MISSISSIPPI

• Under pressure from citizens fighting factory hog farms, the state legislature has declared a moratorium on new factory-scale hog feedlots until January 2000.
  
  
• More than half of the state's counties passed restrictive ordinances against factory hog farms this year. But a major pork producer has won the first round in a court battle challenging the county ordinances.
  
  
• Factory farms, rarely fined by the state for pollution, have been able to negotiate reduced fines with state officials.

As the nation's second poorest state, Mississippi has made economic development a major mission. The state's political leaders have courted major out-of-state pork producers, including Prestage Farms, Inc., of North Carolina, to set up shop in the state.¹ Prestage opened a giant hog-feed mill in West Point, Mississippi, with the intention of supplying feed to its own nearby hog feedlots in northeastern Mississippi. The company has embarked on an ambitious plan to establish dozens of hog farms within a 75-mile radius of its feed mill to supply the largest slaughterhouse in the South, also in West Point. Already, Prestage has established 60 hog farms, either owned by the corporation or under contract to independent farmers, within easy trucking distance of its West Point feed mill. Based on permits in the pipeline, Prestage plans to have 96 farms in Mississippi, with some facilities holding as many as 20,000 pigs.²

The state is a natural draw for the feedlot industry. With its fourteen million acres of row crops, on land which was once a great living rain forest, Mississippi is a lush, predominantly rural state with abundant water, fertile ground, a long growing season and mild winters.

Two years ago, the state had mostly smaller farms with several hundred animals and only one or two swine factories with over 1,000 animal units. The entry of out-of-state corporations like Prestage has sent hog factories surging. As of October 1998 the state had ninety permit applications pending before the Department of Environmental Quality.³

The rapid growth in the industry prompted concerns in the legislature. In 1998, the state passed a moratorium on all new factory hog feedlots until January 2000 and gave counties authority to pass local ordinances regulating big swine operations.⁴ Prestage has successfully challenged three country ordinances in court, testifying it could lose close to $1 million a year if the ordinances stand. The counties are appealing the case.⁵

Pollution Problems

The high profile of the factory farm issue in Mississippi began with a local battle over a pig farm in northeastern Mississippi. In 1996, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) granted permit approval to a 7,040-head hog operation on 300 acres adjacent to the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge, near the tiny community of Oktoc.⁶ The owner of the farm, Bill Cook, is a contract grower for Prestage Farms.

A major battle mounted by citizens in the local community to block the permit failed, and the massive hog facility has been running at full operation since October 1997. Members of the community, a predominantly rural area where 70 percent of the residents are black, have taken their fight to the Mississippi State Supreme Court, where they are currently awaiting a ruling.⁷

The hogs at the Prestage contract farm are crammed into eight buildings, from which their waste is collected into a manure lagoon spanning some six acres. The community's opposition has focused on fear that polluted runoff from a manure lagoon spill or from fields sprayed with liquid hog manure will foul adjacent Browning Creek and ultimately the Noxubee River, which runs through the wildlife refuge.

At public hearings held on the water pollution control permit in November 1996, members of the community raised concerns that the runoff from the swine operation would heavily pollute the waters of the refuge and damage wildlife habitat. Established in the 1930s, most of the Noxubee Refuge is a bottomland hardwood forest of oaks and cypresses with trunks six feet in diameter and pines that have attracted at least 34 clusters of endangered Red-cockaded woodpeckers, waterfowl and other endangered species. Dr. Jerry Jackson, a Mississippi State University researcher, testified that two species of salamanders would be compromised by hog farm pollution and said lagoon odors would confuse local Turkey vultures at the Refuge. Refuge manager Jim Tisdale has expressed concern that the hog producer is not responsible for monitoring the pollution levels in the creek and worries that the manure lagoon is not sufficiently prepared to weather the predicted 25-year floods that the National Weather Service anticipates for the Noxubee. The Refuge is an important part of the local tourism economy, attracting 120,000 annual visitors, including fishermen, hunters and wildlife watchers.⁸

Members of the community also raised concern in public hearings that air pollution from the facility would aggravate the asthma of surrounding residents. Odor and contaminants from the factory farm have worsened the asthmatic condition of an Oktibbeha County teenager, the youth's father, Everett Kennard, recently claimed in a $10 million lawsuit against the pig grower and Prestage farms.⁹

