Why North Carolina Can't Solve Its Hog Poop Problem (HBO)

PINK HILL, N.C. __ Leaning out over a bridge railing, Aaron Harris carefully lowers a basket of empty plastic bottles into the slow-moving Goshen Swamp, where they fill with water the color of weak coffee before he reels them back up.
Harris, an environmental specialist with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, samples the water to understand just how polluted the water is after storms sweep debris and pollution into North Carolina's low-lying watersheds. But residents worry about one potential source of contamination and it's also the industry that keeps this region alive: Hog farming.
When storms season hits North Carolina, hog farms are some of the most vulnerable places in the state because most hog farmers here dispose of their hog waste in massive open-pit lagoons.
And North Carolina has already endured its wettest year on record. The saturated ground can’t absorb much more rain, which increases the flooding risk. So the storm that approached the region on Thursday only made things worse.
Torrential rains can send hog waste over the top of the lagoon, where it washes into rivers and streams. Sometimes, the lagoons themselves breach, and hog waste spills into the groundwater. During Florence, both happened, with at least 50 flooded lagoons and two breaches.
Catastrophic flooding aside, neighbors say hog farms also present a regular nuisance to their quality of life. That’s in part because of the lagoons, but mostly because of how hog farms traditionally dispose of their waste: Letting the solids settle to the bottom and spraying the floating liquid effluvia onto their fields.
That’s hog feces, hog urine and hog blood, sprayed in clouds sometimes just a few yards from someone’s house. For Elsie Herring, the stink is constant.
“We don't come outside much, you know. And we don't open the windows because the odor - you can't keep the odor out, whether you open the windows or not, you just can't,” said Herring, perched in a rocking chair on her pink house’s front porch as another spray cloud blew onto her property. “You can smell it now, can’t you.”
Herring is one of 500 plaintiffs suing Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer. The plaintiffs claim Smithfield’s waste-management practice of storing hog shit in lagoons and then spraying it onto fields severely reduces their quality of life.
Nearly every hog farmer in North Carolina is a contract farmer, meaning the agribusiness corporations own the pigs and the farmers own the waste. Morris Murphy has 15,000 head of Smithfield hog on his land in Duplin County, and says the nuisance lawsuits are baseless.
While hog farms do smell, Murphy says, it’s not bad enough to affect his neighbors. His lagoons are open pits, and on a sunny morning in mid-October, didn’t present much of a smell, even just a few feet away.
He’s not being sued, but his friends are. He says at least one fellow hog farmer had his hogs taken back by Smithfield after a lawsuit.
Hog farmers say they can’t afford to operate without open-pit lagoons, and agribusiness conglomerates haven’t shown much willingness to pay to cover the lagoons - an expensive proposition that includes a whole separate system to deal with the biogasses produced by the covered hog poop.
“Personally I think the system’s fine,” Morris said. “Someone needs to come here and prove to me that what I'm doing is bad for the environment before I feel like I need to change it.”
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[@DeviantDespot]

There is something refreshing about a news organization actually using the word shit.

[@TheCarrifaery]

well vice is familiar with that word since that is the quality of their journalism..

[@MrChadwke]

TheCarrifaery You kooks can't help but generalize everything. Your puny little brains can't function unless you put everything into a dumbed down little category for your pathetic, small mind. Enjoy being a close-minded fool.

[@pgood7266]

Vice isn’t a real news organization

[@Rocket9944]

DeviantDespot , it's low class.

[@pgood7266]

Labyrinth9000 Fox is more credible than vice and cnn

[@texan4zan925]

Another example how government helps big companies be successful and leave the bill to be paid by the poor and middle class!!!

[@thefpvlife7785]

U mean republican Govnt. Lining there pockets

[@whocares397]

well the politicians are full of shit ^_- lol

[@OperatorBG]

Texan 4zan what we need is revolution we’ll all go Fidel Castro big business asses.

[@R.L.Thomas]

Those lagoons aren't the best way they are the cheapest way

[@darraghwalsh8534]

Cheap for the user. Costs the community/environment lot when it floods.

[@heyaisdabomb]

It all comes down to a lack of education, which republicans want to cut... It's no coincidence that the most uneducated states are republican. The farmer at the end said it himself, they are uneducated.

