�����This isn't really a Confederate topic but I'm gonna rant on it anyway.

�����I bought my house about eleven years ago. It was the old homeplace my father was raised on and where my grandparents lived until their deaths. It ain't much but it's where I like to call home. It's way out in the country and my roots are very deep here. As the crow flies I live about a mile from the Neuse River which runs from the mountains of North Carolina to the Atlantic Ocean.

�����A few years ago a Wayne County swine farmer who lives about ten miles from here came and erected a ten house hog operation between me and the river. The farm is complete with a waste lagoon. Spraying of the contents onto adjacent fields is almost constant.

������If you have never smelled hog waste from a lagoon there is really no way to describe it to you other than it is a sickley, nauseating, sour stench that literally stinks to high heaven. It gets in your hair, clothes, and even gets in your skin, and if it is strong enough it won't wash off. it has to wear off. The lagoon waste combined with the typical high humidity of southeastern North Carolina makes for a virtual prison here at home.

�����I have actually had to leave my own home and go stay with a friend until the stench dies down some. Especially when a local chicken farmer spreads his chicken litter at the same time this hog farmer dumps the contents of his lagoon. I can't plan a cookout, I have to be very careful when I hang out my laundry, and I have even had guests over who have left because of the smell. In the springtime, which is my favorite time of year, I like to open up the windows, after a long winter of being cooped up, and just enjoy the fresh air and the sounds of spring. Not anymore. Chances are if I do our "friendly neighborhood lagoon" is being dumped and on a really bad day the wind will be blowing directly towards my house.

������I have found out that in 1997 my county of Wayne, was the fourth largest county in North Carolina in terms of agriultural waste production. The adjacent counties of, Lenoir, Greene, Duplin, Sampson, and Johnston are all in the top 10. If I had know that there was going to be a swine operation less than a half mile from here I certainly would never have bought this place. (Not to mention how much my property value has dropped) Which leads me to the point of this rant.

������Not only is this "pork factory" a nusiance to the community, it is hazardous to the environment by being , in my opinion, dangerously close to an irregation canal that runs directly into the dying Neuse River. I say dying because scientists have found a bacteria unlike any ordinary bacteria living dormant in it called Pfiestereia piscicida. They say Pfiesteria piscicida has been around for thousands of years but the recent influence of nitrogen into the ecosystem has caused it to mutate. When temperatures and oxygen saturation is high enough it becomes toxic. Toxic to fish and humans. Thirteen researchers who worked with dilute toxic cultures of Pfiesteria piscicida sustained mild to serious adverse health impacts through water contact or by INHALING toxic aerosols from laboratory cultures.

��� These people generally worked with the toxic cultures for 1-2 hours per day over a 5-6 week period.���

����The effects include a suite of symptoms such as narcosis (a "drugged" effect), development of sores (in areas that directly contact water containing toxic cultures of Pfiesteria piscicida, and also on the chest and face), uniform reddening of the eyes, severe headaches, blurred vision, nausea/vomiting, sustained difficulty breathing (asthma-like effects), kidney and liver dysfunction, acute short-term memory loss, and severe cognitive impairment (= serious difficulty in Sores obtained from contact with water containing toxic cultures of Pfiesteria piscicida being able to read, remember one's name, dial a telephone number, or do simple arithmetic beyond 1 + 2 = 3).

��� Most of the acute symptoms proved reversible over time, provided that the affected people were not allowed near the toxic cultures again.

��� Some of these effects have recurred (relapsed) in people following strenuous exercise, thus far up to six years after exposure to these toxic fish-killing cultures.

��� Moreover, subcutaneous injection of crude toxin preparations from fish-killing cultures have induced serious learning impairment and memory loss in experimental laboratory rats (work by Drs. Levin and Schmechel at Duke University).

��� The discovery, the "hard way," that Pfiesteria is unusual in its ability to produce toxins which can aerosolize, led to requirements by state and federal officials that all further work with toxic fish-killing cultures of this dinoflagellate be conducted in biohazard level III containment systems in a limited-access facility

��� These precautions must be followed for any research with live toxic cultures of Pfiesteria.

