North Carolina’s Hog Farms and Lagoons
If you’ve ever driven to Wilmington or any of North Carolina’s southern coastal towns on Interstate 40, you have crossed through some of the state’s most prolific hog farming counties. Two such counties, Duplin and Sampson, account for over 3.75 million of North Carolina’s 8+ million head of hog.[1] Producing over $11 billion in economic impact, North Carolina’s pork industry has developed into America’s third largest.[2] Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, North Carolina’s pork industry saw massive growth because of new contractual arrangements between hog integrators/processors and independent farmers.[3] In a nine-year period, the state’s hog population skyrocketed from roughly 2.5 million to over 9 million.[4]
As North Carolina’s pork industry grew in the late 20th century, practical issues of on-farm solid waste management grew as well.[5] Farms transitioned from primarily utilizing open land to centralizing operations in “concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).”[6] Most CAFOs began employing hog lagoons to store and eventually dispose of on-farm waste.[7] Hog lagoons are man-made earthen basins lined with clay or synthetic materials.[8] Solid waste sits at the bottom of the lagoon where it undergoes natural decomposition at the hands of anaerobic bacteria.[9] Eventually, the waste breaks down into sludge, which is later sprayed onto fields producing corn or other crops used in the hogs’ rations.[10] Duplin and Sampson counties, North Carolina’s hog leaders, contain 820 and 706 such lagoons, respectively.[11]
Legislative Action: Hurricanes & Floods & Moratoriums, Oh My!
As hog lagoons became extremely prevalent, questions about their environmental impact naturally arose. Hog lagoons can have negative long-term effects on their surrounding environments; nitrogen and phosphorus can disrupt the delicate balance between the soil, groundwater, and water.[12] However, it was the short-term environmental risks posed by hog lagoons that led to legislative action by the General Assembly in the late 1990s. In 1995, a storm caused a hog lagoon to flood the New River in Onslow County with over 25 million gallons of waste, killing over 1,500 fish and leaving pools of black water around nearby houses.[13]
By the end of 1995, the General Assembly passed the Swine Farm Siting Act, which imposed new restrictions on permissible locations of new swine farms or lagoons.[14] Two years later, in 1997, the General Assembly enacted a moratorium on the construction of new hog lagoons.[15] The moratorium prohibited the issuance of permits for “an animal waste management system for a new swine farm or the expansion of an existing swine farm…” through 1999.[16] Repairs, replacements, and other similar exceptions to the moratorium were permitted.[17] The initial two-year pause on lagoon construction was intended to “allow counties to adopt zoning ordinances” relating to hog farms and lagoons.[18] But, in 2007, the General Assembly made the moratorium permanent, effectively banning the construction of new hog lagoons in the state.[19] Nonetheless, existing operational hog lagoons were allowed to continue operating under their old permits.[20]
H.B. 659 and the Uncertain Future of N.C.’s Hog Lagoons
In 2023, representatives in the General Assembly proposed a bill that would transform the existing hog lagoon moratorium into a full-fledged phaseout.[21] H.B. 659 would have amended the 2007 Act’s “Continued Operation” section to function until a hard stop date of September 1, 2027. After September 1, the bill required operators of existing lagoons to “close all of the components of the animal waste management system.”[22] H.B. 659 passed its first reading in the House but died in the Rules Committee and has not been revived since.[23]
While H.B. 659 was unsuccessful in beginning a phaseout of hog lagoons in North Carolina, it raises compelling questions about the future of the practice amidst growing environmental concerns and the size and profitability of the state’s pork industry. Free-market advocates argue that the General Assembly’s “top-down” responses have stifled innovation in the space and have made it too difficult for farmers to explore new and more environmentally friendly alternatives.[24] To remove these existing barriers to innovation and exploration, the Locke Foundation advocates for an “agricultural sandbox” in which existing regulations on hog farms would be temporarily waived to promote growth and adoption of new technology.[25] The Southern Environmental Law Center, an environmental legal advocacy organization, is making similar pushes for major industry actors to adopt more sustainable technology and provide more transparency to local communities in counties like Sampson and Duplin.[26]
Leading thinkers on both sides of the political spectrum recognize deficiencies in North Carolina’s current regulatory framework for hog lagoons and farms.[27] No matter the course forward – agricultural sandbox or continued legal advocacy – it is worth paying attention to how the state addresses concerns surrounding hog lagoons while maintaining its position as a leading American hog producer.
[1] N.C. Field Off., Nat’l Agric. Stat. Serv., Hogs: County Estimates (2024).
[2] N.C. Pork Facts, N.C. Pork Council, https://www.ncpork.org/farm-facts (last visited Oct. 4, 2025).
[3] Tomislav Vukina, The 1997 Moratorium on Construction or Expansion of Swine Farms: A Tale of Unintended Consequences, N.C. State Economist, March – April 2023, at 1, 1.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Kathryn Hansen, Spotting the Rise of Swine Lagoons, Earth Observatory (Oct. 1, 2020), https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149961/spotting-the-rise-of-swine-lagoons.
[7] Id.
[8] Understanding Pig Lagoons: Everything You Need to Know, N.C. Farm Families: Farmkeepers Blog (Feb. 7, 2019), https://www.ncfarmfamilies.com/farmkeepersblog/2019/02/07/understanding-pig-lagoons-everything-you-need-to-know.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Hansen, supra note 6.
[12] Id.
[13] Hog-Waste Spill Fouls New River, Roanoke Times, June 25, 1995 at A-7.
[14] See e.g., N.C. Gen. Stat. § 106-803 (2023) (establishing proximity requirements between hog farms and schools, hospitals, etc.).
[15] 1997 N.C. Sess. Laws 458.
[16] Id. at § 1.1(a).
[17] Id. at § 1.1(b)(1)-(7).
[18] Id. at § 1.1(a); see also Vukina, supra note 3 at 2 (adding that additional purposes of the moratorium were to allow time for completion of studies and General Assembly response).
[19] 2007 N.C. Sess. Laws 523.
[20] Id. at § 1.(b)
[21] H.B. 659, 2023 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (N.C. 2023).
[22] Id. at § 1.
[23] House Bill 659, N.C. Gen. Assembly: Bill Lookup, https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/H659 (last visited Oct. 4, 2025).
[24] Kelly Lester, Hog Waste Management in North Carolina: A Freedom-Minded Perspective on Alternatives, John Locke Found. (Nov. 1, 2023), https://www.johnlocke.org/hog-waste-management-in-north-carolina-a-freedom-minded-perspective-on-alternatives/.
[25] Id.
[26] Samantha Baars, North Carolina’s Hog Problem, S. Env’t L. Ctr. (Jan. 26, 2023), https://www.selc.org/news/the-sinister-hog-industry-of-eastern-north-carolina/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. In 2022, EPA responded to a SELC-filed lawsuit by agreeing to investigate the discriminatory impact of hog farming’s contributions to pollution and related health risks in Eastern North Carolina.
[27] See Lester, supra note 24; Baars, supra note 26.
