The legislators did not know that hurricanes sometimes come ashore in North Carolina? The lagoons have now overflowed and pigsh_t, 100,000 dead pigs and other dead animals have created a major heath crisis and groundwater polution in the area. Why did the legislature allow this except in response to campaign contributions? Even if the pigs were allowed, why were these sewage lagoons allowed? What was supposed to happen to the pig sh_t? Was the pig fairy supposed to come and turn it into fertilizer? Look at what this volume of product did to the air quality and now to the water quality. Will North Carolina now be known as the Pig Sh_t State? Why would banks be so stupid as to lend money for these businesses with these risks? They drove pork prices down earlier this year to the point where a 250 pound hog was worth $23 which is less than the tip that the waiter would get in a nice restaurant to serve the meals to 4 people. Curly sometimes feels that he is pretty smart compared to some of these bozos.

A similar problem could easily happen in other areas next January if electric power is disrupted, water AND SEWER (people related) can not be pumped, and this material deposits itself in inappropriate places.

-- Moe (Moe@3stooges.gom), September 21, 1999

Answers

Does anyone know anything about the "dynoflaggelate"(sp?) algae/bacteria from NC that was wakened from it's dormant phase by the nutrients from pigshit runoff in that state? This bug caused unhealing open sores and neurological damage in fish AND people. Brief contact with the bug in a lab resulted in serious disorientation and short-term memory loss. An MD at the NC university got a lot of hard data on this thing but the local fisheries/tourism bureaucrats tried to hush it up. An update would be appreciated.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), September 21, 1999.

Its called "CORPORATE FARMING" and its ruining a way of life for the family farmer. I have pity for the people of NC that let this problem become so pervasive in their beautiful state. Do you think the hog farmers know now the meaning of flood plain? I bet they don't even have to clean up their own sh*t.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), September 21, 1999.

If you buy pork from the supermarket, then you are part of the problem of the corporate farms. If you buy pork from a small farmer who raises his how pigs and have them butchered for you then you are fighting the corporate farm. If you lobby the government to allow on the farm processing of hogs by the farmer himself, they you really are an enemy of the corporate farm. So do not just bitch about how dump the people in NC are, get proactive and buy and support the smaller farmer. IF you are not buying directly from a small farmer, then you are part of the problem. I raise the best tasting chickens on pasture and process them myself, and would do the same with hogs and pork, but the government will not let me, so we have 100,000 pigs floating in NC.

-- chicken farmer (chicken-farmer@ y2k.farm), September 21, 1999.

Chicken Farmer,

Where are you?

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), September 21, 1999.

Liberty,

Pfisteria. Dr. Susan Burkholtz (sp?) NC State University, Raleigh I think she's a researcher, not an MD. There's a book on this now. Also article in Scientific American magazine I think. I'm not sure the pig connection is proven, but I wouldn't be surprised.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), September 21, 1999.

Thanks Puddintame. I'll look for the book.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), September 21, 1999.

DINOFLAGELLATES (sp?)

North Carolina is going to pay a heavy price. There was a book along the lines of And The Water Turned To Blood

Seems that the infection is related to agricultural runoff and Red Tide "blooms." NC tourest industry will ROT!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), September 21, 1999.

I guess it is just a shitty day all around! Anybody else get the feeling we have just started the y2k crunch time. What was the recommendation for y2k? Prepare for a storm? Yes, I see. Of course, if you are heavily into precious metals then, this day was pretty nice.

-- Jim the Window Washer (Rational@man.com), September 21, 1999.

This is a prime example of the type of 'crap' that is going to be magnified by Y2K. First, the corruption of the political process by the Farmers for Fairness (for large corporate farms, that is)using ludicrous promises that "This will never happen" (No power blackouts, leave your money in the bank", buying TV ads to sway opinion, etc.)

Next the lack of infrastructure to deal with widespread catastrophic conditions in a timely or efficient manner. The impossibility of doing so when the catastrophe is large in size....

Then the lack of economic fallback- family hog farms driven out of buisness, tobacco industry sued out of buisness.

Add water contamination to this mix and the result is ruinous.

There will be hell to pay for Boss Hog in the legislature next year.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 21, 1999.

Do you all suppose that the environmentalists are thrilled about the events taking place in the Carolinas? They have always said that animals, especially cattle, damage the ecosystem, and the animal rights activists must really be LTAO because the poor animals have died a natural death instead of being sent to the slaughter houses and then off for human consumption. There are always some winners and some losers, but ask the winners if they give a rats ass about the losers...just an observation, that's all.

-- observer (observer@observerrr.com), September 21, 1999.

When I lived in Illinois, some of these pig shit ponds overflowed, leaked, etc... the result was thousands of dead fish in streams and rivers nearby. What was the "punishment"? Pay a few thousand to have the rivers restocked with fish and don't let it happen again. These are superfund sites just waiting to be discovered.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), September 21, 1999.

We're not dealing with just fish, we are dealing with people's lives. No telling what new diseases will be cropping up when everything is said and done. I suspect though, there will be some very furtile farmlands and beautiful gardens this spring, that is if there's anyone around to farm them.

-- observer (observer@observerrr.com), September 21, 1999.

Hate to tell you, but it's FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND dead pigs, and still counting. And much of the pork was exported to Asia, by the way. For the long story of the shenanigans involved in this sorry mess, see this search I did on "lagoon" at the Raleigh News & Observer:

http://search.news-observer.com/plweb-cgi/fastweb?search

There were 485 hits; here's just the first 25:

1. Editorial: Higher ground for hogs (11/11/96, The N&O)

2. Point of View: Hog farm rules: More safeguards, please (10/10/96, The N&O)

3. Editorial: Lessons from the flood (09/22/96, The N&O)

4. Proposed hog permits called too lenient (11/08/96, The N&O)

5. Lagoon-leak fears mean hog farmers get OK to spray waste on soggy fields (11/04/96, The N&O)

6. Floods imperil hog farms (09/20/96, The N&O)

7. Waste lagoons that withstood Fran overflowing now due to rain (09/12/96, The N&O)

8. Hog lagoons holding up (09/07/96, The N&O)

9. Letter: Soggy no more (11/14/96, The N&O)

10. Company says bubble machine cuts stink of hog lagoons (09/25/96, The N&O)

11. Million gallons of hog waste spill in Jones County (08/13/96, The N&O)

12. Million gallons of hog waste spill in Jones County (08/13/96, The N&O)

13. Hog lobbyists bring home bacon (06/01/96, The N&O)

14. Local health boards make own farm rules (05/02/96, The N&O)

15. Legislators take look at waste systems (04/09/96, The N&O)

16. Editorial: Senate menu: pork (05/02/97, The N&O)

17. Letter: Sewer plants too (04/20/96, The N&O)

18. Untreated sewage flows through N.C. waterways (09/13/96, The N&O)

19. Warnings went unheard at Faircloth cattle farm (06/15/96, The N&O)

20. Hog waste research gets boost (06/10/96, The N&O)

21. Hog panel wants farms to pay part of bill for waste inspections (05/09/96, The N&O)

22. Lawsuit says hog operation contaminated drinking water (06/28/96, The N&O)

23. Dennis Rogers: Hog ad is a welcome target (06/22/96, The N&O)

24. Letter: Overflowing ads (04/26/97, The N&O)

25. Editorial: Spills still a threat (07/17/96, The N&O)

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 21, 1999.

If you go to the N&O search site referenced above and search on "pfiesteria," you'll coem up with a bunch of hits. Here's info on the book:

Wednesday April 2, 1997

Back to North Carolina

Author hopes publicity will help rivers

Fiction with a serious purpose

BY CATHERINE CLABBY, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- Author Rodney Barker knows publicity over his new book has spread unfounded fears that North Carolina may be an unsafe vacation spot. But there's an important message beneath all the hype, he said.

The growth of a toxic organism in polluted North Carolina rivers, documented in his book, is a dramatic example of what happens when a natural environment gets overburdened, he said. And it's a story that will be repeated if people don't become better guardians of waterways.

"There is a price with which North Carolina is purchasing its prosperity," Barker told about a dozen people Tuesday at a book-signing at N.C. State University.

"You've had huge population growth, huge growth in the swine industry. At the same time you want to preserve the tourism and fishing industries. Talk about incompatible interests."

The author of "And the Waters Turned to Blood" appeared at the reading alone. NCSU professor JoAnn Burkholder, the heroine of his tale, was unable to attend, he said.

It was Burkholder who identified the blood-hungry, one-celled organism called pfiesteria that has been linked to more than 100 fish kills in North Carolina rivers. Barker became fascinated with her science and the battle to get state officials to take the microscopic animal seriously after visiting the Neuse River area during a fish kill in 1995.

It is not yet clear whether pfiesteria poses a threat to people who encounter it in the wild. But doctors who practice near the Neuse River fear it might. It has harmed people and animals in laboratories.

Following publicity over the book, people from all over the country called state health officials to see whether it was safe to travel here.

Barker said he can't be blamed for such misinterpretations. Instead, he wants to inspire people to learn more about new kinds of environmental threats and to prod public officials to respond to them quickly and responsibly.

"Health departments are crisis driven. They wait until there is a clear-cut problem," he said. "The question now is 'Can we afford to wait?' "

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 21, 1999.

Well, I guess we can say that they have all gone to "Hog Heaven." This little piggy went to market (not this time), this little piggy stayed home (too bad for him), this little piggy went.....to hog heaven?

-- oink oink (oinkoink@oinkoink.com), September 21, 1999.

PIG POOP & IMMORALITY, 1 IN THE SAME.

-- watching u.s.a decline. (dogs@zianet.com), September 21, 1999.

The University of Maryland tells all about Pfiesteria piscicida.

EPA joins the chorus: What You Should Know About Pfiesteria piscicida

Several links to articles on Pfiesteria here.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), September 21, 1999.

Now this is one worthy thread (my mother lives in Iowa).

I live in Maryland, where it's chicken shit, not pig shit, that's poisoning the Cheasapeake (sp?) Bay, which is only the most wonderful water resource in the whole damn world.

We humans were given a wonderful world, a simply glorious world, which in our gratitude we have proceeded to mess up with both hands.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), September 22, 1999.

There is a solution for it, Peter. A complete 'culling' of the human population followed by careful examination of the mistakes made and the *refusal* to repeat them. The Amish communities are looking wiser and wiser every day. How many in the past, considered it to be an 'odd' lifestyle? The Amish make the Mormon community appear to be unprepared Pollys!

As Yosemite Sam used to say, "Rabbits is sooooo stupid".

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), September 22, 1999.

And the news this morning is that we shall soon have the 6 billionth person in the world and that it took only 12 years to go from 5 billion to 6 billion. 95% of the population increase is in Africa and Asia. The US is one of the few developed countries with an increasing population (due to immigration).

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 22, 1999.

Moe, you are witnessing the inevitabe consequences of gross human overpopulation and corporate farming. I remember as a kid we would drive through Southern VA. and E. NC. and see small farms by the hundreds. They would have just one or two hundred free range hogs. They grew their own fodder and the little guy could make a good living and feed his family without mass concentrations of animals. Plus he would grow a little tobacco and have a veggie garden. They canned and rotated livestock to fertilize fields. Now you have thousands of hogs in all environmental buildings producing untold tons of waste and heavy developement all around so there's not as much land left to spread it on. Too many people AND hogs on too little land =potential disaster=disaster now realized.

I live in N. GA. and we are experiencing huge population growth with a corresponding decline in living standards as well. Regular sewage plant overflows, water shortages. traffic problems, higher taxes etc.

Large corporations who own mass animal confinement facilities as well as farmland, feed mills, processing plants, seed companies and other links in the food chain are now controlling market prices, financing and market acess. They are undercutting prices and forcing the family farms out of existence, and society will pay a horrible price in the long run because we have created a Frankenstein's monster to line the pockets of multinationals like Cargill and ADM. If we don't get these gangsters out of the land-ownership and livestock ownership end of food production, we will find ourselves totally dependant on just a few companies for ALL our food needs.

These people have bought plenty of politicians, and that is why my native state, NC has this curse of mass hog operations on its coastal plain where excess rainfall has nowhere to go but up to the rooftops.There is a long and sorry story behind all of this and other areas of livestock and crop farming as well. I could go on, but it makes me sick, and I've got a farm to run, on the Piedmont, thank God.

-- doktorbob (downsouth@dixie.com), September 22, 1999.

Environmental issues like these are one of two major reasons why I cannot fully commit to libertarianism. Private property is fine and good, but some resources we must share and manage publically like the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the soil in which we farm. It's fine if some nimrod wants to dump all his animal feces in his backyard, but it becomes a public problem when the aquifer carries that s*** downstream across the property line. Or when a gut-wrenching, diabolical tragedy like Floyd hits your region.

I wish I knew what the correct solution to this sort of thing was, but Floyd has been teaching me a lesson on how little I know about anything, leaving me scratching my head. It's a disaster that hits close to home, too, because I used to live in Greenville, NC from '85 to '88. The thought that some of the friends and families I know are having to persist in a stinking, disease-infested, carcass-strewn deathscape is pretty bothersome. Even more bothersome is that there was something that could have been done to mitigate this kind of damage.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), September 22, 1999.

When we got out of farming 20 years ago, manure pits and lagoons were just starting to come into vogue. The whole idea behind them is to be less polluting to the environment, as well as preserving the fertilizer value of the manure. Without a manure pit, a farmer has to spread him manure on his fields every day, 12 months out of the year. Manure spread in fall and winter in particular will partly wash away into the nearest creek before the farmer gets to plow it down in the spring. Manure pits are supposed to prevent this --a farmer can spread it once a year, then immediately plow it under. Of course, sh- t happens, and sometimes once-in-a century floods come and wash away the best of intentions. These are the kind of unintended consequences we can expect lots of in 2000.

-- Tom Knepper (thomas_knepper@intuit.com), September 22, 1999.

I remember the pig shit incident fairly well. Now, in 2004 it is VERY hard to find relevant stories. I have a Canadian Alternative Energy site http://www.juiced.ca and i was trying to find some answers in regards to what we now know as "dead zones" (re: Hypoxic Events and it took me some 14 hours of gooooooooooooogling to find an article that dealt realistically with this tragedy. Did we know about these events in 99?

- Juiced Juiced.ca

-- Juiced (General@juiced.ca), December 12, 2004.