NEWS

Smithfield project that converts hog waste to energy angers, worries rural NC residents

The Align RNG project moves forward with the approval of an air permit from NCDEQ, but leaves Sampson and Duplin County residents questioning the harmful impacts and motives

Kristen Johnson
The Fayetteville Observer
In this July 21, 2017, file photo, young hogs owned by Smithfield Foods gather around a water source at a farm in Farmville.

The N.C. Division of Air Quality granted Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy one of the permits they need to move forward in completing a controversial project to create natural gas by using hog waste in Sampson and Duplin County. 

With the air quality permit, the two companies will build a gas-conditioning facility to trap biogas, or hog feces, and process it to inject the gas into a 30-mile-long pipeline that will run between Turkey and Warsaw. This is the first step in their joint Align RNG project. 

“This is great news for the environment, consumers and family farmers across North Carolina,” said Kraig Westerbeek, the senior director of Smithfield Renewables at Smithfield Foods. “Renewable natural gas is a transformational opportunity to reduce farm emissions, generate clean energy and provide economic opportunity for family farmers." 

Duplin County State Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a Republican, echoes Westerbeek and praises the project's new opportunity for rural areas. 

"The project accomplishes everything that has been brought up in the courts," said Dixon. "Right now, the emissions are going where? They're going into the atmosphere, we think it's clean but it takes care of that. So it is incremental improvement in our system to be able to use this as an alternative in conjunction with our already established way of handling our waste."

However, everyone is not excited about the approved permit or the project.

Residents in Sampson and Duplin County, mostly poor minorities, are faced with what some believe will be the negative impacts of a project that environmentalists say will use an outdated lagoon and spray field system. They believe it will further pollute  a community that already has environmental challenges related to hog production.

“Some of these people need to be in jail,” said Naemma Muhammad, a local environmental activist and co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. “When you look at what they’re doing to people, someone ought to be in jail. It ought to be illegal to do that to people.” 

More:Smithfield Foods and Dominion’s biogas plan a foul deal for Duplin, Sampson counties

Muhammad is angry about the possibility of Smithfield and Dominion completing the project in the state. A native of rural North Carolina, she is concerned not only about the health risks but also about safety for residents who will have the pipeline in their yards. 

“If there is an explosion, what’s going to happen to people? Because this is an area that already has weak infrastructure,” said Muhammad, citing the struggles to evacuate residents during flooding brought on by storms and hurricanes. “How in the world would they get to them if there is an explosion there?” 

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality held a public hearing in November about the Align RNG project to allow residents to voice their concerns and ask questions about the details. The companies were slow to release any information regarding the location of the pipeline, how they will protect residents and the names of the 19 farms participating in the project. So far, they have only revealed the names of four farms. 

"The information that they are withholding from DEQ and the public about the location of these 19 hog operations is really critical," said Blakely Hildebrand, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center who has been following the project. "It will allow people who live close to these operations to be better informed and to understand what’s going on in their backyards."

Despite the missing information, the department approved the air quality permit Jan. 6.

“After or if an air permit is approved, the air permit allows construction of the equipment in accordance with the rules,” said Zaynab Nasif, the public information officer for the Division of Air Quality. “However, the facility will need to satisfy any other county or local government requirements including construction permitting, zoning compliance and any other local laws.” 

The Southern Environmental Law Center submitted comments to the DEQ after the permit was approved. They have criticized the Smithfield and Dominion proposal and want the department to further investigate the transparency and intent of the companies.

“We know that lagoons and spray fields harm communities and pollute our rivers and streams and pollute the air and create odors, attract flies and buzzards,” said Hildebrand. “This lagoon and sprayfield system will not alleviate any of those concerns and will make water quality potentially even worse than it already is.” 

In this July 21, 2017, file photo an irrigation system is seen in front of a home across the road from a farm that has hogs owned by Smithfield Foods in Farmville.

An ongoing fight 

Duplin and Sampson County are home to the largest hog farms in the state.

Since the 1980s, eastern North Carolina has dealt with the pollution from these farms. Many of the residents have called it environmental racism since the most affected communities are made up of Black, Latino and Native American people.

“We think this was intentionally done because these are communities that do not have the economic clout or the political clout to ward off this,” said Muhammad. “It's by design. This is the poorest part of the state.”

Sherri White-Williamson agrees. 

The Environmental Justice policy director for the NC Conservation Network said there needs to be a “paradigm shift” in rural communities.

“Most of it has to do with the ability of many of these communities to have access to the decision-makers,” said White-Williamson. “By nature of the fact they are low-income or communities of color, or both, it's less likely that they have the political clout to influence what a decision-maker might do.” 

Because of the pollution, life for residents is different. They must live and work around the smell of hog waste being sprayed into the air. Muhammad says many of the families have children with severe asthma and upper respiratory diseases. 

“You never know when the odor is coming. They get up early in the morning, crack the door a little to see if it’s stinking outside,” said Muhammad. “As they put it, once the odor comes, you do not want to be out there.” 

In 2000, Smithfield Foods entered an agreement with North Carolina to consent to fund advanced technologies for pig farms. Under the agreement, the company would get rid of the lagoon and sprayfield system in which animal waste is stored out in the open in large pits, then sprayed back into the air to fertilize crops.

Twenty-one years later, the food giant is moving forward with the system in the Align RNG project, which is deemed the first of its kind in the nation.  

The uncertainty of opportunity 

White-Williamson is critical of Smithfield and Dominion for pushing the biogas project under the guise of a great opportunity for farmers.

“They are trying to sell it as an opportunity for the owners of the farms to have a second stream of income,” White-Williamson said. “I would imagine that many owners of the farms would not have the financial wherewithal to be able to afford to install the digestor systems in the first place. I just think there are still a lot of unknowns.”

The RNG project requires farmers to invest in building anaerobic digestors on their farms to trap and produce the biogas. Smithfield and Dominion say the farmers will be able to share a "long-term" revenue

Dixon said the project would bring temporary jobs in the construction of the pipeline and other facilities for the pipeline, and few permanent jobs once the project is completed to the area. White-Williamson questions if that is enough.

“Yes, there will be temporary jobs to lay the pipeline,” said White-Williamson. “Those jobs will last as long as it takes to lay the pipeline. Once that pipeline is completed, it only takes two to three people to manage that finishing facility. So, there is only a temporary economic gain through this process.”

“The job-creation is a myth,” said White-Williamson, a native of Clinton.

Promise of public hearings 

Hildebrand wants residents to voice their concerns at the hearings made open to the public by the DEQ.  

“The project hasn’t been fully approved yet. There is still a really important opportunity for impacted community members to make their voice heard,” said Hildebrand. “The project can’t move forward until Smithfield and Dominion have these water quality permits in hand.”  

The next hearing will take place virtually at 6 p.m. Tuesday through a link on DEQ’s website.  

Dixon was present on the first public hearing call in November and praised the project saying it a "positive."

"It's an excellent alternative source of disposal. Our current lagoon system is absolutely good, absolutely adequate," said Dixon. "But projects like this can relieve some of the pressure during bad weather and obviously it results in a very good, clean product to go into the pipeline."

Muhammad worries that residents will feel intimidated to speak up at the hearings. She felt that at the first hearing, there were too many advocates for the industry and not enough for the residents. 

“It can be scary for an oppressed area where you’re always used to being oppressed, and no matter what you say or do, that oppression is never lifted,” said Muhammad. “They don’t even understand why DEQ will have a public hearing because it renders nothing for the communities. DEQ does the same thing every time, issues the darn permits.” 

Muhammed said the last hearing lasted nearly four hours and most of the people speaking were state representatives, industry employees and other officials who spoke little about the harmful risks to residents.   

“This project benefits the local community on multiple levels, environmentally and economically, and I strongly question a narrative that implies the communities need protection from the project,” said Lisa Martin, a director for corporate communications for Smithfield Foods in an email. 

More:OPINION: Harvesting methane good for the environment, NC economy

Optimism about a breathable future

Muhammad has been working as an environmental activist for nearly 30 years in North Carolina. The fight for justice for rural communities has been long, but rewarding, she says, and she is hoping to keep working until families can live longer, healthier lives.

“I would like to see industries or businesses that bring clean jobs that people can make a living working, and that people are able to breathe, without all that pollution,” said Muhammad. “I always think people live in rural America because they like the outdoors. You take that away from them, that's a big hit.”

Staff writer Kristen Johnson can be reached at kjohnson1@gannett.com or 910-486-3570.

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