areas are in "some deep doo-doo"!
So not funny.
Nature will meet extremity with extremity...and this is pretty extreme. In light of events like these - of which I'm sure we'll only be seeing more frequently - the benefit of cheap pork seems to pale in comparison to consequences of its manufacturing processes.
It's a colossal loss of life, a disturbing environmental disaster, and I think a rather fitting metaphor for...I don't know, the state of the world I guess.
This is just a portion of a greater cycle of destruction that is detrimental to everyone, though certain groups of people live as if they are impervious to the forces that are literally changing the face of the earth.
7
I get that there are real consequences to all of this, but I can't help but wonder if someone is (to hedge their bets) investigating how much it cost to assemble a think tank specifically tasked with: (A) disputing an assertion that hog waste levels in local lakes, rivers, etc. are higher than normal; (B) casting doubt on whether an such increase can be definitively attributed to hog waste lagoons (as opposed to, say, natural cycles of wild pig populations throughout the earth's history); or perhaps, (C) asserting that the rivers were actually too clean to begin prior to the breaches and that a healthy increase in hog waste is a good thing.
Perhaps, if all else fails, an small-government politician could bring a snowball into the N.C. State Legislature. One might question the overall significance of a snowball to the debate, but it wasn't really significant to Congressional discussions about climate change either and that didn't stop Sen. Inhofe (R) from deciding that was the best way to represent the great State of Oklahoma. What did it mean? To paraphrase: "Nobody knows what it means, but it's provocative! It gets the money flowin'!"
14
My sympathies lie with the pigs left to drown by corporate animal tormentors (I cannot bring myself to call them ‘farmers’). Pigs can’t vote or write laws. North Carolina loves republicans and hates regulations. Then live with pig feces and biological remnants of decaying pig carcasses in your groundwater and your homes. The 1%-ers are parked in their mansions on the top of the hill. Please figure out that they and the current occupant of WH don’t care one jot about you, the other 99%.
68
This is turning me into a vegan real quick. Rev. William Barber is right when he says industries only place these kinds of environmental hazards near poor communities and communities of color, because clearly their lives don't matter right? Capitalism is turning Earth into a garbage dump.
62
Good god. Open the doors before you abandon them so they at least have a chance.
8
Should we worry about this? Maybe it's "CLEAN" pig waste? Just like clean coal?
6
Next time you want to gripe about to much regulation in NY or that taxes are to high, think of the lawful open, unlined pits of toxic pig sewage. Recently these open sewage lagoons have been further protected by limits on lawsuits for damages caused by this practice passed by the red legislature of these poor lost states.
10
Unregulated capitalism is harzardous to humans and other animals. Those who keep voting Republican are putting the rest of us at risk and I’m sick of it!
9
And one more reason not to eat industrial meat.
15
Wow, the image of North Carolina up here on Long Island has been a place where people retired to the Research Triangle region, with it's lower cost of living, but still educated and cultured living environment. Very incongruous to read the state is basically one big Superfund site...
6
It is incontrovertibly evil to use factory-farmed animal products. All animal products sold at stores and restaurants today are factory farmed, don't believe the deceptive labels suggesting otherwise.
9
You are 100% right. All salmon in sushi will soon, if not already, be frankenfish.
2
Subsidy is so much fun! As a contributor to "rebuilding" the damaged dreams of Florence "Victims", the possibility of all that graft, corruption and free money just fills me with awe. Like the people who stayed to fight a catastrophe for the fun of being rescued, here's the joy.
Sadly, what disturbs me is what the Atlantic coastal water is going to do. It's just a toilet to you, so you don't need to care. Pig waste
and coal waste and toxic mud will help it, right? What matters is your cheap meat! Cheap meat vs pollution of a coastline, no questions there.
Oceans don't vote, they just make disasters, enjoy yours. At least California had the good fortune to make ash, so lets envy them as you muck out a bitter disaster on their dime.
5
I wonder if that big dolphin die- off had anything to do with previous flooding and contaminate leaching?
1
"Chickens and turkeys, however, weren’t so lucky. An estimated 3.4 million birds were killed. The poultry producer Sanderson Farms said in a news release that they’d lost an estimated 1.7 million broiler chickens. "
Could the author be so kind as to explain to me how ending
up up as broiler chickens and turkeys would have been "lucky" for those chickens and turkeys who were killed by Florence?!!
4
3.4 million chickens and turkeys died. Let that sink in.
Why did they die? Mostly because they are trapped in tiny cages and are considered commodities rather than living beings by factory "farmers".
That's not farming, it's an industry based in greed and cruelty.
19
"Last week, Andy Curliss, chief executive of the North Carolina Pork Council, said that the pig producers had learned a lot from Hurricane Floyd. In 2016"
Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in September of 1999, not 2016.
The statement regarding 2016 was in reference to what the industry learned from Floyd to reduce breaches after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. please read more carefully.
Thanks for covering this vital and dangerous problem. From Michael Biesecker, investigative reporter:
3.3 million chickens and turkeys and 5,500 hogs drowned.
https://twitter.com/mbieseck/status/1042390796836777990
Toxic and dangerous "soup" threatens everyone who contacts the water.
"Photos from the site provided to AP by Cape Fear River Watch, an environmental advocacy group, show cascades of gray-colored water spilling from at least two breaches at the landfill and flowing toward Sutton Lake, the plant’s former cooling pond which is now used for public recreation, including fishing and boating. The lake drains into the Cape Fear River.
"Despite Duke’s claims of no evidence of environmental harm to Sutton Lake, the company’s own lab results show chemicals contained in coal ash were detected in wetlands immediately adjacent to the shoreline. An accompanying map shows the sample Duke employees tested from Sutton Lake was collected from the opposite side of the lake.
"“This shows that coal ash remains a problem in North Carolina, all the more so because Duke Energy is still refusing to clean up millions of tons of its coal ash from leaking pits that contaminate our lakes and rivers every day, not just during a hurricane,” said Nicholas S. Torrey, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center."
More at https://apnews.com/b92e6d5c0eca4e5392b3a6c47ff3d242
9
Unfortunately, we all love cheap meat and admire looters and profiteers, and think regulation is undesirable.
We have been living in a fool's paradise, which turns out to be not so paradisical.
9
@Susan Anderson
"We all love cheap meat and admire looters and profiteers, and think regulation is under desirable. "
"We " ?!!
My Freshman English teacher taught the class not to use the term "We" in a sentence with two exceptions:
1. If the student had tapeworm.
2. If the student was a reigning monarch.
Unless you have tapeworm or are a reigning monarch , I suggest that you follow that rule.
You speak for yourself, not for others. I don't admire looters and profiteers, and don't think regulation is undesirable. I don't know why you believe that others believe as you do
1
Towns awash with raw sewage ...and also how many dead animals who were left to die on commercial livestock/poultry sites? Is this responsible animal husbandry? Maybe location is important? N
Locating away from humans or farms? How about not eating factory farmed raised animals for a start?
33
@Sandra Garratt And let hundreds of thousands, or millions, starve? Or maybe have them all eat organic agricultural products. But wait, we don't have enough for everyone so let's reduce the human population worldwide and everything will return to a "natural order"
@
Hundreds of thousands, or millions, will not starve if animals are not packed into pig farms.
There are other ways of producing food to feed
people, that do not result in overflowing lagoons of pig waste.
4
Hard to escape the thought that "Pig waste lagoons overflowing after storm" is an apt metaphor for what is happening to the country as a whole.
42
Yet another industry that exports its costs to the rest of us. Hurricanes are a regular event thereabouts, and the hogcrap lagoons overflow EVery TIME. And the new set of cub reporters is perpetually surprised.
Where are the very literal Muckrakers? Shameful all around.
16
The initial reports were so shocking and discouraging that I am now somewhat relieved.
Did the hogs in South Carolina fare as well, or were they abandoned to the flood?
Are the chicken farm contractors to Sanderson? Will this financially ruin them?
Do the Carolinas relish the reputation of having these malfunctioning lagoons?
Does it make them feel business friendly? Not tethered by over regulation?
