It's long past time that big corporate polluters in North Carolina do more to protect the air and water of nearby communities. This is especially true of Smithfield Foods. Their industrial hog operations, mostly in eastern NC, dump massive amounts of animal waste into unlined pits and then spray it onto nearby fields.
Derb Carter from Southern Environmental Law Center explains the issue:
"Twenty years after Smithfield entered a formal agreement with the North Carolina Attorney General to convert its primitive lagoon and sprayfield waste management systems on all company-owned and contract farms to environmentally superior systems that are economically feasible, Smithfield has not converted any.
…It doesn't have to be this way. In Missouri, Smithfield now touts its "next generation technology" to manage waste that it agreed to install on all of its hog operations there. This wholesale conversion to improved waste management was forced by lawsuits from neighbors and that state's attorney general. It is operational and profitable on hundreds of Smithfield hog operations in Missouri."
Even worse, Smithfield's polluting facilities have a disparate impact on low-income communities and communities of color that are nearby. They deserve to be protected from polluted air and water, especially when there are proven better methods that can be utilized.
Sign our petition urging Attorney General Stein to hold Smithfield accountable and require them to honor their commitment to do better and protect North Carolina's air and water just as they have done in Missouri.
