Why I am a Vegan

[Jade]

12% of the US population of pigs live in North Carolina.

https://qz.com/1386629/hurricane-florenc...e-lagoons/

North Carolina is one of the biggest hog-farming states in the US, with about 9 million pigs being raised on some 2,300 farms. That equals a lot of manure—about 10 billion pounds of wet animal waste are produced in the state a year, according to the Waterkeeper Alliance. Farms store the pigs’ feces in uncovered, earthen lagoons, some the size of football fields. And now they’re at risk of becoming a public health hazard when Hurricane Florence touches down.

The storm is set to sweep through North Carolina on Thursday or Friday, and the manure lagoons are squarely in its path. A farming journal urged hog farmers to prepare for the storm.

We’ve seen this before: 2016’s Hurricane Matthew inundated 14 hog manure lagoons. In the days leading up to the hurricane’s landfall, some farmers pumped waste out of their lagoons and hauled it away in an effort to limit the damage. Hurricane Floyd in 1999 did much worse, flooding “dozens” of hog lagoons and causing half a dozen lagoons’ containing walls to fail. The liquid waste that escaped eventually wound up in estuaries, and was blamed for algae blooms and fish kills.

Floodwaters that come in contact with hog feces make for a toxic soup, and raises fears about the potential for bacteria from the pig feces to contaminate North Carolina’s groundwater.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-hur...BBN9nAX|14

Stone said that relocating animals in the storm zone was not an option for many farmers. "Nobody would have the capacity to handle your animals," Stone said. "That's not really an option."