12
@Jann McCarthy
One question that can be answered is we citizens will foot the bill for damages one way or another. Poor planning and regulation + disastrous weather = increased insurance premiums for all.
4
@Jann McCarthy
3.3 million chickens and turkeys and 5,500 hogs drowned. "Regulators: NC flooding too bad to tally environmental harm" https://apnews.com/b92e6d5c0eca4e5392b3a6c47ff3d242
2
None of this really matters. Let's get into what is REALLY important: 1) Does everyone have all the guns they want; and 2) is everyone in North Carolina using the right bathroom?
87
Scott... Thanks for bringing the situation in NC back to basics... For a minute I was worried that some catastrophe was looming for our east coast food chain.
In Delaware, we only have chicken waste to worry about when the next 500-year storm hits.
2
SCOTT S: Well said! Your comment is not only accurate, but it is also a much needed humorous break.
2
@Scott S.
Hogs are being forced to use the wrong bathrooms clearly.
And the guns, I guess, will be necessary to march on the legislators and demand redress for the damage they wanted to prevent the hog farmers for paying for.
2
On the plus side, government deregulation is sure to make those businesses more profitable. :-7
21
I wish I could be more sympathetic. Maybe the folks in NC need to do more praying here. Or next time when they go to the polls they can think before they cast their vote.
27
@Karen B
One of my closets friends moved from New York to North Carolina because the cost of living on Long Island was unaffordable. Would you have been more sympathetic to if they had remained in New York, and had their home destroyed by Sandy ?!
2
@Karen B That's pretty callous and uncaring - you would really wish all of this on a state because some people within the state didn't vote the way you like?
Assuming I buy into that idea as well (I don't)... The two candidates in 2016 were nearly neck and neck. So plenty of people did vote against Trump, if that is what you are alluding to. Additionally, a huge number of registered voters didn't vote at all, so they also didn't vote for Trump.
@Alison
Karen B is absolutely correct. Perhaps if the voters in NC were more concerned about their environment and voted for politicians who would enact "regulations" that would protect them from corporate malfeasance instead of maximizing corporate profits, they wouldn't be wading through pig waste today.
5
This is the best headline I have read in a long time!
9
I remember an article, can't remember which publication back in the mid 2000's. Pictures of the arms and hands of people and the fish that inhabited a Carolina river that was polluted with pig waste.
8
Well the question has to be asked how incompetent are the people in NC that are in charge of regulating the pig industry? In a region beset by hurricanes, flooding, tornados and other naturally occurring disasters, wouldn't you think these people would engineer solutions for the ponds that would prevent catastrophic failures such as overflows and pond wall breaches? Its basic common sense that you'd engineer a solution that would address these conditions since they can occur so frequently.
I saw a reporter interviewing a NC pig farmer about the construction of his pond and the farmer indicated they just dig out a big pit to whatever size they think is appropriate and start filling it with waste, with no attention to any possible failure issues. Really? And the reporter asked the farmer how do you ensure it doesn't overflow? The farmer replied we just hope we don't get too much rain. And then Florence shows up and dumps three feet of rain on the ponds - great thinking!
Maybe the government folks in NC should spend a lot more time engineering their pig waste management rather that using all that computing horsepower to concentrate on gerrymandering their districts.
The incompetence is stunning.
87
@A. Axelrod
Part of the blame can be placed on federal deregulation of large agricultural concerns.
9
And trump is busy eliminating the regulations that try to limit environmental damage. Money trumps public health all the time especially in a republican government.
7
Too costly I guess...
China’s investment in US factory farming will maintain the status quo, export the meat to china, and leave North Carolina to wallow in the unregulated waste. North Carolina, First in Freedom!
24
You know that things are bad if China relies on hog imports from North Carolina because they don't want to lower their own environmental standards to NC levels.
48
I only buy meat from small,local producers.This does not make me holier-than -thou.It's just that it tastes so much better.It is also good to support local producers.The day might come when that is all we have.
24
Become Vegan, this way you as a citizen can help save our country from the horrible practices of the Farming Industrialists! Congress will not, they have been bought at a high price to lie and look the other way when it comes to what the industry does, so GROSS!!
29
This disaster has environmental issues all over - from the type and intensity of the hurricane, to overdevelopment and flooding, and now the combination of industrialized farming with its waste products.
But will anyone really learn any lessons and change fundamental behavior as a result ? at best small measures might taken which will be insufficient with the next, worse disaster.
7
Great combination, pink pig poop, floodwater, and global warming. Perhaps when the Red Staters are up to there noses in pink pig poop they will admit that there is global warming before more pink pig poop hits the fan.
27
We've earned what we voted for:
Less regulation
Destruction of environment
Lower taxes for the really rich
Much lower taxes for corporations
Tariffs
Loving dictators & Putin
Calling out our friends- Canada, Nato, Germany...
Broken healthcare system
Debt debt and more debt
A prez who lies multiple times, daily
Puerto Rico hurricane disaster
Massive mess on our borders( pick your disaster of the day)
Voting suppression
Indictments and convictions of Trump's closest
Infrastructure corroding
More? Nah, we get the idea. If it were just a prez running amok in wild abandonment- pick your article, book or cable story- but look at the GOP turning a blind eye as long as tax cuts, judges, and OTHERS are kept out or thrown out of USA, as they suck up to him and really believe their harmful agenda works. OMG
Pig feces? Just another in a list of deplorables. OMG squared
49
@Alan Schleifer excellent - I get tired trying to enumerate this debacle.
4
@Alan Schleifer
"We've earned what we've voted for.'"
"WE "?!!
I didn't vote for any of this, nor did many millions of Americans
1
Given that Donald J. Trump has filled the swamp in Washington with high end pig virus, he will feel at home if he visits this region. Let's see if his empty promises to send help, financial and otherwise, quickly come to fruition so they can begin to tackle this situation.
9
@Jacob:
N.C. and S.C. will get all the funds they need. They are red states. PR, forget about it...
2
@Jacob K
Congress will appropriate funds to help those who vote for them...less so for those who don't or can't (Puerto Ricans, New Orleanians, any urban area).
4
This is an outrage on so many levels; for years the meat producers have been despoiling the environment, the smell downwind must be horrible. I am particularly moved by the plight of the animals, stuck in an enclosure with no way to escape.
What a way to die, terrified, unable to breathe, thrashing around in fear. Pigs and chickens are smart (yes chickens are smart) and no sentient being deserves this.
I believe that a lot more animals will have drowned than is currently being reported by various organizations in North Carolina. And it will happen next time too.
Not enough people have any sense of empathy for other species.
48
There is some hope.
Last month, a jury awarded a group of ten NC citizens living in the region around Murphy-Brown/Smithfield Foods in southeastern NC, 50 million dollars in compensation, for years of having to live with the hideous fumes of lagoon hogwaste permeating their homes, clothing, hair, cars on a daily basis. For years. This was a legal feat that had been tried before, but this time? They won.
The concerned public needs to, no, has to, keep up the pressure on, not only these farmers, but their bought and sold legislators who do their CAFO EPA exemptions bidding for them. These hog farmers are not poor by any means. In fact, since Smithfield Co. was merged with the Chinese firm WH in 2013, their alliances are now firmly ensconced with a corporate culture that will try to use their many lawyers to fight any regulation that might require them to act environmentally responsible. I hope North Carolinians vote in November for those reps who will do the right thing and begin to demand real environmental accountability from these careless, clueless farmers.
35
A lagoon? What an innocent name. Reminds me of years ago when my grandparents referred to their outhouse as a grotto. It wasn't.
12
In far less than a hundred years there will be little livestock raised like this. People will look at us and wonder what the heck were they thinking? Meat will be created in controlled factories. It will be healthier, obviously more humane and - most importantly! - CHEAPER. And , as usual, American industry will suddenly tout its awareness of animal interests. In business morality almost always closely follows profit.
6
These operations are an affront - to the Almighty, to those who live near them, to the bodies of those who consume this industrial product and to the environment. Take a look at people you encounter daily and you'll see runaway obesity. Take a look at photos from the 1960s and you will not see the degree of obesity that we have presently.