[@andrewenriquez3138]

@@heyaisdabomb wait New Mexico and Hawaii are Republican states? They are the worst two states in education

[@eurerp.7760]

@@heyaisdabomb Bullshit, show me when he stated that republicans are the cause of misinformed farmers, you are pulling that out of your ass.

[@grantfranzenburg7595]

Yeah cause every hog farmer has $300,000 just laying around to cover a single manure lagoon...

[@DelbertStinkfester]

The Dairy farm I drive by on my way to work every day covers his poop pond with a tarp and then collects the methane and powers his house and the Dairy then sells excess power back to the grid.

[@Wasserkaktus]

Most people aren't that clever or have the know-how to do that.

[@MyCarllee]

@George That's common practice here in China. Every farmer and peasant can do that at their homes. There're insitutions in rural areas where you can get help on how to do that. Also, poops are what organics food are made of.

[@PresidentialWinner]

How does he power his house with the methane?

[@DK-fq3hy]

I'm no expert nor have any experience whatsoever; however, methane is combustible gas which means it can ignite. The collected methane is transported to a large reservoir where it may get compressed and then used to run those power generators that run on gas. How does gas get compressed? that I have no clue. The whole problem on these system is money/cost. Everything runs expensive and do it yourself projects can cause city permit problems.

[@Atite_Lometen]

FUckiGn cUmounist maggaa geeeglliiiieglegliegi

[@TheRafaBStudio]

"Deep shit", what a lovely analogy. Shout to Hurricane Michael.

[@puddincup9879]

Bona. Omg..😂

[@tennesseefairfield3963]

there are other ways. There is a way to process that waste into a dry, pellet form that can be shipped to anywhere fertilizers are used

[@i.t9390]

It's so bad that it can't be used as fertilizer sometimes

[@toxic1698]

They can also pump it into tanker trucks and send it around the country as fertilizer but the corporations that these farmers are enslaved to won't pay for that.

[@BlazedBob]

*If it aint fixed dont broke it*

[@PresidentialWinner]

A new spin on the old saying

[@PresidentialWinner]

An old saying in the new form

[@toponeroc]

Dumbass!!😅😅😅

[@gd.523]

Lol... He inhales hog 💩 all day and it's affecting his brain cells. He can't help it.

[@thefpvlife7785]

Brain fart... literally

[@juliedurden1320]

My mother lives in Lenoir County and in the summertime, especially when the breeze blows a certain way, the smell that fills the air is so NASTY!!! Uggghhhhh After a couple days I’m ready to hightail it back to the big ATL!!!!!!

[@OmgBrainZIZ]

“The surrounding communities can literally find themselves in deep shit” 0:50 oh my god i laughed so much 😂

[@tree3969]

lol at the way the old man was typing on the keyboard. 😂

[@williamparada4630]

Thank you for the real dialogue

[@AsphaltAntelope]

A barn full of pigs that never see daylight doesn't make you a "farmer", it makes you a "factory farmer". Don't dress it up, be honest about it.

[@rodolfomeneses3120]

YewTewbe still a farmer let’s not complicate it...

[@AsphaltAntelope]

If you find two words complicated then you're best off staying indoors from now on.

[@portlandsamber]

When the guy said they wondered what they'd gotten themselves into over the smell... 🤢 You didn't think thousands of pig's shit wouldn't be smelly? Don't have to be an expert in "waste management" to know that. Some farmer. 😂

[@AsphaltAntelope]

Ha yeah, he's not a good farmer or a good factory owner!

[@fn9681]

@@portlandsamber some factory farmer*

[@omegaman6193]

"If it ain't fixed don't broke it."

[@DrEaMLoOp]

Just another prediction made by the Simpson's ....Epaa eeepppaa!...shit will hit the fan soon...

[@DrEaMLoOp]

There is no Jesus lmfao...

[@charlieclark9552]

@@DrEaMLoOp Jesus co in to stab yo ass

[@DrEaMLoOp]

@@charlieclark9552 lmfao ...what's a Jesus... HahaHavana ohnana..

[@georgebronson1730]

the lizard ppl or aliens are here, and they love human flesh, thats why ppl are missing, plus if ur DNA matches, ur gonna be missing too and these lizard race has been living in the caves in the old world, thats why lotsa prohercy talks about "going inside the cave"

[@zEropoint68]

if my cat poops on someone else's lawn, i can be held criminally liable for trespass and vandalism because the animal is considered a piece of my property. the owner of the pooped-on lawn (provided they can prove it was my cat) can literally press charges and have me summonsed to court and fined. why doesn't the same law apply to the people who own these pigs? how come you can be held legally responsible for the damage your animals do to someone else's property, but these people can't?

[@tanngerin]

I guess you can say, "Oh shit."

[@Maybe1Someday]

There seems to be a reoccurring theme in every aspect of government "..we have a broken system..."

[@Diddancing]

So much shit, so little time

[@mikerphone.]

She said deep shit and i literally spit out my milk. Lol didn't see that coming.

[@shadowdrift5574]

Which reminds me, I gotta remember to get the Ham this year for Thanksgiving.

[@Ajw13666]

Same.

[@Dan_Slee]

Because holding ponds are only postponing and concentrating the end product. They need to grow something with all the waste nutrients to bind the nutrients, like algae, which could then be stored long term as a dry fertilizer. You can only sell so much raw pig scat to your local area...

[@trenapier206]

Homeboy's typing game is off the hook...

[@tusharrakhunde9921]

educating farmers is good idea

[@carybanasiak8642]

He thinks the systems fine because the upgrade would destroy him.

[@SolarizeYourLife]

He needs to pass on the cost to the owners of the pigs...

[@thefpvlife7785]

I know.. selfish man.

[@Chris-zn2pz]

Was a prison worker out there working with white lake fire department we worked for 2 weeks before I went back to camp

[@esler1209]

Quit eating it

[@Lady_Angela1]

Esler 120 NO!

[@esler1209]

K

[@portlandsamber]

@wildwilllis1 Yeah, we know. So much so that you'll ruin yourself for it. Real cool, man. Real cool. Mmm. Enjoy your bacon.

[@Crazy--Clown]

Lol haha Butler you silly old man

[@geman741]

was listening to this while reading a story with a straight poker face and when the woman said deep shit, i let out a grin

[@sarcasmo57]

My father-in-law usually keeps between 3 and 5 pigs, butchers them every few months then gets more. He built himself a methane digester out of cement, they do all their cooking with the gas it provides and they have gas to spare for the neighbours.

[@92yankee52]

Trapped bio gas to electricity is pretty dope.

[@simple22travel11]

Imagine if animals dressed up in clothes and started bossing people around.... haha

[@Konglomerant]

3:42-3:48 funniest shit Ive seen all day...

[@mariogonzales4211]

He was acting like he knew what he was doing.

[@jayjackson9250]

I still can't stop laughing..he looks like he's scared of that keyboard

[@stratdaddy]

Is the audio out of sync for anyone else starting around 2 minutes?

[@SorenCicchini]

There's a simple solution - treat pig waste to the same standards as human waste. As mentioned in the story, commercial entities make decisions on a commercial basis, so changes will only occur if mandated by government regulation, which is appropriate because this is a public health issue.

[@blech71]

Ever crap in a semi clogged toilet and flush... and when that water isn’t going down and the water starts to rise..... THAT STRESS!!! Yeah that’s like a whole state sitting on top of a semi clogged toilet that’s trying to flush.

[@Patchuchan]

The solution is to compost it and use the bio gas to run machinery and generate heat and electricity. Since it's mostly methane you can even modify natural gas and propane appliances to run on it.

[@obriantucker2256]

They can literally find them selves in deep shit. GOLD 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

[@lawerancelanham]

It's because of our "corporate society". If people like something and there's a dollar to be made... they'll exploit the life out of it and whatever else that they need to, to make $. The foresight is all about profit... never about doing the right thing in that mind set.

[@derekk4659]

Are the lagoons lined? Cause if its so toxic but your just dumping it into lagoons its going to leak. Its not a "if" its a when

[@duchess1182]

Can't they package and sell the manure/waste as fertilizer? Wouldn't that be easier and more environmentally friendly?

[@rachelp4251]

the way that old man types SENT ME hahahaa

[@vilecrocodile9171]

Send it to the desert mixed with seeds. Turn it into a forest.

[@bg5561742]

Need water for that how’s that gonna work in the desert

[@Ukaknir]

To answer the title of this video, it's because people keep consuming them.

[@OB.x]

to idiots like you, that isn't possible, or smart. you wouldn't have any of your precious veggies wth an uncontrollable pig population

[@big3ye378]

Rural lagoons are also breeding grounds for antibiotic resistant genes. Half of antibiotics administered in the US are fed to livestock.

