Environmentalists and neighbors of hog farms in Eastern North Carolina urged lawmakers Tuesday to permanently ban new hog waste lagoons that they say harbor contamination and breed illness.

A 10-year state moratorium on new lagoons expires in September. Several dozen people rallying at the statehouse urged lawmakers to extend the ban and replace existing lagoons with safer, if more expensive, methods of disposal.

The group is also frustrated that the state hasn't pushed hog producers to do more than finance a study of alternative waste management systems.

"I understand your disappointment in waiting," said Republican Rep. Carolyn Justice of Pender, who is preparing legislation to make the moratorium permanent and promote other means of treating hog waste. "While we take our time making a decision for you, you have to walk out the back door and smell it."

North Carolina is the nation's second-largest swine-producing state, and its hog farms dump 13 million pounds of hog waste a day into open-air pits called lagoons. The waste is later sprayed on fields as fertilizer.

Farmers say the practice is the only economically feasible way to handle the waste, but opponents say it is an environmental menace, fouling the air and contaminating groundwater and rivers.

Last spring, a report recommended five alternatives that would reduce ammonia and pathogen emissions but which could cost up to five times more than the lagoon and spray-field method. Environmental groups and swine farmers launched two pilot projects last summer to dispose of the waste more safely.

Electricity from hog waste

On Monday, the North Carolina Pork Council asked legislators to create a pilot program that would test the feasibility of converting hog waste into electricity by capturing methane gas from the lagoons.

The proposal has mixed support.

Steve Wing, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health, said it wouldn't reduce the pollution caused by lagoons or address other health problems at hog farms, such as respiratory illnesses of workers in buildings where pigs are confined.

But Justice said the proposal, backed by Raleigh-based utility Progress Energy, demonstrates that the hog industry is increasingly willing to work with its neighbors.

"For them to take this step says they recognize the need, and that's what we wanted to hear them say -- 'We recognize there's a problem,' " she said.

Justice plans to introduce legislation by next week to permanently ban hog lagoons, gradually replacing those that exist with cleaner waste management systems that will be supported by government incentives. The measure also will include steps to help farm neighbors whose well water has been tainted.

Rep. Dewey Hill, a Columbus Democrat, filed a measure Tuesday to extend the existing moratorium on new swine farms and lagoons by three years, to September 2010.