12
Forget the EPA, it’s DEAD. America no longer leads in many areas, and this is one of them. A BIG one.
It’s no surprise that farmers pollute with impunity, and the states, such as North Carolina have lax animal welfare and environmental laws, but strictly control the human bathrooms.
They operate on the cheap. They
attract large companies with tax incentives which means that tax revenue declines and there is less money to go into education and environmental protection.
On a roadtrip through Tennesssee I saw a massive truck loaded with cages uncomfortably crammed with white chickens in downtown Chattanooga. I will never forget this sight. If you must buy eggs,
read the box.
Those farmers in North Carolina ran, leaving their pigs to drown. I hope that a follow up article will tell me otherwise, that they were all rescued and moved to higher ground. The only ground they saw was under a shed. Farm animal welfare in the US is a known disgrace. School groups don’t tour
pig and chicken farms for a reason. It’s under wraps.
Avoid all fast food restaurants because they aren’t fussy about how the animals are treated. Choose where you eat with care. Workers still lack health cover in many states and come to work sick because they can’t afford a doctor.
The food is all factory farmed and tasteless and loaded with salt and sugar to mask it. Even bread is pumped with corn syrup, so read labels carefully when traveling there. The obesity and diabetes epidemic is no accident.
21
Dear Resident (Voters) of North Carolina,
My apologies for this callous observation, but you brought this on yourself. You voted in Republican politicians who kow-towed to the rich hog and coal industries and reduced your environmental protections. These same Republican politicians legislated limits on the amount of money people can collect in lawsuits against hog farms for odors, headaches, flies and other aggravations, and approved another bill limiting the ability of landowners to seek damages in court.
Coal power is obviously not clean and leaves huge legacy problems like improperly mitigated coal ash piles. Huge live stock farms are factories that should be required to safely and effectively manage the wastes they produce, not dump them in lagoons.
Now North Carolina will seek financial assistance from federal agencies Republican leadership apparently doesn't want to fund (based on their voting record)? Irresponsible deregulation for dirty coal power and livestock factories by NC government allowed privatization of profits, and when known concerns become "disasters", those same politicians seek public bailouts from federal tax coffers.
It's despicable and unethical.
40
North Carolinians, please thank your Republican lawmakers, those haters of all things regulatory, for your current environmental challenges. And please recall their actions, or lack of action, when you go to your polling place in November. Regulations are actually necessary, profit should not matter more than anything else, and the future of your children is at stake. Really, wake up.
16
I often think about retiring to a sunny place with lower taxes and then I see a story like this which is a crime on the community committed by the legislature and councils the good people voted for
So I will stay where people pay taxes and expect the local government to protect its citizens
44
@Deirdre
Recently there was an article about New Yorkers who are moving to Miami to avoid taxes now that SALT tax deductions were greatly reduced under the Republican tax obscenity passed last year to attack blue state voters. And all I could think was don't these people read the news? Miami now constantly floods even under normal conditions like daily tides. Can you imagine what will happen when the next huge hurricane hits. Didn't they learn anything from Sandy?
1
@White Buffalo
Agreed! Last month a person I know from High School sold her home and moved to the NC coast - Most of her Facebook posts are condemning football players on the anthem. She did not serve, neither did her husband and neither did anyone in her family but for some reason this anthem issue takes up a lot of space in her head - and she votes straight republican. Those are the people that move - the ones that don't respect taxes and civil society (and usually they are retired civil service employees with solid pensions and benefits like medical for life)
1
@Deirdre
"Those are the people that move - the ones that don't respect taxes and civil society (and usually they are retired civil service employees with solid pensions and benefits like medical for life)
No. Those aren't the people that move. There are many people who move to the Carolinas ,Florida and the like, because they can not afford the high cost of living in New York, while some move South due to the warmer weather.
One of my closest friends moved from Long Island to North Carolina with her family. Both she and her husband were working two jobs, but were struggling financially, despite being extremely thrifty people. Neither she nor her husband are retired civil service workers. They were in the 30s when they moved.
1
There's a way to stop this hog lagoon problem from happening again, and it's to......stop eating animals. I've been a vegetarian for almost 30 years, and being a vegetarian doesn't stop you from anything you like doing; it only makes the world a better place to live in.
25
How many gated communities/multi-millionaires live in and around those lagoons? I have a funny feeling- ZERO!
23
We have an administration that believes, and we have heard a steady drumbeat for the last 20 years, that regulations are bad and fetter the entrepreneur. Well, this is the cost of the $1.99/lb pork tenderloin I saw this morning in my supermarket. It's a bargain Faust would have recognized. Responsible pig farmers who do treat their waste go out of business because they can't compete, and it's a race to the bottom. And BTW I'm complicit: I bought that tenderloin.
22
Pigs are intelligent sentient animals, proven to be more intelligent than dogs.
As with many other animals, they're abused in horrific conditions and then slaughtered.
The byproduct of treating pigs and other animals as if they're mere machines on the factory farms that produce waste toxic to humans and the environment, all stems from the industries that exploit animals for food, and their customers.
57 BILLION animals are tormented and killed worldwide each year to feed the flesh trade.
That's far worse than overflowing lagoons.
49
Inevitably whenever anything at all, good bad or indifferent, happens in or near an animal farming facility, crowds of vegans and vegetarians (or people who claim to be vegans or vegetarians) troop in here to scold the rest of us for having a chicken sandwich or a serving of bacon, and to enlarge on their own superior virtue.
Give it a rest people. Everyone sentient who is likely at all to read the NYT is aware that meat eaters are to blame for the coming apocalypse. All by ourselves.
2
Dude, relax. Nearly all comments deal with insufficient regulation. It’s pretty easy to make a hog waste pool that won’t breach every time there’s a heavy rain or, in this case, a hurricane. I eat meat. I really enjoy it. I ALSO think the regulations guarding the industry are a joke and need attention. I’ll even pay an extra 10 cents for my bacon.
4
"Last week, Andy Curliss, chief executive of the North Carolina Pork Council, said that the pig producers had learned a lot from Hurricane Floyd. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused 14 lagoons to flood but none breached, according to the pork council."
The picture at the top of the article shows how Mr. Curliss's pig producers had learned to deal with the waste. They just pump it back into the flood waters.
The yellow vehicle at the bottom of the picture is almost certainly the old school bus that Farmer Bubba, manning the pump, uses daily to pick up the undocumented laborers who do the really interesting jobs around the place when it isn't flooded.
16
I kind of doubt US companies would be any different, as they love no regulation so they can have their waste removed by an 'act of God.'
But.... The largest pork producer is now owned by the Chinese. And I really doubt they care. I couldn't find if these particular farms were former Smithfield, but it wouldn't be surprising.
11
As the Carolinas deal with unmitigated and overflowing coal ash sludge and hog - poultry farm waste water....
"Why Is China Treating North Carolina Like the Developing World?"
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-is-china-treatin...
Irony is too tame a word?
17
This is a good thing. Finally a spotlight on the devastating environmental consequences of factory farming. Next time you purchase "Farmer" John breakfast links know that your dollars are votes for simple common sense going down the poop chute when it comes to animal excrement.
22
Build a canal that funnels all pig waste lagoons to Mar a Lago. Problem solved.
34
One more example vegetarians can point to of the harms of meat eating.
8
The interesting, and very sad, fact is that the New York Times chooses to contribute to this environmenal disaster, and the unimaginable suffering of millions of animals, by publishing recipes with ‘pork’, ‘ham’ and ‘bacon’ and other parts of dead pigs. Today’s edition includes an article entitles ‘The irresistible allure of pork and fennel’ by David Tanis. The NYT also frequently publishes righteous editorials on global warming, while continuing to publish recipes with animal products. Several studies have shown that the mass production and consumption of animal products is a major contributor to climate change, global warming and environmental degradation. The NYT should stop its hypocrisy and cease publishing recipes that include animal products.
11
@Harriett
Let's say that NY stops eating all pork. Well, guess what, these producers were producing to export to China. In fact, Chinese companies are co owners of many of these CAFO businesses. So it really would not change anything at all.