[@PresidentialWinner]

Shit hit the fan

[@Haya-bq3ob]

Lol trueee. I’m doing my part by not giving that industry any of my money 😄 #plantbasedFTW

[@maxmarx2]

Get your vegan ideals out of here

[@rajiefierce]

Did they run out of time? Will there be a part two? This was the most abrupt ending to a video I’ve ever seen

[@johngutierrez1664]

Even poop gets to be on the news nowadays lol

[@sherwinwilliam]

"Literally in deep shit" lol

[@Cenobyte40k]

First off, those things should have to have the top of their levies and berms be at least 15 feet above any flood plane within 100 feet of the pond. In most cases, this would just mean building up the sides 5 or 6 feet from where they are with clay. That would solve around 99% of the issue with them flooding out. 2nd, we shouldn't allow them to do this. If they don't have a system to manage the waste away not just store it forever then they don't have a business they have a superfund sites they are creating for someone else.

[@Slumpthemenace]

Im fucking dead she said deep shit 😂😂

[@jasonfederico6754]

Go watch at 2:50! actually it’s $900,000 not $1,500,000

[@emmanuelrodriguez1043]

He's got 3 of em' here and 2 others 5...

[@kronosaurelius]

There should be a certification so that consumers can choose the environmentally superior farm. First time I look into this. If there a certification I'll come back and update my comment.

[@teresaweaver1012]

STG....I posted on this several times on social media after hurricane Florence. Now it's finally being reported on. It's been happening for decades!!!

[@bub74sc28]

What a load of crap

[@shaegrover9516]

Regulations to raise the wall levels of the containment areas. Problem solved. Maybe also so no spraying a day or so before it rains as to not leech down river.

[@greymomma]

Ask the people, (most low income and African American), living near these large pig farms what it’s like when they spray the fields. The mist drifts and lands onto their houses. The smell is so intense they can’t go outside or even open their windows. Their kids are prone to asthma and adults to lung disease. Wonder why you’ll never find any nice homes anywhere near large pig farms?

[@TheBic4]

Every lagoon should have an 10 ft tall wall around it.

[@peterfriess1202]

and make Trump pay!

[@TheBic4]

Peter Friess's Cooking and baking How To he has no problems spending hundreds of thousands on hush agreements. This would secure farmer votes for him so why not?

[@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

Methane cometh from Pigshit - Beyond Thunderdome, 1985

[@johnwayne6647]

That’s a very good way to use the hog waste as fertilizer it’s reusing the waste and a lot of farmers don’t have the cash to cover the lagoons maybe if the government helped as they did with one of the farmers that would help and more education would do good

[@humbleone6405]

Can you even imagine the trauma to these poor animals .

[@carlosgonzalez6464]

So they rent the pigs but own their shit. Sounds like a finesse to me 😂

[@gigilaco]

*I don't see why people are blaming farmers. I can't grow enough food to sustain myself, can you? They aren't the problem, we're all part of a broken system which we're all equally responsible for. I'm glad that Vice brings awareness to these issues though.*

[@Midnight_Freefall]

*reads title* Hey, the Panthers aren't that bad...

[@josiptumapa]

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!! 🤭😂 my stomach.

[@Snackdaddy570]

That's some deep shit

[@cortesantonio13]

Substitutes?

[@VaqueroVegano]

Go vegang mayne🐾

[@TheKdizzle1971]

If it ain't fixed don't broke it lololol

[@edgarartis1260]

¡¡I NEED BACON NOW!!

[@FarmerTed]

There is hardly a farmer that wouldn’t want that waste to fertilizer his field. I’ll take a ton an acre please!

[@jeffc2346]

2:05 "all thas caca-lated"

[@Andyhaucqog1]

Why not grow tilapia in those ponds as well?

[@hassanmohammad2750]

Thank god I'm vegan. Just wait how much hate I will get. lol

[@twdjt6245]

Aaaaaand we wonder why antibiotics have been found in so much of our water supply.

[@daniswara1164]

Here in Indonesia cattles' waste are processed to biogas, and compost soil. I don't why people in America didn't adapt it. After all feces whether it came from human, or animal can be processed to biogas and can or may be processed further to electricity

[@savagedragon79]

Does he really take care of 15000 hogs? He just fattens them up before slaughter. If your parents did that you wouldn't say they took care of you.

