WILSON — State regulators are deciding whether to fine a farm near the Wilson County line that spilled 1,000 gallons of hog waste into a Contentnea Creek tributary last month.
The N.C. Division of Water Quality is considering a recommendation for a civil penalty, according to a March 21 letter the agency sent to Stantonsburg Farm operators.
Environmental advocates reported the spill March 15 at the sow farm off Sand Pit Road southeast of Stantonsburg in northern Greene County.
The facility known as Stantonsburg Farm Inc. is a contract grower for Smithfield Foods subsidiary Murphy-Brown.
“We very much regret this unfortunate release,” Murphy Family Ventures environmental manager A.J. Linton wrote in a March 29 response to the Division of Water Quality’s violation notice. “We believe that we recovered the majority of the effluent that left the field. We plan to invest substantial capital in making meaningful corrective actions on the farm to prevent any reoccurrence in the future.”
Wilson County resident and environmental watchdog Don Webb spotted the spill and reported it to state officials. Linton said in his letter that the farm inadvertently discharged about 1,000 gallons of wastewater.
“The remediation efforts continued throughout the night,” Linton wrote. “The staff worked nearly 70 man-hours in the recovery effort. In doing so, they pumped approximately 163,000 gallons of water back into the wastewater treatment pond, making every effort to recover the estimated 1,000 gallons of effluent that had escaped the field.”
Regulators had notified Stantonsburg Farm of deficiencies in its hog waste storage system on March 11 and Jan. 9, according to Division of Water Quality records.
Hog feces and urine is stored in large ponds and used to irrigate farmland in what’s known as the lagoon and sprayfield system.
Environmental groups criticize the practice and say waste from the hog lagoons is too often discharged into public waterways.
Division of Water Quality spokeswoman Susan Massengale said Monday that regulators would consider the nature and scope of the violation as well as the farm’s response before determining whether to assess a fine.
Larry Baldwin, who monitors concentrated animal feeding operations for the nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance, said Stantonsburg Farm should have to pay a steep price for polluting the public water supply.
“In my opinion, this one should be a significant fine because of just what we were able to see as far as how much waste actually got into the water,” Baldwin said Tuesday. “We’re talking about a significant spill.”
Baldwin said state law allows fines of $25,000 or more per day, but most farms that violate water quality standards are assessed much lower penalties of around $2,000 or $3,000.
“Unfortunately, they’re typically not very high, which is the frustrating part for us because it really doesn’t become a big enough deterrent to keep it from happening again,” Baldwin said.
The waste was discharged into an unnamed stream that flows into the Contentnea Creek, a tributary of the Neuse River. The Neuse is North Carolina’s longest river and was ranked among the nation’s 10 most endangered in 2007.
Stantonsburg Farm, Inc., is a privately owned facility producing hogs under contract for Murphy-Brown, the livestock production subsidiary of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods. Smithfield is the world’s largest pork producer.