Some states have laws requiring pork producers to post bonds to ensure that abandoned waste lagoons are cleaned up, but not North Carolina. Several states have stricter permitting requirements and mandatory odor abatement planning requirements. Other states are beginning to tighten up technology requirements for hog factories. For example, Colorado now requires that waste lagoons be covered to reduce odors and cut down on ammonia emissions to the air. Open-air waste lagoons are the norm in North Carolina.
People living in eastern North Carolina counties think hog factories are just fine the way they are.
Hog factories are not disproportionately hurting low-income or black North Carolinians. The ten counties in North Carolina that produce the most hogs have significantly more poor households and higher percentages of black residents than the state overall. The hog industry says that the fact that the pristine Black River runs through Sampson County is evidence that hog farms don't pollute. The main stem of the Black River is one of North Carolina's outstanding rivers, not because nearby hog farms are clean, but because the naturally tea-colored swamp waters which dominate the drainage into the river, giving the river its name, also block the penetration of sunlight into the river waters. Therefore, the river has conditions where algal blooms from nutrient pollution are not likely to occur.