The Chinese government is trying to raise the standard of living for its people to keep them quiet about their repressive government. And one of the ways it feels it can do this is by making meat available and cheap.
So if you really want to solve the problem, I suggest to direct your exhortations to China and try to change the government's attitude toward cheap pork.
1
Mother Nature having her revenge.
5
You sleep at night in the bed that you made in the morning. If a town, city, state, or nation wants to accept the benefits of deregulation and disregard to create a better "business environment," then you must also accept the degradation and death from ignoring the natural environment.
No offense folks in NC... but does it really take Floyd, Matthew, and Florence for you to realize that maybe hog manure lagoons should rethought, relocated, or regulated?
18
Vegan. No cruelty, abuse, torture, gestation crates, fear, or environmental impact. All those innocent animals left to die.
Do you honestly think the farmers care one iota about them or you? No. Only in the perverse world of Animal Agriculture do we have pig excrement lagoons (for that matter, the excrement and urine from all of Animal Agriculture). Your meat eating arguments are outdated and proven false. You not only put your health at risk but the health of others with the by products of Animal Agriculture and Slaughter.
11
@Danny
Animals are killed in the mass production of all vegatable crops.
If you really want no cruelty you will grow all your own food where can control the harm done to birds nesting in your growing areas, etc.
1
And if you think pig waste in North Carolina is nasty, you certainly don't want to look further south to Florida where high water flooding inundates septic systems and human waste is released into the wild.
That is what's been causing the red tides in Florida. Ick!
12
If coal is good for fuel, and methane good for the atmosphere, then pig manure should be good as fertilizer, right? Our country is in such a mess, literally and figuratively, run by a president who cares absolutely zero for anyone who's not reflected in his gold-framed mirror.
7
Pigs are sentient beings, and at least as smart as your pet dog.
Was anything humane done for/to them when the flood waters began to rise ?
21
@Jim Mc
Of course not.
Some of the hogs were moved to higher ground before the hurricane hit, but others were left to drown.
Now they can't reach some of the farms that did not go underwater to feed the hogs, so I bet the next step is the stronger hogs will turn on the weaker and start eating each other. In those close quarters there ill be no escape.
1
The large industries that subsidize the hog farms need to be held culpable for the waste. There should never have been standing open waste pits. The industry should haul the offal. Now, we the people, will be paying for the clean up which will be a disaster to the land and the waters. We are doomed without proper oversight and it is likely too late.
21
Love the end of the story lol! NC is so lucky! Said no one about this storm.
3
In the light of Florence and the overflowing of pig waste lagoons, it should bring attention to larger issues surrounding the environment and people's health. Farms should have better protocols in preparation of environmental disasters that do not expose neighboring communities to health problems. The farms also should be held accountable for the harm on people's well-being.
15
They should, but I'm not holding my breath. People have known about this for a long time and they still vote for no regulation and for corporations to do whatever they want no matter how harmful.
6
The US continues to fail at dealing with its toxic waste. Mostly because we have a narrow view of what IS toxic waste. Focusing mostly on factory, nuclear waste, or oil related wastes. But toxicity in our waste/refuse supply runs deep and is ubiquitous. Its everywhere. Everywhere.
Box retail stores dump tons of toxic waste in local landlfills day after day. Thru negligence and/or apathy. Repair shops the same. Service businesses. And of course the average household.
But our elected employees continue to kick the can down the road, passing the problems to the next generations. They continue to ignore scientific facts - esp. in the GOP and most esp. in this Admin. Claiming that they know better then the sciences, and because they - esp. in the GOP rely on a xtian POV that God wont let us fail. He'll provide for his new Eden.
Innovative waste treatment and control technology needs to be invested in by the Fed Govt, with the private sector, to seek ways to deal with the toxic waste not only mentioned in this article - but the thousands of other places across the nation.
17
North Carolinians must look to their state legislature for the reasons why there was not a more effective way in place already of dealing with the pollution caused by corporate agriculture. Could it be that these agribusinesses pay to get their state legislators into the statehouse? The pollution from pig farms is just one example of the pollution that is condoned/defended by politicians who are in the pocket of business to the detriment of all the citizens of their state.
16
Waste from confined animal farming operations, CAFOs in the regulatory parlance, are and have been an execrable carve out for industrial agriculture for far too long. There is well proven technology available to not only prevent this type of catastrophe, but add to farm profits by generating electricity from methane production from the wastes.
So what stops adoption? The cost of capitalizing the equipment creates the short term thinking keeping the status quo in place, and EPA rules do not require it. There is little chance of lawsuits in the case of force majeure, like we just witnessed. In short, there is no incentive to invest.
If we want this to not happen we need rules. The federal government could establish a low interest fund to pay cap expenses, and that could be funded by a bond fund parted by farmers themselves. EPA rules need to change to eliminate clean water act exemptions for CAFOs.
Legislators opposed to solutions to this disaster can be viewed as complicit.
34
@Some Dude. In other words vote D this November to allow us to move into a better future. No way, No how is this going to happen with our current government.
12
The truth: We want our cheap pork and we want it now. We don’t want to think about animal welfare or pollution downstream or possible illnesses we inflict on other citizens.
34
I think some consumers have come around on beef (pay a lot more for better quality and eat less of it) and chicken (pay a little more for better quality), but I don't know that there's been a broad based discussion about pork. Eventually, I hope it goes the same way as the other products and we start getting better quality products instead of what exists now. But I imagine most of this feedlot stuff goes straight to China and that they are more concerned with quantity over quality.
11
We buy free-range.
6
@Olive52
Just one of the many reasons I haven’t eaten these
wonderful, intelligent animals (or others), since
1975.
This really is on all you meat eaters!
(Sorry, but it’s true)...
4
There are multitudes of consequences that are a result of killing animals and eating their flesh. This article highlights one of the main environmental effects.
Eating animal flesh is also directly related to numerous diseases that are on the rise leading to human suffering and deaths.
It's also easy to understand that animal agribusiness is hugely inefficient in calorie production and is the main reason for world hunger.
And over time, the killing of millions of land and sea animals every day inevitably winds up desensitizing human hearts which creates a culture of increasing indifference and violence towards others of our own species.
Paying attention to all of the above easily confirms that we reap what we sow.
Among these facts there is one other-
There are absolutely no downsides when someone chooses to go vegan, only benefits.
22
I feel much better now that we've gotten rid of the EPA.
25
If you own or love dogs, stop eating pigs immediately. Pigs are as intelligent and in many cases, even more intelligent than dogs. Imagine eating that intelligent and loving being you call your dog. Once I met a sweet, quirky, and intelligent pet pot-bellied pig, it was easy to stop eating pork products.
I’m not fully vegan, but it’s quite easy to stop eating some animal products to at least lessen our impact. Even small steps on the path to cruelty-free living are better than mindless nothing at all. For me, eliminating pork was easy in the face of such obvious porcine intelligence.
28
@left coast finch
The great book titled "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows" is an eloquent exposition of the theme of your ethical and welcome comment.
4
@left coast finch
But dog might taste good with a little hot sauce
North Carolina's government has the worst regulations for protecting the environment. Therefor I doubt any laws were broken when Duke's coal-ash mounds and farmers' hog-waste ponds were washed into the river system by this storm.
Is there no redress for North Carolinians whose water supplies have been left toxic? Perhaps civil penalties? The people whose negligence caused this filthy catastrophe should be the ones to clean it up.
And the legislators who gutted the state's environmental safeguards should be tossed the heck out of office.
35
Another example of American companies and lobbyist put profits before people. As usual it is the poor that get to suffer the consequences . Vote against the GOP.
31
But the crazy thing is the people who are most likely to be harmed by this will continue to vote for Republicans that will never be in favour of tightening regulations. Hard to feel sorry for people who basically make their own mess to live in, but I do feel sorry for those that don’t vote for Republicans and are stuck in these areas.
