North Carolina Hog Pollution Pact Failed
A 2000 agreement requiring Smithfield Foods to replace its polluting hog waste system has ended without implementation.
The Smithfield Agreement, a 2000 pact negotiated by then-Attorney General Mike Easley to force hog producer Smithfield Foods to replace its primitive waste system, has concluded without fulfilling its main goal. The company determined that developing "environmentally superior technologies" was not economically feasible, leaving the original lagoon and sprayfield system in operation across North Carolina's concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
This system stores millions of gallons of hog feces and urine in open, unlined cesspools before spraying the waste on nearby fields. It has been blamed for decades of pollution and health problems for nearby residents, issues highlighted when hurricanes like Fran in 1996 and Floyd in 1999 caused catastrophic lagoon breaches.
The Broken Agreement
As part of the Smithfield Agreement, the company was required to pay $15 million for research into new waste technologies and up to $2 million annually for 25 years in environmental grants. It also pledged to help its contract growers adopt any new, feasible technology. A key 11-member economic subcommittee, including five industry representatives, was formed to analyze financial feasibility.
A majority report from that committee, which included renowned economists, found that Smithfield could afford to implement new systems. However, the industry representatives issued a dissenting report in 2005. "... Would any net increase in costs of a new technology be economically feasible? The short answer is no," they stated.
Smithfield never backed any of the developed technologies, nor did it assist contract growers with conversion. Michelle Nowlin, an attorney who served on the agreement's technical advisory committee, reflected on the outcome. "We knew we'd been played," she said.
Enduring Community Impact
The result is that the air near CAFOs still carries a powerful stench of manure, and thousands of waste lagoons remain. Multiple scientific studies have shown communities near these operations face higher risks of asthma, cardiovascular illness, infant mortality, and overall death.
The problem is concentrated in counties like Duplin, a top hog-producing area with 1.8 million hogs across 459 CAFOs, according to state records. Local resident Leroy Mitchell described the pervasive odor. "You're going to smell it," he said, or "God forbid you get behind a dead truck" hauling away deceased hogs.
A Problematic Birthplace
North Carolina's Coastal Plain, with its floodplains and shallow water table, is geographically unsuited for hog CAFOs. The industry consolidated there in the late 1980s, shrinking from 15,000 swine farms to 5,800 while the hog population grew to 10 million, outpacing the human population.
The series of hurricane-driven disasters led to a 1997 state law that included a moratorium on new or expanded lagoon-and-sprayfield CAFOs. The threat of a class-action lawsuit against Smithfield prompted Attorney General Easley to initiate the secret negotiations that produced the 2000 agreement. Committee members were prohibited from disclosing the talks, a condition Nowlin now regrets. "Ethically it was the wrong call," she said.
The agreement's designated technical lead, Mike Williams of N.C. State University, assembled teams to analyze replacement technologies. Despite this effort, the pact has wound down with the core waste management system unchanged, leaving the environmental and health burdens on surrounding communities unaddressed.
