Florence could flood hog manure pits, coal ash dumps

[Judi Lynn]

Michael Biesecker, Associated Press
Updated 1:32 am CDT, Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Hurricane Florence's heavy rains could cause an environmental disaster in North Carolina, where waste from hog manure pits, coal ash dumps and other industrial sites could wash into homes and threaten drinking water supplies.

Computer models predict more than 3 feet of rain in the eastern part of the state, a fertile low-lying plain veined by brackish rivers with a propensity for escaping their banks. Longtime locals don't have to strain their imaginations to foresee what rain like that can do. It's happened before.

In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd came ashore near Cape Fear as a Category 2 storm that dumped about 2 feet of water on a region already soaked days earlier by Hurricane Dennis. The result was the worst natural disaster in state history, a flood that killed dozens of people and left whole towns underwater, their residents stranded on rooftops.

supplies.

Computer models predict more than 3 feet of rain in the eastern part of the state, a fertile low-lying plain veined by brackish rivers with a propensity for escaping their banks. Longtime locals don't have to strain their imaginations to foresee what rain like that can do. It's happened before.

In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd came ashore near Cape Fear as a Category 2 storm that dumped about 2 feet of water on a region already soaked days earlier by Hurricane Dennis. The result was the worst natural disaster in state history, a flood that killed dozens of people and left whole towns underwater, their residents stranded on rooftops.

The bloated carcasses of hundreds of thousands of hogs, chickens and other drowned livestock bobbed in a nose-stinging soup of fecal matter, pesticides, fertilizer and gasoline so toxic that fish flopped helplessly on the surface to escape it. Rescue workers smeared Vick's Vapo-Rub under their noses to try to numb their senses against the stench.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Florence-could-flood-hog-manure-pits-coal-ash-13222478.php

[Are_grits_groceries]

1. Floyd did that.

The thought of that water gives me the willies.

[Achilleaze]

2. Corporate, industrial animal factories SUCK

And the pollution that erupts when they flood is TRAVESTY.
Animal factories have emerged from degenerate republican "values" and profiteering.

[demmiblue]

5. +1

[underpants]

3. Smithfield plant in Tar Heel NC - 30,000 pigs per day

That's right, per day.

[Wounded Bear]

4. Gotta have that bacon...

[elfin]

6. That company is now owned by China - when they bought Patrick Cudahy. nt

[underpants]

7. Yeah I know

Knew someone who applied for a quality control job when they were still in Smithfield. He said he almost got sick when he went on a pre-interview tour. Not the faint of heart type guy either. When they called him for the actual interview he declined. Good paying job too.