45
Sir, you don’t know Eastern North Carolina. The people who are and will be directly harmed, and harmed the most over time, are poor, black and rural. They do not vote Republican. North Carolina is so heavily gerrymandered that their votes against republicans may not count, but it is wrong to assume they are ignorant of who is to blame and willing to say so.
74
I don't eat pigs -- or any other animal products. So I did not contribute to this horrible disaster in any way. And yes, I have lived near a small pig barn -- that was enough. The stench is terrible. But it's all ok with most folks, because pig-eaters outsource the pig stench to poorer communities. I think it's past time that we own the effects of our actions.
35
@Dr. J
Yes!
3
When republicans crow about deregulation they celebrate the removal of rules and regulations that protect the citizenry from pollution, corporate malfeasance, usury and fraud. Now the good people of North Carolina and beyond cannot return to their homes because the farms have poisoned their land and their water and their air. Keep electing those who deny your rights and your children will die earlier than your parents.
The US needs a national civics lesson along with what it means to be a public servant.
40
@Deirdre
The "good" people of North Carolina deserve better. I'm truly sorry for the loss and hardship. However, they vote Republican. Republican elected officials are stripping environmental laws and protections. What will it take to make these Red States wake up? Living in a lake of pig excrement? Keep up the good work.
10
As a 32-year resident of Iowa, I have witnessed the great consolidation of hog farming; go from small, individual farms, to the CAFOs. Each year in Iowa, 15-20 million hogs are raised before slaughter. At birth, each hog is ~ the size of an American football. Then, ~six months later, that hog is the size of an offensive lineman, ~300 pounds. The produces a lot of hog urine and manure, most of it going to poorly regulated lagoons. Yet, somehow, the state legislature of Iowa remains mystified as to the source(s) of the polluted waters in Iowa. Wow.
48
People want cheap bacon on everything. This is how it happens. Most consumers' standards for food production are way too low and the never ending race to the bottom will result in more unethical treatment of animals and environmental risks.
17
This going to release a witches brew of things. Pig ponds overflowing, sewage treatment plants overflowing, oil and gas from gas stations as the underground tanks fail, tanks of waste from various industrial plants that are floated away, millions of animal bodies being carried downstream, on and on. Then there is the human factor disease factor, homeowners and rescue people wading through this mess. Who knows when the water systems will be safe to use? They are going to need help for a long time to work their way out of this disaster.
God bless, the rest of the country is praying for you. Help is on the way.
7
Follow the money. Will Trump send
Federal help and support to yet another government entity that failed to help itself?
Trump belatedly, then miserly, helped Puerto Rico just a little bit, after their hurricane because he felt that the Puerto Ricans hadn’t built up an infrastructure worth protecting, never mind the people.
The State of North Carolina was not a leader in protecting their own environment and investing in World’s Best Practice farming and pollution control standards.
Follow the federal money to North Carolina and see where it goes and
see what changes for next year’s hurricane season.
I’m betting that the waste lagoons will be unregulated, the methane unrecaptured, the animal welfare regulations unchanged, and the Trumpty Dumpty administration will have paid to put it all back together again with tax revenue flown in from the Coasts.
6
In normal operations, what happens to the pig waste in the "lagoon" when new waste comes along to add to the volume? At some point the lagoon must reach capacity. Are rain storms and overflow actually part of the "process"?
Also, do the bacteria completely mitigate the unhealthfulness of the waste and, if so, how fast?
14
I did a bit of reading:
This document -
https://extension2.missouri.edu/eq387
(caution: practically unreadable)
indicates that, in Missouri, the standards are to pump out the lagoon contents (and spray or sprinkle them onto agricultural land) annually and/or to maintain enough room for a “25 year, 24 hour rainfall event.”
Meanwhile, the Wikipedia entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_lagoon
reveals that
- wastewater lagoons often leak (albeit by a tiny amount, usually within regulatory limits, at least as determined in a 2001 study in Iowa)
- volatile compounds enter the air and might be responsible for elevated rates of asthma in children in the vicinity
- water-soluble contaminants (pathogenic organisms, livestock antibiotics, livestock growth hormones and heavy metals) can enter the human water supply through leakage and overflow
Regarding the time needed for the anaerobic bacteria to work, this document
https://www3.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/alagoons.pdf
says it’s 1 to 50 days, depending on temperature (optimal is 86-95 degrees F, acceptable is 77-104 degrees F).
1
America voted to ignore our environment in favor of some mythical "jobs". Well, they got what they wanted. This is our destiny nationwide unless we stop slashing EPA regulations, selling off public lands, allowing sludge and waste to flow into rivers and streams, and ignoring the impact of climate change on our coasts where agricultural and industrial runoff, not to mention nuclear plants, are a major concern. America, stop acting like an adolescent boy who wants everything, now and doesn't care about consequences. We have to accept that uncontrolled growth is not healthy, our industries are dangerously out of balance with nature and we, collectively, have to do something about it.
43
@greenmatters
NO. America did not vote to do that. The minority of voters who were deplorables voted to do that. Otherwise I agree with your statement, but Las Vegas, with its incipient, soon to crash housing boom, and development far exceeding its water resources, is in no position to throw stones, even though you won't be suffering from storm surge and hurricanes.
1
Good people of the Carolinas - enjoy your small government. I really hope that no Federal funding comes your way for fixing this mess as that is MY money.
49
Hey North Carolina, how's that Republican no taxes, no regulations, no services, no such thing as climate change paradise working for you?
Sorry, no sympathy here, especially as now you are going to run to the dreaded Federal Government you hate so much to get MY blue state tax dollars to bail you out for the second time in twenty years. (Oh, and weren't you the people who told us to take a hike after Sandy?) As your great courageous Republican hero Paul "Ayn Rand" Ryan would tell you, it's about time you ended your dangerous dependency on Washington; us blue stators who send more of our dough to the Feds than we get back are sick and tired of being your comfy hammock when you get into a jam because YOU don't like to pay YOUR taxes.
Just do it the Republican Way and pull yourself up (by your own bootstraps!) out of that lake of smoldering pig feces you voted yourselves into.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad. learn your lesson: Fools who vote Republican get everything that's coming to them.
85
@Ignatz Farquad
Just to set the record straight, NC officials did not tell NY to take a hike after Sandy. That aside, the 2010 mid terms, which secured the GOP's lock on the NC legislature, through gerrymandering and voter restrictions, has in large measure diluted the ability of moderates, liberals, and Democrats to effectuate change. So don't lump us all together as deserving of this. One last note: NC State Senator Phil Berger, who is as responsible for everything wrong with this state as anyone, originally hailed from Staten Island.
8
@JS from NC
Very true. The Senator who told NY to take a hike after Sandy, and then came begging for money for Harvey was Cruz. Send a big fat check to Beto and kick Cruz out of office for good.
1
I wish that I could “recommend” this reply 3 times!!!
1
Sounds like you pig farmers are throwing away good stuff which can make you money. If you control it well, methane will sell. Your competitors are looking at it so what's keeping you? Or would you rely on deregulation to save you brain work?
11
I want more information about the farmers who ran, leaving their animals to die.
33
@BBB
Here's all you need to know about them: Cowards. Profiteers. Polluters. Torturerers. Heartless. Parasites.
Did I forget anything without being profane?
5
@BBB
The animals are considered nothing more than a commodity. The people who run these operations carry insurance. If the hurricane didn’t happen these animals die anyway when they are slaughtered to become “food” on your plate.
There’s really only one action to take if you’re truly concerned about animals’ lives.
Become vegan.
4
@BBB
"Big man, pig man, ha ha, charade you are,
You well heeled big wheel, ha ha, charade you are…
With your head down in the pig bin,
Saying 'keep on digging',
Pig stain on your fat chin,
What do you hope to find?
When you're down in the pig mine…"
Pink Floyd, "Animals"
1
If you know how awful being downwind of even a small pig sty, you know how foul it smells. I can not imagine or fathom the stench from this monstrous mess. Absolutely unbearable.
Should be immediately closed and designated a 'super-fund' site. Make the factory farm owners pay for clean up costs too.
16
@PM, there should be an environmental tax levied on all animal-based food products specifically to fund the clean up of these kinds of environmental catastrophes.
