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Hog Farms Land Loophole in Farm Act

Last week, the latest state Farm Act became law, creating a dangerous loophole for hog farms that continue to use dirty open waste lagoon and sprayfield systems.

In the 1990s, a moratorium was placed on issuing permits for the construction, expansion, or modification of hog farms that use the old, polluting open waste lagoon and sprayfield waste disposal systems. The Farm Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 315), which passed last week and was signed by Gov. Cooper on Friday, allows permits for modifying those operations as long as they do not expand their hog production capacity.

The bill also allows those hog farms to hide from public scrutiny, concealing the information about their operations that they have to report to county soil and water conservation commissions. “The public needs access to the kinds of records this bill seeks to hide, records that plaintiffs used in the past to win court victories holding both government and industry to account,” writes Ryke Longest, co-director of Duke University’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.  “In 2019, neighbors of large swine farms were able to take Smithfield subsidiary Murphy-Brown to trial for damages to their property rights caused by the nuisance conditions they suffered. At trial, plaintiffs used swine farm public records to make their case.”

We and other citizen environmental groups opposed SB 315 because of these provisions. Two of last year’s Senate votes on the bill were counted as scored votes for our 2019 Scorecard

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