Crossroads for hog farm clean-up

William Byrd (1674-1744) was a James River grandee who set forth from his estate, Westover, to become one of America's most notable bushwhackers (Webster's, bushwhack: to clear a path through thick woods). He accompanied the surveying party whose mission it was to settle old disputes about where Virginia stopped and North Carolina began.

From that adventure, Byrd penned a delightful chronicle, "The History of the Dividing Line." It is full of vivid observations, wry turns of phrase, river names like Chowan and Nottoway and Meherrin that still are part of the backdrop of life in our border counties.

Perhaps true to form for a high-born Virginian, Byrd aimed a few good-humored barbs at folks he encountered south of the line.

"The only business here," he wrote at one point, "is raising of hogs, which is managed with the least trouble, and affords the diet they are most fond of" -- notwithstanding "the foul and pernicious effects of eating swine's flesh in a hot country."

Well, they must not yet have invented barbecue. But there's no doubt that the Tar Heel proclivity for hog-raising has stood the test of time.

During the 1980s and '90s, North Carolina became the second-largest "hog state" behind Iowa. It did so on the strength of factory farming methods that are a world removed from the days when hogs were left to wallow and root around in the open. The animals are kept penned in barns, their diets strictly controlled. And a farm with hogs by the hundreds must cope with humongous quantities of stuff that humans typically get rid of by pushing a little chrome handle.

It was because of the challenges of waste disposal that the growth of hog farming rapidly became an environmental and public health issue of the first magnitude.

The state required farms to use a lagoon system, by which waste was washed out of the barns into outdoor holding ponds. Diluted by rainwater, the liquid would be sprayed on fields as fertilizer. Bacteria would help break down what remained.

It was a cheap disposal method and it worked OK -- except when lagoons ruptured after heavy rains, or when polluted runoff seeped its way into streams. The mid-'90s saw a string of calamities that spurred the state into action.

One of the actors was Mike Easley, then attorney general and now governor. He negotiated an agreement with two large pork companies to funnel corporate money into waste disposal research.

The idea was to come up with alternatives to lagoons that were both environmentally superior and affordable. The companies pledged to convert their farms if alternatives meeting those conditions were found.

The research effort was centered at N.C. State University. After five years, several technologies were identified that would improve on the lagoons and sprayfields from an environmental standpoint.

Cost remained the stumbling block. None of the new methods was judged cheap enough that the pork companies would be obligated to make the switch. Still, the recommendation from N.C. State was to find ways to get the new systems up and running on enough farms so that, as bugs were worked out and economies of scale kicked in, costs would come down.

That brings us to the here and now. Two organizations trying to move this process along -- Frontline Farmers, made up of independent hog growers who typically contract with the big pork companies, and the national group Environmental Defense -- asked Easley to include $10 million for the effort in his proposed state budget. The idea was to match that money with a similar amount raised from the feds, the companies and other sources, and use it to subsidize the cost of phasing out lagoons on 50 to 100 farms.

The governor's office, with other priorities in mind, said no dice. Will the General Assembly now find a way to help keep the transition away from lagoons alive?

Dan Whittle, senior attorney in Raleigh for Environmental Defense, said that if nothing is done, the state will take a "giant step backward" in addressing air pollution, odor problems and water problems on existing hog farms.

"We also set ourselves up for another major weather disaster," Whittle said -- conjuring up memories of lagoons flooded out and rivers befouled.

Legislators could take a serious whack at the issue through a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Carolyn Justice of Pender County. That bill would require the phase-out of lagoons over 10 years while providing farmers with assistance to hold down their conversion costs.

Something tells us that, William Byrd's cautionary note aside, we're not about to stop eating pork, even in a hot country. But if we're smart about it, those hogs can be raised in ways that don't put our environment at risk. Not that it would make the poor hogs feel any better.