9
The whole idea of "livestock" is abhorrent from both a moral and practical standpoint.
I'll admit to being a hypocrite because I've been a meat eater my entire life (I do try and limit my consumption and have tried to convert unsuccessfully several times) but would be very happy to see livestock eliminated.
It puts a terrible strain on our ecosystem and it's just plain disgusting as this article makes clear.
12
Great article. Now, could the NYT's dining and food section re-think its recipes? This week's feature of pork and fennel couldn't be more poorly timed, and sends the message ---despite the atrocity of pig farming for animals and the planet -- "Never mind because, well, mmmm bacon." David Tanis wrote that he found the pig parts in the butcher shop "irresistible": what will it take for him to understand the violence of his choices, and for this paper to present a consistent ethical stance on environmental destruction and animal justice?
27
@Ellen K,... and not to mention the praise lavished on David Chang and his eateries which pretty much cater exclusively to carnivores; they are like gout buffets. Until the NY Times starts to expend the same column inches on chefs that are bringing innovation to vegan cuisine, they have no moral standing to be tsking at the environmental catastrophe wrought by industrial animal farming gone amok.
8
Wait till the EPA gets wind of this! Just wait...
8
As a Canadian, this is just one more reason I support our supply management and do NOT want any American livestock-related imports. American livestock rearing practices are nothing short of disgusting and inhumane, as well as environmentally devastating. Honestly; at what point will people go to for cheap goods?
39
@Kim ... is there really any "boundary" between U.S. and Canadian hog or other animal operations?
There are some products from America that I rather like, but I lean towards shopping locally and in recent years I'm tending to avoid meat, or I'll look or words like "certified organic" or "free range" on the signage or packaging.
"Fair Trade" and "sustainable", and "slow food movement" are good words too.
4
@Kim I don't understand why the US is raising livestock inhumanely? What is wrong with us?
You ask "at what point will people go to for cheap goods?" Many if not most don't know it is going on.
I know this sound crazy,for the last decade I can feel if the animal who's meat I am about to cook has been treated badly. It started with broken chick leg bones twice in a row. Now it is all meat at the grocery store.
2
It is extremely odd and disappointing that there is no word here about the fate of the millions of innocent animals dead and dying. The fact that nothing is done to save them or safeguard them is simply an indication of the value of other lives to those pig "farming" industrial polluters. I am appalled the NY Times could publish this article and completely ignore the ethical and moral disgrace of these businesses.
Meanwhile, pork and bacon are pushed on the American public as if no life is complete if it does not involve consuming the product of this cruelty and neglect. Eat hardy, pork consumers, knowing that the NY Times and many if not most of its readers think this is just fine.
15
They need to shut the pig farms down. I thought they had the technology to burn it as a fuel source. I am glad I am not living in those states since all the pig waste will end up in their well water. You need to thank your GOP for allowing you to dispose of your manure the cheapest way possible until a catastrophic flood hit . The GOP destroyed Rehoboth beach, Delaware ocean water . This summer they piped out human waste in pipes only 1 mile off shore. They are in charge in Rehoboth. The Democrats would hav listened to environmentalists and done it right. Remember that in a few weeks on Election Day.
15
Package it and send it to GOP “leaders” who deny climate change.
40
Meat and dairy eaters are complicit. If more people opted for a plant-based diet, these CAFOs would start to fail. C'mon, you have to know that animals are raised in disgusting conditions, mistreated, and then slaughtered without a second thought? Now people are mad and want to blame the farmers? The EPA? The GOP? Look in the mirror and ask yourself if that pulled pork sandwich was worth it.
15
So gross! We are surely becoming a third world dump..is this how we make "America Great Again"?
22
@Kim
Trump really wants to Make America Gross Again.
And he is succeeding on all fronts!
1
What about the pigs? They never go outside, walk around , feel rain or sun on their faces. They are as smart as our pet dogs. It is so cruel, it boggles the mind.
42
I wonder how long it takes 9.7 million pigs to produce 10 billion gallons of waste ,I didn't see it mentioned in the article .
8
Don't worry, North Carolina. President Trump and the rescue brigade are on their way. The paper towels will be arriving any day now. Please hang in there.
39
Human waste is also a disposal problem. People don't realize that feces from the New York metropolitan area gets carted away on freight trains for disposal in poor rural areas of Alabama. This is also problematic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/nyregion/poop-train-alabama.html
Too many pigs, too many people for the environment to handle.
15
What about the millions of pigs? Are they in those buildings surrounded by water? Drowned? Rotting?
21
Another case of privatize profits and socialize risks. The poor and middle class can't catch a break while the rich feast.
15
Alarm bells going off. Contaminated wells and ground water are an absolutely avoidable situations in 2018 IF the environmental protection agencies were doing their job. so so sorry for the ordinary people ON THE GROUND dealing with it now.
16
I have sympathy for the people who are suffering, but a lot them don’t believe in climate change and think that all regulations are bad!
3
For the past 43 years I have not eaten pork, beef, or poultry for health and environmental reasons. For my dietary choices I live with a 155 cholesterol count at age 72. I do not miss eating meat and found to transfer much easier than anticipated.
19
@Jerry My cholesterol is 120 and I eat meat, drink milk, and consume cheese. What's your point?
1
When I worked at the USEPA years ago there was a proposal to build package waste water treatment plants and discontinue the use of waste water ponds for animal waste. This could have prevented the problem NC is now facing especially the resultant health problems.
Walking in contaminated waste water can cause many types of health problems that could be avoided. The flooding of such a treatment plant would result in less impact then the build up of waste in these lagoons.
That such an opportunity was taken advantage of is an indication of the environmental problems that are lurking in America.
29
Biochemically, pig excrement is no different than human excrement. So why does law require human excrement to be treated in a wastewater treatment plant that removes the organic content and destroys microorganisms while pig excrement can just be flushed into giant cesspools? Now that this has happened in North Carolina twice in less than 20 years, maybe North Carolina will come to its senses about doing a better job of protecting its environment and human health.
68
@MRod Pork belly share price maybe?
6
@MRod The people of North Carolina are far more worried about containing gender-free toilets than pig excrement.
21
@MRod All discharges to rivers and other discharge points are required to be treated to standards under the Clean Water Act. So municipal sewage (which depending upon location might include some levels of animal waste) and waste from pig farms must meet roughly the same requirements. How the standards are enforced, where enforcement is delegated to a state such as NC, might be another question.
1
Why is the farmer in your article's photo pumping pig waste into the surrounding elevated waters? Is this person using these floods as an opportunity to empty their pig waste lagoons while no-one is watching? I bet you others are doing this too. Someone needs to go to jail!
16
It's the pigs revenge.
16
So what?
Trump has GUTTED the E.P.A.
This is what happens, folks.
You get to have ground water contaminated with PIG Feces.
108
@Paul P. CAFOs are considered a "point source" and fall under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and are thus regulated (federally) under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Trump has mostly been focused on the Clean Air Act but he is pushing the EPA for deregulation across the board.
These are the same people who vote for GOP again and again and they vote for fewer regulations.
Well - it is time to pay for your misdeeds with contamination of the drinking water w/ pigs excretion.
50
Assuredly, the downstream recipients of this disgusting soup are primarily poor. They don't count in Trumpland. The pig and poultry farmers will lobby Sonny Perdue for relief packages (aka tax generated handouts) under the guise of National Security.
The poor will be both wiped out and living near disease laden waters, while the "farmers" rebuild with our tax money.
I'm glad I'm a vegetarian.
50
@Peter S
Please consider going vegan as the dairy and egg industries offer similar consequences
3
The manure is a problem.
But seriously, nothing about all of the animals that were left to drown during this storm? I see pictures of rooftops surrounded by water and it must have been horrifying. But we've got nothing to say about that, apparently.
Something has gone wrong with us, collectively.
87
@princegeorges
Read the article. Many of the hogs had been moved to higher ground. (How you find space for 9 million hogs is an excellent question)
That being said, I in no way support this approach to livestock farming. Industrial farming like this should be outlawed. Breaches of hog lagoons and flooding of barns housing huge numbers of animals creating health hazards from dead animal carcasses should be a matter of strict liability.
