Hog FarmPetition by Elsie HerringWallace, North Carolina

The hog operation next door makes my life miserable. The pork industry down here in North Carolina places profits over my civil rights. I have no choice but to live with spray manure blowing onto my property. There’s an increase in snakes, rats, flies, and mosquitoes. There’s a horrific odor seeping into my house even when the windows are shut as the Health Department has advised.

Please sign my petition telling the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Rights to help stop the civil rights violations here in North Carolina and protect families like mine from exposure to hog waste.

The powerful hog industry should not get away with this poor treatment of people of color and the environment just as those who brushed aside concerns of those in Flint, Michigan should be held accountable for their shameful discrimination and the health and environmental impact that caused.

I’ve had the contract grower next door call me a “bitch” repeatedly because of my complaints. I’ve had men on my property with guns to intimidate me. I’ve had local authorities with connections to the hog industry tell me defending my right to clean air and water could put me in prison.

Do you ever see hog facilities set up in wealthy, white communities? Why do you think that is?

Epidemiologists from the University of North Carolina determined these industrial hog operations “disproportionately affect Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents,” and this reflects a pattern “generally recognized as environmental racism.”

I live on property that’s been in my family since the 1800s when my grandfather bought it after being freed from slavery. My mother lived here her whole life. It’s a shame that the hog industry came in a couple decades ago, without giving proper notice, and causes such problems for longtime residents.

If the liquid waste can eat the paint off my car just imagine what it’s doing to our bodies. When they start spraying around manure from their lagoons, you know it. Your eyes start running, you start coughing and gagging, and you have trouble breathing and your heart rate goes up. Headaches from the odor are all too common.

Our air is so polluted that we can’t hang our clothes out to dry unless we want them to smell like pig waste and risk having the manure mist cover our clothing. The water is so foul, we cannot drink from the well. There’s depression, anger, and frustration because many in my community have been doing all we can do stop this discriminatory treatment.

This is a desperate situation. As people of color and those who are poor, we are being taken advantage of, and now the EPA is looking into the discrimination and needs to know many American taxpayers want this to be taken seriously.

Over the years, I’ve done all I can to get some justice. I called everyone there is to call and attended any meeting where I could speak up to voice my concerns. It has not been enough, and that’s why I need you.

Please ask the EPA to step in and investigate this discrimination. If it happens to me, it’s going to happen next door. It’s just a matter of time before it happens in your neighborhood.

By CCNM

I have functioned as a Business and Media Consultant over the past sixteen years and spent many years developing my capacity to function in our ever evolving use of technology, communication, education and training.