Local residents' appeal of the permit approval to DEQ failed. But at the next level of appeal in November 1997, Chancery Court Judge Robert Lancaster ruled that because factory hog farms produce particulate air pollution, the DEQ should have issued an air quality permit to the Prestage contract farm.¹⁰ The ruling threw the agency and the state legislature into confusion, because Mississippi, like most states, has no air quality standards governing factory farms; DEQ's permit approval related strictly to water pollution control.¹¹ The court's ruling prompted the state legislature to exempt hog farms from air quality standards, but at the same time the legislature also gave county supervisors until June 1 to adopt local rules on factory farms, and adopted a moratorium on issuing new permits until January 2000.¹² In the meantime, the legislature directed DEQ to monitor air and water quality near factory feedlots and report back to the legislature with findings and recommendations by January 1, 1999.¹³

There is little documentation of existing pollution from factory feedlots in the state. One of the few documented cases occurred in April 1996, when a dam gave way and 400 gallons from a pig manure lagoon flowed into an unnamed tributary of Houlka Creek.¹⁴

Regulatory Climate

When the Mississippi state legislature passed a moratorium on new factory swine feedlots in April of 1998, the legislature gave counties the right to pass ordinances restricting new operations of this type as long as they were passed by June 1, 1998. The law inspired a flurry of new county ordinances, particularly in the northeastern counties targeted by Prestage for new factory farms. Many counties felt special urgency because the state law exempted any permit applications filed before February 28, 1998, from the moratorium unless a county passed an ordinance barring industrial swine farms.

By the June deadline, 45 of Mississippi's 82 counties had placed restrictions on where industrial size hog farms could locate. Most Mississippi counties adopted ordinances that forbid the large farms to locate within three miles of city limits and one mile from private homes.¹⁵

One of those counties was Chickasaw County, which has more factory farms than any other county in the state. Mayor Betty McDaniels of Houlka, a town located in the county, said when she was first approached by Prestage with the prospect of hog farms locating there, "We were told there would be no odor, but if the wind is right the stench is so bad it burns your eyes and nostrils." She added "No one wants to come into an area and build a home where there is this kind of odor and what is worse if any runoff should get into the water system, there would be a lot of very sick people."¹⁶

Prestage sued three counties in the state's northeastern area -- Chickasaw, Noxubee and Monroe -- arguing that their ordinances effectively barred the company from operating hog farms in those counties. Monroe and Chickasaw require a factory hog farm to be located no closer than one and a half miles from its nearest neighbor and Noxubee requires a three-quarter mile setback. Prestage argued that permit applications already in the system before February 28, 1998 when the moratorium took effect, should be issued. About 90 farms have permits pending with the DEQ, which has refused to issue the permits. Federal District Court Judge Glenn Davidson handed opponents of hog farms a major defeat October 7, 1998, in a ruling temporarily stopping counties from enforcing restrictions on the hog farms' locations. Davidson said the ordinances either overruled existing DEQ regulations or were inconsistent with existing state law.¹⁷ The counties are appealing the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The permit office of DEQ is responsible for issuing state permits to animal feeding operations with 10 or more sows or 50 or more swine animal units. Confined animal feeding operations are required to obtain NPDES permits. The DEQ inspects operations with NPDES permits, particularly swine operations, annually. However, the DEQ does not have the resources to properly or regularly inspect the thousands of operations with state operating permits and instead inspects them in response to complaints.¹⁸ The agency usually learns about violations through citizen complaints. According to Avery Rollins, a Mississippi citizen who watchdogs the DEQ, the department has the authority to issue fines against feedlots that pollute, although fines against violators seem to be rare. Also, in those rare cases in which a fine is imposed, the feedlot operator is often able to negotiate a smaller penalty. For example, the Department of Environmental Quality identified several discharges from Prestage Farms in Lowndes County into James Creek in November 1994 related to overapplication of manure onto the land.¹⁹ While the original penalty determined by the state was $15,000,²⁰ the penalty was reduced to $6,375.²¹

