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Farmers in North Carolina are working to avoid a potential manure lagoon flood as Hurricane Florence approaches.
Manure overspill, should it occur, could pose a serious threat to surrounding waterways and wildlife.
Risks
The area is so densely populated with pig farms, that environmentalist Katy Langley says ‘when you fly over the area, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one’.
An employee of environmental protection organization Sound Rivers, Langley cited concerns of manure floods running into nearby rivers that it is her job to protect.
Diverting waste
Farm workers in the area are pumping waste out of the lagoons and using it as fertilizer in the hopes of creating enough room for impending rainfall.
However, it’s currently unclear whether they can accommodate such heavy rains.
Lagoon floods
Manure lagoon floods are a common occurrence – with or without extreme weather conditions.
A British Columbia farm was recently fined $17,000 CAD, partly the result of a manure spill – while a dairy farm in Indiana was fined $10,000 USD for a spill that killed 3,500 fish.
