CHAPEL HILL - Perceptions that hog operations in North Carolina have been disproportionately established in poorer communities across the state and in areas with more non-white residents are accurate, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study concludes.
Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Environmental Justice Program, researchers analyzed 1998 data from the N.C. Division of Water Quality on intensive hog operations and 1990 data from the U.S. census. They conducted the study in cooperation with the Concerned Citizens of Tillery, a community-based organization headed by Gary R. Grant.
"The presence of intensive hog operations was clearly related to poverty levels, predominance of black and non-white populations and dependence of households on well water for drinking," said Dr. Steven Wing, associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC-CH School of Public Health.
Wing presented the findings Wednesday (March 17) in New Orleans at the 38th annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology.
"Previous studies have shown that since the early 1980s, hog production in North Carolina has moved from dispersion throughout the state to being concentrated in the coastal plain," he said. "During the same time, the average size of a hog facility has increased as corporate growers expanded larger operations and smaller independent producers went out of business. Although previous reports have shown that hog production is greater in counties with larger black populations, the extent to which operations were disproportionately located in poor and non-white communities was not known."
Before conducting their research, Wing and his colleagues had to complete geographic information that was missing or incorrect for 257 hog operations and excluded 67 that had closed, had insufficient data, didn't use a liquid waste management system or were owned by universities.
They analyzed the remaining 2,514 hog farms in conjunction with data on 4,177 census block groups, areas of about 500 households used for counting U.S. residents. They excluded the state's five largest cities and western counties with no intensive hog production.
"Eight hundred and eleven operations were located in the 20 percent of block groups with the most poverty while only 43 operations were located in the 20 percent of block groups with the least poverty," Wing said.
One reason for excess hog production in poor areas where people depend on well water is because they are rural. Researchers therefore developed a statistical model to estimate the number of hog operations that would be expected in census block groups based on their population density. They compared those numbers to the actual number of hog farms in the groups.
In the poorest block groups, where 811 operations were located, only 620 were expected based on their population density, Wing said. In contrast, in the richest block groups, where 43 operations were located, 265 would be expected based on their population density.
"Thus, compared to the 20 percent of block groups with lowest poverty, the 20 percent of block groups with highest poverty had about eight times as many hog operations as would be expected," he said. "Compared to the 20 percent of block groups with the lowest proportion of non-white people, the 20 percent of block groups with the highest proportion of non-whites had about six times as many hog operations as would be expected."
The study showed the greatest discrepancies occurred when poor and non-white communities were compared with the wealthiest white communities, he said.
More than a third of intensive hog operations were located in 418 block groups where more than 96 percent of households depended on well water for drinking, they found. Even after adjusting for population density, those areas had 11 times the number of hog farms compared with areas where less than 1 percent of households relied on wells.
"Our findings raise numerous public health and social justice issues," Wing said. "Intensive swine production and its attendant pollution are concentrated in areas of our state that have the highest disease rates, the least access to medical care and the greatest need for positive economic development and better educational systems."
Environmental injustice such as what researchers found in the hog industry does not necessarily reflect deliberate racist attitudes, but rather institutional factors and lack of political influence, he said. The result is a system that favors whiter and wealthier communities at the expense of others.
The UNC-CH scientist believes the study is the first to investigate environmental injustice among agricultural polluters.
Note: Wing can be reached at 919-966-7416 until late Monday. He will stay at
the Sheraton in New Orleans from Tuesday to Thursday morning, 504-525-2500,
and will check his messages periodically. Grant can be reached at 252-826-3017.
Contacts: David Williamson, 919-962-8596, or Dennis Baker at 919-962-0352.