And while officials here discuss the terms of the extension, legislators in South Carolina are scrambling to enact their own rules to ban large swine operations. South Carolina legislators are worried about hog farms springing up to supply the Smithfield Packing Co. hog-slaughtering plant in Tar Heel, about 30 miles north of the South Carolina line. South Carolina state Sen. Maggie Glover of Florence said her constituents do not want thousands more hogs in their back yards. We don't have to have the second kick of the mule. Since 1997, North Carolina has restricted the expansion of hog farms with more than 250 animals.
Environmentalists say the open lagoons used to store hog waste pollute groundwater and rivers.
Neighbors of the farms say they smell. The extension of North Carolina's moratorium would allow scientists more time to test new ways of handling hog waste. Many of South Carolina's largest hog farms are already clustered in the Pee Dee region of the state, just over the state line from North Carolina. And at least two more large farms are planned for the area, in Marlboro and Dillon counties. The Pee Dee region is just more than 30 miles from Smithfield Packing Co., the world's largest hog slaughterhouse.