February 10, 2022| February 10, 2022
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Environmental Justice Community Action Network and Cape Fear River Watch appealed Chief Administrative Law Judge Donald van der Vaarts decision to uphold permits that allow Smithfield-owned hog operations to use giant pits of untreated hog feces and urine to produce gas while spraying the harmful waste on surrounding areas in New Hanover County Superior Court, without adequate pollution controls. These permits will continue a long history in water pollution and harm to nearby communities, where a disproportionate number of them are Black, Latino, or Native American.
These permits allow hog operations to use dangerous and polluting open lagoons and sprayfields to dispose of their hog waste. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences and more than 175 deaths a year are caused by industrial hog operations in Duplin Counties and Sampson Counties. The process of producing and collecting gasoline can make the hog waste even more polluting if it is transferred to open pits and sprayed onto the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also investigating the civil rights of these permits. It was established after the Duplin County branch and North Carolina Poor Peoples Campaign, both represented by SELC, filed petitions challenging the permits’ discriminatory effects on communities of colour in Duplin and Sampson.
We believe that the Office of Administrative Hearings’ decision was illegal on the law. If allowed to stand, it would threaten our waterways and air quality as well as the communities we serve, said Maggie Galka vice chair of EJCAN’s board for Environmental Justice Community Action Network.
Kemp Burdette is the Cape Fear Riverkeeper. He stated that industrial hog operations have for too long polluted our rivers with fish kills and pollution. We will continue to fight to stop Murphy Brown’s dangerous pollution and to make DEQ enforce our antipollution laws to protect all.
This appeal is part of the group’s ongoing efforts to ensure that DEQ protects the environment as well as families living near and downstream of the biogas permit issuing process.
Blakely Hildebrand, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, stated that DEQ has failed for decades to provide legal protections for the environment and families. We want DEQ, which issues permits for biogas in the future, to meet its obligations to North Carolinians.
On April 2021, SELC challenged four state permits on behalf of Environmental Justice Community Action Network, Cape Fear River Watch, and Cape Fear River Watch. DEQ had failed to require less hazardous alternatives for producing gas out of hog waste and failed to address the cumulative effect of water pollution from these agricultural operations in Cape Fear River Basin. DEQ breached its responsibility to protect water pollution when it issued these permits.
