This photo, taken by the Neuse Riverkeeper and Tar-Pamlico Riverkeeper on Aug. 23, shows the digester at White Oak Farms illegally operating three months after the original disaster. (Courtesy photo)
A one-word change in the Farm Act could allow hog farmers to capture methane from their waste lagoons, but choose not to use the gas for energy. Instead, the farmer could merely send the potent greenhouse gas through a flare and into the air.
Current law allows for methane to be collected from the farms “for use” as an energy source. The amended language says the methane “may be used” for energy, but would no longer require it.
The black circles show the location of four confirmed farms that will send biogas to the Align RNG facility on Highway 24 in Turkey. Blue circles show farms closest to the pipeline route, but have not been confirmed. Nineteen farms will reportedly send biogas to Align RNG but neither Dominion Energy nor Smithfield Foods will disclose the names, not even to state regulators. (Base map and pipeline route: Land Management Group, submitted to the US Army Corps of Engineers; farm locations based on DEQ mapping tool and documents, and USACE filings)
Why it matters: Hog lagoons are capped to trap methane gas. (Methane still enters the air, though, because a second, open lagoon catches overflow feces and urine, which is sprayed on farm fields.)
From the farms, the methane is shipped via pipeline or truck to a conditioning facility where the gas is upgraded. Once the impurities are removed, the gas is injected into a larger pipeline for purchase by Duke Energy to generate electricity.
Biogas is already controversial. It does not address the hog farms’ outdated manure management systems. In some cases it also requires the installation of miles of pipelines — routes and farms in southeastern North Carolina that Smithfield Foods has refused to disclose.
Allowing the farms to flare the greenhouse gases would undermine North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. Flares are supposed to reduce the amount of methane entering the air, but they can be inefficient and release significantly more than projected. Carbon dioxide is still emitted through the flares.
The EPA does not monitor greenhouse gas emissions from individual swine and dairy farms. But industry-wide, annual methane emissions from lagoon and spray field systems have increased 49%, according to the EPA: From 15.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (the commonly used unit of measurement) to 23.1 million metric tons. These estimates account for methane reductions from anaerobic digesters.
Here are two other notable provisions in the Farm Act, which will likely be added to throughout the session:
- Agriculture already is exempt from most of the state’s sedimentation and erosion rules, allowing farmers to cut trees and plant crops or graze livestock right up to the stream banks.
This provision would require farmers to leave a 25-foot undisturbed buffer of vegetation, such as trees, bushes and shrubs, along rivers and streams designated as trout waters by the Environmental Management Commission.
The EMC, though, can make exceptions to the law if in its discretion, determines the disturbance would be “temporary” and “minimal.”
Southern Appalachian Brook Trout, also known as “brookies” (Photo: US Fish & Wildlife Service)
Why it matters: First, trout require clean, cold water to thrive. In warm weather, trees shade the waterways and keep them cool. Vegetation also holds dirt in place during heavy rains, preventing it from entering the streams and burying the trouts’ food sources and their own eggs.
Case in point: Last year, Bottomley Properties clear-cut trees to the edge of stream banks in Surry and Alleghany counties, prompting wildlife officials to perform an emergency rescue and relocation of a fragile species of brook trout. The state Department of Environmental Quality fined Bottomley $268,000; the company has appealed.
This new provision, though, is lenient. While the bill legally requires a 25-foot buffer — it’s currently just a recommendation — that is narrow for environmental protection purposes. (It’s about the distance of a house to the street in many cities.) In many of North Carolina’s watersheds, a 50-foot buffer is required.
The EMC, using its “discretion,” could also decide to give the farm a pass on adhering to the 25-foot rule. Considering a recent bill that would change the make up of the EMC — including an appointment by the Agriculture Commissioner — the 25-foot buffer could become an exception, not the rule.
- And finally, veterinarians would get not only a week’s advance notice of a state inspection but also a “checklist of conditions that violate the standards” aka a cheat sheet, to help them pass it.
Why it matters: Advance notice allows veterinary scofflaws to correct their violations ahead of time, but then return to business as usual. Other establishments, such as restaurants, don’t routinely receive such notice.
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