UTAH

• A gargantuan hog farm in Utah with ambitions to become the nation's largest -- producing 2.5 million hogs a year -- has raised fears of hog farm pollution on an unprecedented scale.
  
  
• Circle Four, rated the nation's eighteenth largest hog company, is owned by four leading pork producers -- Virginia-based Smithfield Foods Inc., Carroll's Foods, Prestage Farms, and Murphy Family Farms.

Eager to reduce the region's high unemployment, Beaver County and Utah State officials worked hard to draw the factory farm companies to the sparsely populated region of southwestern Utah desert, about 40 miles north of Zion National Park.¹ Circle Four, a venture between Smithfield Farms, Carroll's Foods, Murphy Farms and Prestage Farms,² began operations in 1995, attracted by the area's easy rail access to the West and Pacific Coast markets.³ While in 1997, the company was ranked 18th among the nation's largest companies,⁴ Circle Four's announced plan to someday become the world's largest hog farm, producing 2.5 million slaughter hogs a year, has been widely publicized.⁵

According to published reports, Circle Four currently has about 260,000 pigs on site, generating about 600,000 market hogs a year.⁶ It plans to build facilities breeding piglets and raising them to market size over a 50-mile swath running through Beaver and Iron Counties.⁷ According to activists, this giant livestock factory would produce more waste than the city of Los Angeles.⁸

Circle Four has changed the lives of Utah's pig producers, who historically were located in Cache Valley, Utah County, the Delta area and the Uinta Basin. Prior to the arrival of Circle 4, the primary slaughterhouse for small buyers was the Clougherty Packing slaughterhouse near Los Angeles. But Circle Four has begun working with the slaughterhouse, sending them 10,000 pigs a week, and smaller pig farmers have had to search elsewhere for buyers.⁹

Since Circle Four began operating in 1995, the number of small hog farmers in the state has dwindled, but the number of hogs produced has surged. The number of Utah hog farms dropped from 800 in 1994 to 500 in 1997. But hog production increased almost seven-fold -- from 44,000 hogs in 1994 to 295,000 in 1997.¹⁰

Pollution Problems

Unfortunately, Circle Four is having problems managing the waste its quarter of a million hogs are already producing, at last count stored in 92 vast manure lagoons.¹¹

In August 1996, 80,000 gallons of hog waste entered into the area's groundwater when wastewater from a lagoon was accidentally siphoned into one of the farm's water supply wells. The company failed to notify the Utah Division of Water Quality (DWQ) for almost six weeks. DWQ fined Circle Four just $6,800.¹²

In July, a 4,000 gallon spill resulted from a break in a pipe that carries waste from Circle Four's barns to the lagoons.¹³

This past spring, four Circle Four employees were hospitalized. It appears that they might have suffered from inhaling hog manure fumes while on the job. The victims' symptoms included nausea, chest pains and difficulty breathing.¹⁴

In September, two of Circle Four's manure lagoons showed signs of failure. Sections of the plastic liners at the bottom of the lagoons -- which are intended to keep waste from seeping into the ground -- had grown air bubbles, and the liners were floating to the surface of the open lagoon. Company officials discounted the possibility of groundwater contamination because of the presence of a clay layer beneath the plastic liner.¹⁵ Local citizens say the incident just proves they are right to be skeptical of Circle Four's claims that its "state of the art" waste technology will protect groundwater from pollution.¹⁶

"Underneath the lagoons is gravel and sand,¹⁷ said A. True Ott, president of Citizens for Responsible and Sustainable Agriculture (CRSA), a group of local citizens who are appealing the permit for Circle Four's first facility. "Circle Four told us specifically that the lagoons were either lined with clay or plastic, not both."¹⁸At a DWQ meeting in December, an expert for the citizens' group suggested that the lagoons could fail and listed numerous problems with the farm's waste disposal technology.¹⁹ The citizens' group is urging the state to look into other methods of disposing of hog waste.

In addition to concerns about odor, citizens are worried about air pollution from ammonia, a form of nitrogen that results when nitrogen from manure lagoons volatilizes. Ammonia can travel long distances, then fall back to the ground when it rains. In large quantities, ammonia can produce algae detrimental to fish.²⁰ Some experts speculate that in dry climates, such as Utah's, more of the nitrogen from manure lagoons may be converted to ammonia than in wetter locations.²¹

Regulatory Climate

Utah's primary regulatory system for CAFOs involves groundwater permits. Circle Four's permit also includes requirements for groundwater testing and reporting for lagoons that exceed a certain size.²² However, Circle 4 failed to meet the groundwater reporting requirements when the company contaminated groundwater in August 1996.²³

