Residents and advocates in Duplin County, North Carolina, settled a federal civil rights complaint last week with the state environmental board, requiring the state to better regulate and monitor the local hog industry. The settlement comes closely on the heels of a $50 million jury verdict in favor of North Carolina residents who live near large-scale confinement hog farms.
The settlement requires the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to temporarily monitor air and water quality in the county, and to increase the number of community members who participate in the animal waste permitting process. The new policies also require DEQ to “examine demographic, health, and environmental characteristics of communities impacted by DEQ policies,” according to a press release from advocates.
The complaint was originally filed in December 2013 and was settled last week with the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, and Waterkeeper Alliance. The groups had alleged that the DEQ had allowed industrial hog farms to operate with “grossly inadequate and outdated systems of controlling animal waste” that disproportionately affected communities of color in the state.
“For too long people living in Duplin, Sampson and other counties in the heart of hog country have had trouble breathing when they go outside,” said Devon Hall, the co-founder of REACH, in the press release. “With thousands of swine operations across eastern North Carolina, the provisions in this agreement calling for monitoring may feel like a drop in the bucket, but they are a good start.”
Naeema Muhammad, executive director of the NCEJN, said in the press release that “this agreement signifies a new dynamic in the relationship between DEQ and the communities of color that are most severely impacted by the policies and decisions it makes.”
The settlement comes just two weeks after a federal jury found in favor of 10 North Carolina residents who brought a lawsuit against Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, alleging that the company’s mismanagement of hog waste was exposing neighbors to health risks and reduced quality of life. It also comes shortly after the state established an Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board to advise the DEQ on environmental justice issues.