���������Fish kills and fish disease events linked to Pfiesteria can extend for 6-8 weeks in North Carolina's estuaries, thus potentially providing the circumstances for humans in field settings to be hurt due to this dinoflagellate's toxins.

��� However, it will not be possible to determine the extent to which people in our estuaries are being affected by Pfiesteria toxins, or whether it is safe to consume fish from toxic outbreak areas, until we have a way to diagnose the presence of these toxins.

��� That will require identification of the chemical toxins produced by Pfiesteria, which is the subject of intensive research.

������The Winston Salem Journal ran the following story in 1998 on the effects of hog waste on our environment.....

Winston Salem Journal
Hog Farm Pollution The evidence mounts
July 10, 1998
������Few would now argue that North Carolina's streams and rivers aren't in trouble. But who's to blame for the increased levels of nitrogen in our waters has always depended on whom you asked.

������Most scientists and environmentalists blame hog farms. The hog farmers and their lobbyists point the finger at municipal sewer plants and mysterious natural forces, arguing that there is no ''conclusive'' evidence that hogs have anything to do with the pollution.

������The already tall stack of evidence against the hog farms just got taller.

������A new report compiled by the state Division of Air Quality and researchers at N.C. State University says that hog farm lagoons are by far the largest cause of ammonia pollution in the state.

������Environmentalists have long been concerned about the waste that leaks and spills from hog lagoons into rivers and streams, but the new evidence suggests that spills may be nothing compared to the combined pollution that drifts into the air daily from the state's 2,400 large hog farms, only to be returned to the ground by rain and wind.

������Over the past year, the Division of Air Quality has estimated that hog farms constitute the largest source of airborne ammonia in the state -- generating more than cattle, chickens and turkeys combined. Those estimates are now being confirmed by direct measurements of hog lagoons, part of a $450,000 research program financed last year by the General Assembly.

������The lagoons, open cesspools of feces and urine that bake in the sun, collectively discharge at least 186 tons of ammonia into North Carolina's air every day. That's about six times the waste that was dumped into the New River when a lagoon in Onslow County broke open in 1995 and spilled more than 22 million gallons.

������Ammonia is the most potent form of nitrogen, which triggers algae blooms and fish kills in coastal waters. The prevailing winds in eastern North Carolina tend to blow emissions from the hog belt toward the Neuse River and the Pamlico Sound. About half the ammonia rises as a gas and generally falls to forests, fields or open water within 50 miles. The N.C. Pork Council, predictably, says the report is inaccurate, that there are many factors that could be blamed for this pollution. But the evidence against hog farms is becoming so strong that such denials from the industry increasingly strain credulity.

������In Sampson County, the heart of the state's hog belt, a small device has measured rainfall for the past 20 years. In 1985, when the number of hog farms started to boom, the samples started to show increased amounts of ammonia. By 1996, the amount of ammonia falling in rain had more than doubled. The time is long past to clean up the hog industry. Hog lagoons are the cheapest way to dispose of hog waste, but not the only way. Closed hog waste treatment systems are used successfully in other states.

������North Carolina's hog farmers have long complained that the cost of this safer equipment would eat too far into their profits. The evidence shows that the people of North Carolina are paying far too high a price for those hog industry profits. It is time for the General Assembly to do something about it.

��� God only knows what will happen to our rivers now since the flooding from hurricaines Dennis, Floyd and Irene in 1999. Like I said I live about one mile from the river and this swine operation is between my house and the river and I had flood waters 100 feet from my front door. This lagoon was completely underwater and still he had his irregation systems spraying this raw sewage directly on the floodwaters!!!!!! This was just one incedent. How many more were there along the Neuse and other rivers where the same thing took place?

������How long is the Federal Government and the EPA going to allow these "pork factories" to locate on flood plains, near rivers, streams, wetlands, and on a personal note near communities and neighborhoods? I feel that somehow my rights as a citizen, taxpayer, and homeowner have been violated. Sure I could move, but I was here first. Why do I have to be a prisoner in my own home?