Because of their belief that water and air quality are threatened by Circle Four's open air lagoons, CRSA has appealed the company's permit that was granted by the Division of Water Quality in the Fall of 1997.²⁴ The citizens' group is still in the midst of the appeal process. But Circle Four has continued to expand while the determination on CRSA's original appeal is pending.²⁵

CRSA's appeal has prompted the state to consider which waste-treatment technologies should be available for hog facilities. The first of a series of meetings was held in October 1998 to give DWQ staff, Circle Four and CRSA an opportunity to present their ideas. A second meeting is set for November 1998. The meetings are being held at the behest of the Utah Water Quality Board.²⁶

Local Control

Utah has a law on the books that prevents citizens from bringing nuisance suits against agricultural businesses, making it difficult for citizens to block new factory farms from locating in their neighborhoods.²⁷

Ott, a mortgage broker who lives in Cedar City north of Circle Four, says he first got involved in the Circle Four controversy while trying to help a rancher friend next door to Circle Four's proposed expansion into Iron County. The rancher was concerned that pollution from the hog farm could reduce the value of his property. Ott proposed that the county impose a bond on Circle Four to pay for future pollution cleanup, but the proposal was never adopted. Since that first effort, Ott's fight has gained more attention, but he expresses frustration about facing off against a multinational corporation with his small coalition of some 50 neighbors. "It's like David going up against Goliath and we have no stones," he says.

Primary interviewee for this chapter:

A. True Ott
Citizens for Responsible and Sustainable Agriculture (C.R.S.A.)
204 West 1725 N.
Cedar City, UT 84720
Phone: 435-586-2674
Fax: 435-586-1312
e-mail: tott@utahnet.net

Notes

1. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

2. Gregory Kratz, "S. Utah Operation Will Soon Have 250,000 Hogs," Deseret News Service (September 13, 1998).

3. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

4. Gregory Kratz, "S. Utah Operation Will Soon Have 250,000 Hogs," Deseret News Service (September 13, 1998).

5. Gregory Kratz, "S. Utah Operation Will Soon Have 250,000 Hogs," Deseret News Service (September 13, 1998).

6. Mike Carter, "Fumes Overcome Four Workers At Hog Far, Company Says," The Salt Lake Tribune (April 24, 1998), p. D13.

7. Gregory Kratz, "S. Utah Operation Will Soon Have 250,000 Hogs," Deseret News Service (September 13, 1998).

8. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

9. Gregory Kratz, "Will Corporate Farms Hog Market?" Deseret New Service (September 16, 1998).

10. Gregory Kratz, "Will Corporate Farms Hog Market?" Deseret New Service (September 16, 1998).

11. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

12. Gregory Kratz, "Foes Fear Major Pollution From Circle Four Hog Farms," Deseret News Service (September 14, 1998).

13. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

14. Mike Carter, "Fumes Overcome Four Workers At Hog Far, Company Says," The Salt Lake Tribune (April 24, 1998), p. D13.

15. Heather May, "Plastic Liners at Beaver County Hog Farm Are Bubbling," The Salt Lake Tribune (September 4, 1998), p. B5.

16. Heather May, "Plastic Liners at Beaver County Hog Farm Are Bubbling," The Salt Lake Tribune (September 4, 1998), p. B5.

17. On a November 1997 tour of the Circle 4 facility while the lagoons were being constructed, True Ott saw sand and gravel in locations where lagoons were to be dug.

18. Statement by Warren Peterson, attorney for Circle Four as witnessed by True Ott at meetings sponsored by Citizens for Responsible and Sustainable Agriculture in the fall of 1997, Cedar City, Utah.

19. Statement by Kathy Martin, engineer consultant to the Citizens for Responsible and Sustainable Agriculture at December 1997 meeting with staff from the Division of Water Quality, Salt Lake City, Utah.

20. Stuart Leavenworth and James Eli Shiffer, "Airborne Menace," The News and Observer (July 5, 1998).

21. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

22. Heather May, "Predictions of Disaster Prompt State to Rethink Vast Pits of Hog Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 31, 1998), p. D1.

23. Gregory Kratz, "Foes Fear Major Pollution From Circle Four Hog Farms," Deseret News Service (September 14, 1998).

24. Gregory Kratz, "Foes Fear Major Pollution From Circle Four Hog Farms," Deseret News Service (September 14, 1998).

25. Gregory Kraftz, "S. Utah Operations Will Soon Have 250,000 Hogs," Deseret News Service (September 13, 1998).

26. Heather May, "Giant Hog Farm Agrees to Participate in Public Hearing on Waste," The Salt Lake Tribune (August 11, 1998), p. B8.

27. The Agricultural Protection Act of 1998.