Local environmentalist joins factory-farm pollution lawsuit against EPA

NORTH CAROLINA — Cape Fear River Watch’s designated Riverkeeper is petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce protections for an industry he believes is at the heart of local water pollution. 

READ MORE: Animal farms on the Cape Fear River: do they bear watching?

ALSO: Environmentalist groups oppose Rouzer’s water permit reform bill, which helps some of his campaign donors

In September, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Food & Water Watch, the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, and 11 other groups sued the EPA over the failure to regulate the controlled animal feeding operation industry (CAFO).

Wilmington-based nonprofit Cape Fear River Watch is listed as an intervenor in the case due to a petition submitted by its designated Riverkeeper, Kemp Burdette.

“In the Cape Fear basin, we’ve got more hogs than any other watershed on the planet,” he said. “We’re the number one state in the country for poultry as of the last agricultural census. So we have an enormous amount of this animal waste on the landscape that’s not even being counted.”

The EPA hasn’t filed a response to the brief yet; it has a May 8 deadline.

CAFO refers to facilities with large amounts of confined livestock. Because the facilities generate immense waste, environmentalists have pushed for stronger regulations to prevent industrial pollution of nearby waters. 

“It has huge impacts on water quality,” Burdette said. “Huge impacts to the people living next door to these facilities.”

In North Carolina — among the top CAFO producers in the country — hogs produce about 10 billion pounds of waste per year, in addition to the roughly 2.5 billion pounds generated by chickens. The hog industry has a strong presence in the tri-county region, with 250,000 hogs in Pender County and 80,000 in Brunswick County, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent -county- specific data from December 2022.

Environmentalists argue CAFO facilities have failed to responsibly handle waste by using the “lagoon and sprayfield” system, in which bacteria and metal-laden discharges are flushed into open fields, contaminating groundwater and surface water in the process.

The groups’ petition notes that internal EPA reviews have corroborated their findings that CAFO pollution disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities. 

“Our case is about very lax and outdated federal water regulations for the factory farm industry and our efforts to strengthen those regulations,” Food & Water Watch staff attorney Emily Miller said. “And address the water pollution crisis that is flowing from them.”

Miller’s organization and others made a similar petition to the EPA in 2017. The agency responded six years later in 2023 by forming a study committee on the issue, which  environmentalists argued is insufficient and too slow, as action would be delayed until the completion of a 12-18 month review.

Under the Clean Water Act, industries that discharge pollutants are supposed to be regulated by national pollutant discharge elimination system permits, but the agency estimates less than a third of factory farms meet the requirement. Environmentalists are pushing to close the Clean Water Act’s “agricultural stormwater exemption” and mandate stronger protections for CAFO waste policy.

As one of the state’s top economic sectors, the CAFO industry has been a powerhouse in North Carolina’s politics for decades. Smithfield Foods — the biggest pork producer in the United States — is the most well-known example, having been embroiled in years of lawsuits and battles over state hog waste regulation. 

The company remains influential over government policy and spent $628,800 lobbying the General Assembly since 2020. WH Group — the Chinese multinational food processing company that bought Smithfield in 2013 — spent $3.8 million lobbying Congress over the same period, according to campaign finance nonprofit OpenSecrets.

Several powerful local legislators are strong supporters of the CAFO industry, including Sen. Brent Jackson of District 8, the owner of Jackson Farms and the chairman of the state’s Appropriations and Agriculture, Energy, and Environment committees. 

Amid dozens of nuisance lawsuits against Smithfield for its hog operations, Jackson introduced a 2017 bill to limit the amount of damages property owners could claim in nuisance litigation against agricultural businesses, including pork producers. 

Smithfield has donated $15,200 to Jackson throughout his career and the NC Pork Council, the top trade group for the state hog industry, has given him $46,100.

At the federal level, Congressman David Rouzer is another major industry advocate. Last year, he co-sponsored the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act, which would limit individual states’ ability to impose regulations on the production of agricultural products engaged in interstate commerce. 

In July 2023, 38 farmer and rancher groups sent a letter to the Congressional Agriculture Committee urging opposition to the bill, arguing it would hurt small farmers, entrench the power of multinational conglomerates, and trigger a “race to the bottom” in agricultural standards.

The day before the groups sent their letter in opposition to the EATS Act, state-owned China Weekly noted the bill would significantly increase China’s share of the U.S. pork market, as state regulations often favor smaller domestic farms rather than foreign firms.

Smithfield has given Rouzer $14,000 throughout his career and the National Pork Producers Council, which lobbied on the bill, has donated $63,318 to the congressman.

Food & Water Watch staff attorney Miller also wants to use federal regulations to override state CAFO policy, albeit for a different reason. She noted North Carolina’s law G.S. 150B-19.3 forbids state agencies from enacting environmental regulations that are more restrictive than the federal government.

“Strengthening the federal requirements would de facto strengthen the North Carolina requirements,” she said.

Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.

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