The North Carolina Hog Industry Is Concentrated In Pollution-Sensitive Coastal Areas. Hog production is concentrated in 22 eastern North Carolina counties. Thirteen of those counties are located in watersheds already identified by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission as nutrient impaired. Duplin and Sampson Counties led the nation in 1994 in hog numbers, with 1.47 and 1.45 million animals, respectively. The 1994 herd of 7 million hogs produced almost ten billion pounds of fresh excrement, including about 70 million pounds of nitrogen.
Hogs excrete about four times the wastes that humans do.
Hog Excrement Causes Serious Pollution Problems Hog excrement is dumped on farm land after lagoon storage. In contrast to land application of human waste, the dumping of hog excrement is managed with little oversight and by people with little training in waste management. Hog waste dumping is allowed on property not owned by the applicators, with few limits on annual and lifetime loading. Existing rules for hog waste dumping require certification by 1997, but no formal permitting. The largest, in June 1995 from Oceanview Farms in Onslow County, dumped about 25 million gallons into the New River, killing fish for miles downstream.