Local Control

Citizens active in the fight to restrict polluting hog feedlots have been forced to operate in a climate of intimidation from local officials in some parts of the state. The most recent example occurred this spring, after a group of citizens in northeastern Mississippi signed a petition protesting the odors and other environmental nuisances produced by industrial-sized hog feedlots in Oktibbeha County and the opening of new operations. In May 1998, an Oktibbeha County hog operation under contract with Prestage Farms was vandalized.²² To find the responsible party, the Oktibbeha County sheriff and Department of Agriculture officials engaged in questionable tactics that served to intimidate activists. The officials sent a questionnaire to county Sierra Club members and other citizens who had signed a protest petition over the hog feedlots. The questionnaire demanded that the Communities for Responsible Pork Production, the local grassroots group that organized the protest, list its sources of financial support, its membership and where it minutes could be obtained.²³ Adding to the Kafkaesque atmosphere, according to Rollins, was the intimidating manner in which law enforcement officials delivered the questionnaire in person to signers of the petition. Six Mississippi State University students eventually pled guilty to misdemeanors related to incidents of vandalism at the farm.²⁴

Primary interviewee for this chapter:

Avery Rollins
Environmental Coalition of Mississippi
141 Dover Lane
Madison, MS 39110
Phone and Fax: 601-856-4437
e-mail: ECOMS@aol.com

Margaret Copeland
Oktibbeha Audubon Society
909 Evergreen Street
Starkville, MS 39759
Phone: 601-323-3875

Notes

1. Louise Tallent, "Attorneys Have Until Wednesday to File Hog Farm Briefs," West Point Shopper News (September 30, 1998).

2. According to Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality files, researched by Margaret Copeland, Oktibbeha County Chapter, Audubon Society (July 1998).

3. Joseph Ammerman, "Hog Farm Opponents Face Setback," The Clarion-Ledger (October 7, 1998).

4. Senate Bill 112895, passed April 1998; Joseph Ammerman, "Hog Farms, Counties Argue in Court Over Regulations," The Clarion-Ledger (September 26, 1998).

5. Joseph Ammerman, "Hot Farm Opponents Face Setback," The Clarion-Ledger (October 7, 1998).

6. The Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board approved the NPDES permit on December 17, 1996; Maureen Hinkle, "Summary of Oktoc Controversy," National Audubon Society, Washington, D.C. (undated).

7. Personal communication between Sarah Glazer and Margaret Copeland, Oktibbeha Audubon Society (October 1998); In the Supreme Court of Mississippi, No. 98-CC-000-64, In Re: Bill Cook Swine Facility: Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board and Willie Carroll Cook, A/K/A Bill Cook, appellants, v. David M. Kennard, appellee.

8. Maureen Hinkle, "Summary of Oktoc Controversy," National Audubon Society, Washington, D.C. (undated).

9. Joseph Ammerman, "Suit Links Hog Farm, Worsened Illness," The Clarion-Ledger (October 8, 1998).

10. Associated Press, "Mississippi Counties Sued Over Hog Farm Rules," Memphis Commercial Appeal (July 11, 1998).

11. Associated Press, "Mississippi Counties Sued Over Hog Farm Rules," Memphis Commercial Appeal (July 11, 1998).

12. Associated Press, "Mississippi Counties Sued Over Hog Farm Rules," Memphis Commercial Appeal (July 11, 1998).

13. Senate Bill 2895, passed April 1998.

14. Correspondence from Mike Hardy, Industrial Wastewater Control Branch, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, to complainant Jim Norman of Houlka, Mississippi (June 20, 1996).

15. Joseph Ammerman, "12 More Areas OK Hog Rules," The Clarion-Ledger (June 2, 1998), p. 1B.

16. Louise Tallent, "Attorneys Have Until Wednesday to File Hog Farm Briefs," West Point Shopper News (September 30, 1998).

17. Joseph Ammerman, "Hog Farm Opponents Face Setback," The Clarion-Ledge (October 7, 1998).

18. Personal communication between Rebecca Knuffke and Mike Hardy, Office of Compliance and Enforcement, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (November 23, 1998).

19. Memorandum from Earl Mahaffey, Office of Pollution Control, Department of Environmental Quality, State of Mississippi, re: Prestage Farms MS0047261 (November 17, 1994).

20. Memorandum from Earl Mahaffey, Office of Pollution Control, Department of Environmental Quality, State of Mississippi, re: Prestage Farms MS0047261 (November 17, 1994).

21. Check #343 from Prestage Farms, West Point, Mississippi to Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality (February 6, 1995).

22. Joseph Ammerman, "Dozens of Hogs Dead After Vandals Hit Farm." The Clarion-Ledger (May 6, 1998).

23. Oktibbeha County Sheriffs Office, Questionnaire Concerning the Burglary of Bill Cooks Swine Farm (May 1998).

24. Joseph Ammerman, "5 from MSU Charged In Hog Farm Raid," The Clarion-Ledger (June 25, 1998), p. 1A.