New threat in North Carolina after Florence: lakes of pig waste are flooding - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hurricane-florence-pig-poop-becomes-the-latest-threat-to-human-life CAROLINA BEACH, North Carolina—As if the howling winds, driving rain, and deadly flash floods weren’t enough to deal with, Hurricane Florence has thrown up a new and serious threat to human life: pig feces. Two “hog lagoons” have already breached, according to the state’s pork council, while four are flooded and 14 others are at capacity. The pig-poop lakes are the size of a soccer field, Bloomberg News reports, and will present a real danger to human health if they contaminate the state’s waterways. To make matters worse, the waters are also at risk of contamination from millions of gallons of partially treated human feces after sewage plants across the state flooded. Coal-ash ponds, chemical factories, landfills, and hazardous waste dumps are also located on the state’s rivers. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for people to be swimming around in poop,” said John Rumpler, clean-water program director for Environment America, a Colorado-based advocacy group. “It’s a pretty serious public-health risk that people should be concerned about.” Hog lagoons are particularly prominent in North Carolina—the nation's second-largest pork producing state, according to News & Observer. Each of the 4,000 lagoons contain tons of waste and some have breached before—after Hurricane Floyd in 1999, thousands of dead pigs and waste from 50 lagoons contaminated the state’s main rivers. The North Carolina Pork Council said the majority of lagoons in the state had avoided hurricane damage so far. “While there are more than 3,000 active lagoons in the state that have been unaffected by the storm, we remain concerned about the potential impact of these record-shattering floods,” the council said in a statement Monday. But further rain and flood could cause more to breach—and anyone who comes into contact with the waste risks contracting viruses, parasitic infections, rashes, and other serious health conditions. On Friday, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority reported that more than 5 million gallons of partially treated wastewater (containing human sewage) spilled out of its plant and flowed into the Cape Fear River. “North Carolina allows all this dangerous waste to be stored next to its flooding coastal—and, for that matter, inland—rivers,” Frank Holleman of the Southern Environmental Law Center told News & Observer. “How long do we have to go through this until we decide it’s too much risk?” The hurricane, which has so far killed at least 32 people, is forecast to cost $22 billion in damages. Some residents in Carolina Beach—many of whom evacuated Wednesday—have returned home to survey what’s left. But Jimmy Lentz never left Carolina Beach. The 64-year-old was born on the island and rode out 14 hurricanes in his lifetime. Lentz—dressed in a yellow T-shirt, green Bermuda shorts, and a Carolina Panthers cap pulled over gray hair—was ambling down Carolina Beach Avenue on Monday afternoon enjoying the sunshine after being trapped on the island for six days. “I’ve survived 14 hurricanes,” he told The Daily Beast. “I give this one a seven out of 10. Middle of the pack.” Overall, he was content holed up in his small apartment napping and eating lunch meat. “I can survive on sandwiches for days,” he said.

I like this guy.

This cannot possibly be the best way to discard of pig shit.

You pump the shit into nice big pits and then let the sun take care of getting rid of the moisture. After that it's solid enough to be transportable and useful. The a water treatment facility in my city used to have small pits to do the same with regular non-pig waste, probably in case they were running out of capacity. Seems like they've been filled in now. Didn't know they could do that until one summer years ago I was out cycling and decided to take a new route I saw on Google Maps, and I ended up riding right past a pool of shit. Stuffed my nose inside my shirt pretty fast.

Oh, that makes more sense; the term "lagoon" made me think that they would be in a constant liquid state, like a landfill pool of fecal matter

Yeah, there is nothing wrong with it under normal circumstances, but this is a very cheapass way to handle wastewater. Maybe in flood prone areas they should at least have a holding tank or a much larger levy, nobody expects them to have primary and secondary treatments as well as digesters etc. Hopefully they at least take this disaster as a lesson, there is a reason this is so dangerous, it will destroy the ecosystems surrounding by depleting oxygen from the water, changing ph and also causing algae blooms.

No the "lagoon" is because of the flooding.

I think we all know how to deal with this https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/6/64/Dome.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100122174755

No. This is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuNyWMAWptE