Cooper should veto bill that protects hog industry instead of people

House Bill 467 – the fast-tracked legislation that limits the amount of money plaintiffs may be awarded in nuisance actions against “agriculture and forestry” operations – awaits Gov. Roy Cooper’s signature. Although HB 467 changes centuries-old law to protect all agricultural and forestry operations in North Carolina, the bill’s sponsors have not been shy about their principal motivation: protecting the hog industry from jury verdicts. Co-sponsor Rep. Ted Davis unabashedly admits that he seeks to eliminate long-standing nuisance remedies because “(t)hat’s what the plaintiffs are using.” Co-sponsor Rep. Jimmy Dixon stylizes the bill as necessary to protect hardworking farm families from greedy out-of-state lawyers.

While the lawmakers are open about their motivation, their rhetoric is misleading. The plaintiffs to which Davis refers are longtime North Carolinians who have filed 26 federal lawsuits against Murphy-Brown, LLC, the hog producing division of Smithfield Foods. These residents have owned their land for decades – some for generations – long before the warehouses filled with hogs and chickens were built nearby. They seek compensation for the numerous harms they have suffered over the years that are routinely associated with this type of farming operation: noxious odors, incessant flies, nausea, asthma and headaches. These lawsuits were filed nearly four years ago, and are now ready for trial.

Rather than allow the courts to rule on these matters as they have since the days when North Carolina was an English colony, the General Assembly has decided once again to elevate the interests of the hog industry over the rights of ordinary residents. If signed into law, HB 467 would perpetuate the long-standing disproportionate impacts the industry has imposed on low-income African-American, Latino and Native American communities. Many residents in these communities feel as though they are prisoners in their own homes, unable to enjoy the basic niceties of owning one’s own home, such as drinking tea on the porch on a hot summer day, working in the garden and hosting a cookout for family and friends. Instead, they stay inside to evade the nauseating stench from the nearby lagoons and sprayfields. They simply want their private property rights protected. They seek help from the court because the General Assembly and DEQ have failed them.

HB 467 panders to special interests and sacrifices ordinary residents. It incentivizes agricultural and forestry operations to further expand in or relocate to low-income minority communities, as the property values in these communities tend to be low already. It changes the rights of every resident of this state to enjoy their property, taking them away by legislative fiat.

The potential reach of HB 467 is significant: An estimated 60,000 residential parcels are located within one-half mile of an animal operation or the operation’s waste lagoons or waste storage areas, affecting approximately 160,000 North Carolinians. Residents of Duplin, Union, Alexander and Sampson counties are likely to be the most directly affected, as these counties have the highest number of residents living within one-half mile from an industrial-scale animal operation. All told, as many as 360,000 residences, and 960,000 residents, are located within three miles of an animal operation and its waste management system.

Cooper should protect the private property rights of the state’s most vulnerable residents and veto HB 467. While the hog and poultry industries are a cornerstone of North Carolina’s economy, no industry is more important than the health and well-being of a state’s residents.

Shielding Murphy-Brown and Smithfield Foods from nuisance liability serves only to exacerbate the disproportionate impact North Carolina’s hog and poultry operations have on low-income communities of color and flies in the face of this state’s express policy to protect the land and waters for the benefit of all.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 4:03 PM with the headline "Cooper should veto bill that protects hog industry instead of people."