"Lagoons" is the term that the hog industry decided to call its football field sized cesspools for PR reasons. The NYT and other news organizations should call them what they are: giant cesspools filled with pig urine and feces.
46
@J O'Kelly The New York Times chooses to contribute to this environmental disaster, not to mention the suffering of millions of animals, by publishing recipes that feature ‘pork’, also known as dead pigs.
7
Can anybody explain to me how this can happen?
You have a state from which you know it might get hit by a hurricane so floodings might occure.
You also got a huge industry which produces pig manure. As a state or country you allow the farmers to store the manure in open basins.
You know pig manure, when released in the environment, is highly pollutant and can cause all kind of serious diseases.
If it was just 1 illegal open basin, i could understand that it could get flooded. But this amount of legal open basins in that area, come on! Somebody must have lost his or her mind....
What is wrong
33
@Lex ... ummm, it's called "increased profits."
7
@Lex
Believe it or not, waste lagoons are not illegal. They should be, but therein lies the power of a strong lobby.
1
@Lex - It happens because it's now legal here in The Land of The Free (rich, white men) for the pluto-corporatacracy to outright buy Congress Critters. Maybe we'll develop a Congressmen futures market?
“Lagoons of Pig Waste”
Not sure if this should be the title of a Walker Percy novel or a Limp Bizkit tune.
10
When one side of the political spectrum keeps drumming on the so called "costs" of regulation - this is what happens. The repercussions of no-regulations in these industries lead to environmental disasters that are not recoverable with money. Spend the money when there is value to spend, else it is too late. NC should start understanding the effects of the lack of sufficient environmental regulations.
35
On a positive note it is well known that "dilution is the solution" and the record rain is certainly providing that in abundance! My guess is that this will turn out like the BP oil spill in the Gulf a few years ago- lots of hysteria at the time but almost indiscernible effects a little later as the natural processes ate up the oil.
1
@Steve W
From what conservative republican source did you obtain your information?
4
I worked for the NC Department of Environmental Health and Resources in the mid-90s when pork surpassed tobacco as the leading crop in North Carolina. We new hog waste was going to be a problem. But that doesn't mean we don't need solid reporting on these events. The major problem is impacts on water quality, and nitrates are a major contributor to nutrient pollution. However, Nitrates are not the culprit in "blue baby syndrome." Its nitrate's lesser known cousin, nitrite, that bonds to hemoglobin and reduces oxygen-uptake. While nitrate can convert to nitrite, its a slow and inefficient process. Solarge nitrate releases, while nasty, shouldn't alarm new mother's.
10
This is a drop in the bucket compared to the raw human sewerage that flowed through large portions of Brooklyn and Queens during Hurricane Sandy.
5
Wrong, sorry.
3
I write from a state that is, I believe, #1 in hog-confinement facilities. NC, I've read, is #2.
More to the point: The animal-raising and slaughtering industry and the meat eaters who are responsible for it are one of the largest drivers of global warming. According to a UN report several years ago, cows and the huge amount of methane they produce and the fossil fuels used to raise those cows are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, more than all transportation modes combined.
I am a vegetarian, so I too am complicit because I eat cheese. It takes 1,000 gallons of water to produce just one gallon of milk.
Truly, the only people least guilty of our current and looming planetary disaster are vegans.
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@Daisysdad
I believe you have the heart and the knowledge to do what it takes to be vegan
kindly, Jeff
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@Daisysdad
Oh good grief - that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever read in my life.. What if a Vegan drives a gas powered car? I would imagine there must be some sort of pecking order ..
@Daisysdad, of course they’ll burn all the gas it takes to get to Whole Foods market regardless of how far that is.
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Just wondering about the status of the animals. Have they been moved or euthanized? Are the animal housing facilities raised from the high water level? Are the animals fed and cared for?
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They locked them in the building and let them drowned. Honestly it is probably a better fate than what they we facing before the flood.
@itsmildeyes ... what do you think? What do you REALLY think has happened to the animals?
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I believe thousands have already died.
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What's being done in the lead photo deserves mention: It looks like the operator by the pickup truck is pumping pig waste from the sewage lagoon into the adjacent flood waters.
Compare the facility in this article's lead photo to that in the last photo in:
Philpott, Tom. 2018. “These Photos of Submerged North Carolina Livestock Farms Are Devastating.” Mother Jones (blog). September 18, 2018. https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/09/these-photos-of-submerged-north....
This Mother Jones article directly asserts what's going on: "Then there’s the startling photo below, sent to me by Matthew Starr, the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper for Sound Rivers, taken from the air yesterday. It depicts liquid manure from a hog lagoon being pumped directly into floodwater", and shows enough visual detail to document the foul flow.
Is there any justification for this? What about the people and environments downstream?
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@Ed
It may be to control the amount of waste that goes into the floodwater. I am in no way an apologist for this. See my other comment - I'm Canadian but when I lived in the US I would not by meat or dairy or eggs from supermarkets. Whole Foods or small farmers (mostly the latter) was it. But one thought I had looking at this is, if the lagoon overflows, then there is no controlling how much waste. By pumping it in, it may limit the amount that goes in.
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@Ed Republicans don't care about others. Haven't you figured that out by now?
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@Ed All of those photos are horrible. The submerged -- whatever they are called -- "barns" indicating all of the animals that drowned inside are hard to see.
And that last picture with the person pumping manure directly into the water. I don't know what the maximum penalty is for that, but I hope that person gets it. That person has no business being a farmer.
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All highly preventable. Stop buying chicken and pork from irresponsible producers. People want things cheap, but the cost to the environment, our humanity, to the abused and suffering animals is priceless. Stop being complicit.
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@BMD, stop buying chicken and pork -- and all other animal products -- altogether. Even simpler. As many others have commented here, not eating animal products is more sustainable, uses far fewer resources, is better for the environment and for animal and workers, and decreases the development of antibiotic resistance. Plus: it's healthier!
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Wake up. There is no such thing as humane farming. Do you want to have your baby removed from you? Do you want to die at the appointed time set by some human? Have some compassion. No animal wants to go to a slaughterhouse. Humans are so callous! We don't need to eat anything from the body of an animal to be healthy. It's sheer selfishness.
Okay- I know everyone is going to pick on me for saying this, but we deserve this. This whole industry is built on the cult-like behavior that humans need to eat animal products to survive.
These mega-factories of torture and death for animals are totaly necessary for our survival. So sad for the animals, so dangerous to humans and the environment.
NYT and all MSM should be pounding out the stories about the environmental and health dangers of this industry and the fact that we are tricked into eating this stuff as children.
Evil, evil, evil.
Keep up the good work, Kendra. I bet this opened your eyes!
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"The Department of Environmental Quality’s data is self-reported by farmers..."
What could possibly go wrong?
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Now might be a good time to ask right wingers about how important it is to do away with those pesky health and safety regulations.
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@DR The Democratic Party isn't much better when it comes to factory farming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/03/22/in-arkansas-t...
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@DR Now might be a good time to ask everyone who fancies themselves to be a ‘progressive’ or an ‘environmentalist’ to leave animals, including pigs, off their plates.
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This isn’t a problem of meat consumption. It is a problem of overconsumption. If people ate minimal amounts of meat, this system would not exist. I appreciate the value of vegetarianism and have been one in the past. But the idea it has to be either/or is a gross oversimplification. Indeed - it’s developing systems like this that makes meat so cheap so people can mass produce it. If these systems were not allowed, there would be higher costs of production, lower supply, and people would eat less meat.
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This is not a bug. It's a feature. In a Republican state, the prescribed way to deal with both coal ash and pig manure is to dump it and wait for a hurricane to wash it away -- and to make sure that "away" is someplace that only poor people live. Why not? No matter how many times it happens, they'll keep voting Republican anyway.
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@dsws
With republicans in charge, they won’t care and I guess enjoy all this slop going into poor neighborhoods. Especially minority hoods.
