September, 05 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sarah Graddy, Communications Director, Environmental Working Group, (202) 939-9141, sarah@ewg.org
Hurricane Dorian Threatens To Spread Millions of Tons of Manure Again Throughout North Carolina's Coastal Plain
Thousands of Factory Farms Remain Vulnerable to Heavy Rain, as Climate Crisis Triggers More Severe Storms
WASHINGTON
As Hurricane Dorian bears down on North Carolina, the storm's flood waters threaten once again to spread millions of tons of animal waste from factory farms throughout the state's eastern coastal plain.
"The most important thing right now is that people stay safe." said Soren Rundquist, director of spatial analysis for the Environmental Working Group, which studies the growth, expansion and pollution of factory farms in North Carolina and other states. "But we're also watching the thousands of North Carolina factory farms that sit directly in Dorian's projected path. The heavy rainfall could flood poorly located factory farms, spreading untold tons of hog, chicken and turkey waste along the coastal plain."
EWG and the Waterkeeper Alliance have estimated that each year, the state's 4,700 poultry farms create five million tons of dry waste, and its 2,100 swine operations generate enough liquified waste to fill more than 15,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Almost exactly a year ago, Hurricane Florence dumped over 30 inches of rain in parts of the state with more than 1,500 swine and poultry concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, and the thousands of open-air manure cesspools and piles they maintain.
Florence caused at least 132 swine manure lagoons to flood or breach, or to come dangerously close. It is possible that additional hog waste pits failed or were compromised, since the state relies on farm operators to report such incidents themselves.
At least 35 poultry operations flooded during or after Florence, according to the investigation by EWG and Waterkeepers. The waste is generally stored in giant piles, which means it easily washes off into the many nearby creeks and rivers. The state doesn't regulate waste from most poultry CAFOs, so it doesn't track flooding incidents on these operations.
In 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused widespread flooding in North Carolina's CAFOs. Over 140 industrial-scale swine and poultry barns were inundated, as were more than a dozen giant swine waste pits and thousands of acres of manure-saturated fields.
Farm animal manure contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella. Pollution from the chemicals in livestock waste also triggers toxic algae blooms, like the one in North Carolina that recently killed three dogs, and contaminate rivers, lakes and private wells used for tap water.
After Florence, at least 73 tap water systems serving over a half-million people issued advisories for residents to boil water that may have been contaminated by floodwaters. State data suggest that thousands of North Carolinian wells could have been tainted by storm runoff. The state also issued advisories for people to avoid swimming in coastal waters, in some places for an entire month.
North Carolina is especially ill equipped to deal with the increasing threats to human and environmental health posed by hurricanes' impacts on animal agriculture, because of the legislature's continued refusal to regulate dry poultry waste.
The legislature has also cut funding to the state water quality office, and in 2012, passed a law forbidding consideration of climate change when public policy is crafted. The person in charge of the state agency responsible for inspecting CAFOs has testified in court that it is woefully underfunded and understaffed.
"The threat posed by severe storms to North Carolina's enormous waste problem could have been addressed many years ago," Rundquist said. "Instead, it's one more thing North Carolinians still have to worry about."
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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Elon Musk's Net Worth Surges by Over $16 Billion After Trump Win
Tesla's stock price jumped by as much as 15% following the former president's victory in the 2024 election.
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Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election sent shares of Tesla surging as much as 15% Wednesday, propelled by CEO Elon Musk's prominent role in the Republican's White House campaign and expectations that the company will benefit from proposed tax cuts and a deregulatory blitz.
Trump name-checked Musk, the world's richest man, during his victory speech Wednesday morning, calling him a "super genius." Campaign finance records show that Musk—who's expected to receive a position in the president-elect's administration, despite massive conflicts of interest—pumped more than $100 million into the 2024 race in support of Trump's bid for a second term.
According to Forbes' real-time tracker, Musk's net worth—the bulk of which is tied up in Tesla stock—rose by over $16 billion on Wednesday.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday morning that while he believes a Trump presidency "would be an overall negative" for the electric vehicle industry given the Republican's pledge to assail the Inflation Reduction Act—a law that includes EV tax credits—"for Tesla we see this as a huge positive," estimating Trump's victory could help push Tesla's market share above $1 trillion.
Tesla was far from the only company whose stock price surged in the wake of Trump's win.
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Wall Street behemoths Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase saw their shares jump by nearly 12% and 9% respectively, while the stock prices of oil companies such as Exxon Mobil also climbed, anticipating an aggressively pro-fossil fuel Trump administration.
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The Financial Timesreported Wednesday morning that JPMorgan analysts expect shares of the biggest U.S. corporations "to rally over the coming weeks" in the aftermath of Trump's win.
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During the campaign, Trump expressed support for eliminating the Department of Education entirely.
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This is a developing news story... Check back for possible updates...
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Trump's 2024 victory over Harris, the U.S. vice president, was decisive: If current projections hold, Trump will sweep the seven battleground states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada. One outlet described the election results as "a stunning wipeout" for the Democratic Party.
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Control of the U.S. House remains up for grabs as of this writing, according to The Associated Press, with more than 100 races yet to be called.
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Fallout over remarks that David Lammy, the U.K.'s secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth, and development affairs, recently made to the House of Commons about the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip continued on Tuesday with a letter from 37 rights organizations.
"We call on the foreign secretary, as a matter of urgency, to make a statement clarifying the government's understanding of i) genocide in international law; ii) the scope of the U.K.'s international obligations pursuant to the Genocide Convention and Rome Statute; and iii) what steps must be taken to fulfill such obligations," the coalition wrote.
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Amichai Stein, a correspondent for state-owned Israeli broadcaster Kan, said on social media Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced "the division of the northern Gaza Strip into two parts has been completed, and we getting closer to the complete evacuation of the northern part from civilians and terrorists: 'This time there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes and that humanitarian aid will regularly enter the southern Gaza Strip.'"
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