I had taken some other shots that had more hog farms in them but they didn't turn out as good as this one. If you embiggen the photo, you will see that some of the shorter elongated buildings have ponds near them. Those are almost a red/rust color in this shot. The hog industry calls these "lagoons", but what they really are are cesspools. That's right, it is the area that the hog waste is stored in to try and cycle it into something less toxic than what it is.The problem with these "lagoons" is they sometimes leach out into the water table in the surrounding area. Guess where many of these lagoons are located? In flood plains that run to the ocean. Check out this web site to see what happens when tropical storms, hurricanes (especially Floyd recently), and severe thunderstorms dump large volumes of water in these areas.
What happens is a nightmare of raw toxic sewage mixing with rivers, creeks, ponds, and lakes. This problem doesn't even touch on how you dispose of thousands of dead animals floating in the water for days and sometimes weeks. I'm not against having hog farms. If people are going to continue to relish their pork then the hogs have to be raised somewhere. I'm just against putting facilities like this in extremely stupid places on the landscape.
One last note, I lost count of how many hog farms we saw from the air on our way to Charlotte.
8 comments:
NC is the hog farm state. Not as many in SC and the conservation groups have fought hard to keep it that way. It was a disaster after Hurricane Floyd.
I watched a documentary about water pollution a few months ago, and one entire segment was devoted to the way hog farmers pollute. It is really alarmingly disgusting.
I'm even more glad I don't eat meat (although I'm not sure about the fish I eat anymore either). Thanks for writing about this. I had some idea about the farms, but was not aware of the far reaching effects.
I saw this show about a farmer who belives in happy pigs - he lets the pigs roam wild in his woods on the property and Chipolte own Steven Els(sp?) is a huge fan - buying his pig only from this guy because happy pigs make a happy meal?
I do like the idea.
Syd,
Unfortunately you are right about NC.
Robin,
Like so much that is bad for the environment, they get away with it by buying the politicians.
Lou,
Glad you learned something. Yes, from what I understand, fish are full of chemicals just like us.
Cat,
Hate to say it, but pigs running wild, at least wild ones, wreak a lot of havoc on habitats. Probably some of it is not harmful and even beneficial, but if there population numbers get too high the damage is much like high deer populations.
Ick, ick, ick!
pig farms are one of those things every body is OK with them - provided they are somewhere else and far away.
We lived in Sampson County many years ago and saw the small farmer being squeezed out by these horrid monstrous hog farms. Such a tragedy on so many fronts.
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