[@thegypsyking962]

Too much ribs = too much pig = too much shit

[@montanajones8393]

This is old news. This has been an issue since the late 90's early 2000's. There were many articles written about mystery illnesses in areas surrounding these farms. Like GMO's, farming is run by large conglomerates & the system has been broken for a long time. As the saying goes if it ain't broke, why fix it?

[@heartbreakmanNo1]

Damn...........sum real deep shitz :T

[@Infamousjr719]

2 finger typing killed me...

[@mrvictorhs1654]

Pig so dirty, meat full with worm and disease, how people eat this animal?? 'Just asking'

[@getbackinthekitchen878]

Bacon is good. Pork chops are good.

[@SolarizeYourLife]

That's only in your religion buddy...my holy book don't say that.... Stop spreading false facts Don't you know, religion is man's way of holding power over other men...

[@mrvictorhs1654]

Bible say unclean

[@TigerTT]

Some people are so crazy about bacon that they'd start a civil war over it if bacon was ever taken away from them lol

[@garyevans9370]

- - - and Akbar is great.

[@rainbowpierrot1951]

I wish the givernment would just pay for his poop thing to be upgrade, rather than cleaning up the mess year after year and it only costs more that way anyway plus all the environmental harm etc. he probably wants the cleaner option but just cant afford it, we should support our farmers more, and help them switch to sustainable methods of farming that are also better for the animals.

[@farmsim_usa9235]

Maybe this wouldn't be a problem if the FARMERS ran the industry, not the billion dollar cooperate companies. I'm looking at you Smithfield

[@blech71]

Solutions coming as fast as old dood is typing

[@ejk2482]

Vice doing a report on themselves

[@sardbr6335]

Dont eat my friends!

[@maumuse2211]

Great documentary but something about them using the word shit lowered the quality of the program for me...

[@paradoxdea]

Sort of like the tax bill. No one ever knew what hit them, or didn't care.

[@RickSuaz]

If this was used as fertiliser for the mountains and landscapes around the entire country than it wouldn't be an issue. Heck they feed the entire country with its waste. This is a business that didn't think of this in a large scale.

[@Alagathevictor]

Come to Denmark, drive an hour south-west of Copenhagen. You ain´t smelled nothing yet

[@jstar1369]

3:46 look at that old ass 🍘😁😁

[@QuietStormX]

ISMH on why He or a lot were not educated in Waste Management. I feel his State and Others should had drown up Rules and regulation for all in Waste Management and security from Flooding these Waste Ponds... It's GOP State too on this... ;-(

[@Modern.Millennial]

North Carolina is more of a swing state actually.

[@QuietStormX]

Well then this State is ripe to Change to get what is needed done for a long time to make up for what has not been done City and States...

[@Dr.JamesJohannson]

Regulation is a tricky business. The chance for creating an over regulated system with unknown repercussions is pretty high. A great deal of thought needs to be put in and a conversation needs to happen between farmers and the government before one draws up the laws.

[@QuietStormX]

States rule over Cities and People need to elect the People to make this happen and do it right.. Over Regulation, what is that after you look at the situation and learn what the needs are for the Farmers and Communities around these Farms and waterways.. To prevent runoff of Farms not updated or just cheap to invest... The Cities can force them to update or get out..

[@eurerp.7760]

Jesus christ. You have no fucking proof that the GOP is the cause of farmers being uneducated in waste management.

[@saisiwere2871]

This farmers must be really rich, the setup looks expensive..

[@djinnbay3657]

WORMS. WORMS. WORMS!

[@basvanbeers3515]

If it's not broken, don't fix it! It is broken though! Go and fucking fix it.

[@leeluv96]

This made me itch so bad.

[@amorag59]

Because they just had a dang hurricane

[@KieranMullen]

Video cut short

[@bernardjones9920]

Okay i know what to do. They need to get water trucks or water tanks and take the pig weights to a cost to ship boat, and take the weights to the middle of the ocean and let the saltwater and fishes do they work. .P.S THIS WON'T CAUSE THAT MUCH...I think.:)

[@cortanipark5333]

too cover this poop it's gonna be about $300,000 if I wanted to close this down it would cost us $328,000

[@rudiesan_89]

"Everybody in NC knows pig poop is a big problem." lol

[@PostalPatriot556]

Id like to point out tha all of our water looks like weak coffee pig poop on no poop lol