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@dsws I wish it was just the Republicans, but it isn't. Google Bill clinton + Tyson chickens.
2
And yet, they hate 'Socialism.'
Go figure.
Oh, and let's teach Civics in school.
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...and those poor, terrified, voiceless and inhumanely abused 9 mil + pigs, their lives nothing but misery & fear from birth to their very horrifying murders (almost all are murdered between 9 & 14 months old, infants) ...worse yet, much of the pork from those factories goes overseas, to China predominantly ....the lack of protection & rights for those pigs, and all animals raised in the USA to be eaten is, without question, a crime!
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If the majority go to China then it’s good timing. With 25% tariffs the farmers (manufacturers) will get their government subsidies and flood relief from us, and no stress about lost sales to China.
Something so wrong with this.
It's as bad as you can imagine. Years ago my wife and I visited her childhood vacation place. Uncle Gerald's dairy farm in Quebec. Trouble was it was now a pig farm.
Driving toward the farm everything seemed normal, we stopped and stepped out, and then the stench, it was everywhere. You could hardly breath. We got back in the car and left. And this was a relatively small place compared to what you see in the articles photos.
And just think there's almost 1 pig for every North Carolina citizen.
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@cherrylog754
I am old enough, and born and raised in Chicago, to have gotten a whiff of the old stock yards there when Chicago was the meat packing center of the country. I was no where near them but on a train with the windows down from the northern suburbs to visit my grandparents who lived on the south side. The stench was unbearable, even miles away.
It says 98 million pigs produce 10 million gallons of manure.
Per day? Per hour? Per year?
Without that, the statistic s meaningless
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@Growbot The point is 98 million living beings produce lots of waste that, even without flooding, contaminates the air and water of adjacent communities of people. The fact is that beyond being born to live a tortured and confined existence and suffer a brutal violent death, the “unlucky” animals who died in the flood drown in a toxic feces contaminated water. This humanmade hell on earth for animals is completely avoidable. Industrial animal agriculture is a modern day animal holocaust.
@Growbot
good question but, thinking about it it's probably per day. 100 million pigs, 10 million gallons, equals about a 10th of a gallon per pig.
i'm not a pigologist but I'm guessing per day. Are we talking big pigs here, or little pigs :-)
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@Growbot That's 9.7 million (not 98 million) and that's 10 billion (not 10 million). Pesky decimals and millions / billions!
A previous article cites this number as the annual rate:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/13/climate/hurricane-florenc...
In the European Union this does not happen, because liquid hog manure is redirected into anaerobic (airtight) tanks where methane is produced, which then is converted into electricity, and this gives the farmer an extra income.
But for the US, if something has not been invented in the US, it simply does not exist.
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@Steve, that efficient system in the EU was likely prompted by--gasp--government rules and regulations, those liberal horrors that Dear Leader is fighting to eliminate.
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@SteveBut -- "... for the US, if something has not been invented in the US, it simply does not exist."
Dang! If only WE had invented Pragmatism!
Along with a healthy respct for our Biosphere.
[Do views like this make me an echoterrist?]
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Vegan saves planet, health, animal lives.
Unsustainable for 8B people to eat meat, each day.
Simple calculus.
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@kat perkins
You want to be 'vegan'? Fine
Do NOT tell me what to eat, any more than I tell YOU what to eat.
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@kat perkins those 8B people need to slow down their reproducing too. No one talks about that.
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@Paul P. “Im not telling you what to eat, im telling you who I defend”
Simple solution: Stop eating factory farmed animals. They live horrible lives and the cost to health and the environment is too high.
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@Emily Corwith Eat only meat you hunt yourself.
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No, Emily, stop eating "any" animal, dairy or eggs. Not just a "factory farmed " animal. Humane farming is a colossal lie. It's built on the idea that humans have the God-given right to kill other species for food and their skin, bone and wool. We do not.
It sounds terrible. Unless you are the new EPA, then there is no problem. Talk about takers. Matter of fact someone there probably thinks those benefiting from the waste overflowing should pay for the pork by-products that they are enjoying.
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Still another reason for a switch toward vegan diets. Raising about 70 billion animals annually for slaughter for food is having devastating effects on the environment and is contributing greatly to climate change.
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@Richard Schwartz
The real problem is overpopulation and factory farming. Raising a few hogs on a family farm as part of an integrated farming operation could be done humanely and eating a diet including meat would not have such a devastating impact if we had not exploded the world population in the last century.
@White Buffalo - "if we had not exploded the world population in the last century…"
Well, we did! 1 Billion in 1800, 7.5 Billion today, 13 Billion? by 2100. The planet cannot support that many people and the inefficient process of raising animals for food simultaneously. Time to choose - Cows or kids? Pigs or people?
Lowering the level of waste in the lagoons by spraying manure on fields just before a record-setting rain event is not helping in the slightest.
Even if those fields didn't end up underwater, which is unlikely, after two or three inches of rain in one day the manure would run off into the nearest body of water. It should be illegal to apply that manure before a hurricane.
This is the actual cost of massive consumption of pork, which is now so cheap to buy that restaurants pretty much add it to everything.
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Unfortunately, this is yet another consequence of climate change that the wealthy beneficiaries of the fossil fuel and corporate agribiz industries can insulate themselves against with their bottled water in their gated communities on higher ground, while they go on claiming it's all just a hoax.
They may want to look into re-inforcing those gates, however.
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I think we tend to forget the very real collateral damage incurred from our insistence on ( relatively) cheap sources of meat. If we insist on being able to put bacon on everything up to and including ice cream, multiple times per week the environment, therefore all of us, are going to suffer.
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@Maggie But what about my hipster bacon doughnuts? I was told they were cage free doughnuts!
@Maggie
It's not our just the US consumer's insistence on pork. A large percentage of our pork production goes to China.
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@Maggie
I'D suffer if I put bacon on ice cream. How disgusting! Reminds me of the new America.
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Having gone to camp in rural NC as a kid visiting the tobacco and hog farms, and college later on, I have been aware of the pig industry. Forks Over Knives, the movie about the benefits of a plants only diet also documented the hazards of the waste produced on pig farms on neighboring residents. Think about that next time you consume that slice of bacon or ham sandwich.
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@David Binko
Forks over Knives?
Really?
That propaganda film has been discredeted over and over and over.
http://anthonycolpo.com/forks-over-knives-the-latest-vegan-nonsense-diss...
https://www.forksoverknives.com/top-8-myths-about-eating-vegan-busted/
But thanks for trotting it out.
1
Sounds like a deregulation victory to me.
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Besides the hideous and deadly effects of the excrement lagoons overflowing and poisoning the water, and all life it encounters, there is the undiscussed torture and inhumane factory farming of live animals. How many pigs, turkeys, chickens and other animals are packed into these heinous concrete prisons? How many millions of animals have died because they are completely abandoned during hurricanes? They are not respected as sentient living animals but as stock to trade and cash in on. When will we wake up to these gruesome practices and see that it is cruel, inhumane, animal abuse and unsustainable?
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To answer your question...never. We are so removed from our food sources...we have no empathy for these animals. Unless you grew up on a farm...only ate what you could produce...there is no way anyone could imagine the horrors facing these animals.
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@Kevin J Pinzone-- "When will we wake up to these gruesome practices and see that it is cruel, inhumane, animal abuse and unsustainable?"
When Patriarchy is no longer ascendent.
(can women STILL vote?)
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@Kevin J Pinzone - Thank you so much for saying this, not nearly enough attention has been paid to the millions of animals suffering for our bacon and burgers. RIP.
Remember, every slice of bacon is unique, like a pork snowflake.
Ok, kidding aside, unless you have lived next to a hog farm, you can't even begin to imagine the unbelievable stench. These farms should be closed for public safety reasons, until they can safely deal with the effluent.
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@Ernest Montague I am with you 100%. My short stint in NE Kansas, 4 miles from a hog farm, taught me the disgusting stench. Turned me right off pork. As did the treatment of the animals.
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No problem, soak it up with paper towels
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@Margie -- direct -- from Air Force 1!
Heads!
2