Advocacy Groups File Suit Against Hog Corporations

Fifteen of the nation's most prominent law firms will represent the groups in class action, civil action and nuisance lawsuits.

The first state targeted by the suits is North Carolina, which is one of the nation's largest hog-producing states.

N.C. farmers are allowed to deposit hog waste in large open-air lagoons, which some say are unsanitary and damage the environment.

But hog company officials said they are not intimidated by the environmentalists' efforts and believe the case will fail.

At a Wednesday press conference in Washington D.C., Water Keeper Alliance president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state government's failure to regulate the hog industry has provoked the recent legal action.

Kennedy said the agency has had problems enforcing the standards set by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts ever since the EPA's budget was cut in half by Congress in 1995.

"The only hope of civilizing this industry is to confront them directly," he said in a telephone press conference.

"The private bar is the only place that citizens can go for redress."

Kennedy added that each law firm suing the hog industry has donated $50,000 to aid in the legal actions.

He said the lawsuits will attempt to make hog manure lagoons illegal, require the industry to pay fines and penalties and force the industry to remedy any environmental damage.

North Carolina recently entered into contracts with Smithfield Foods and Premium Standard, the country's top two pork producers. Together the companies control 75 percent of the hog industry in the state.

The contracts require the companies to donate millions of dollars to a trust funding N.C. State University technological research for environmental improvement and development.

Sierra Club representative Scott Dye harshly criticized the corporate hog industry at the conference.

"They are renegades and outlaws," Dye said. "They have ignored the laws and will continue to do so, until we civilize this industry and return a little bit of sanity to rural America."

But Smithfield Foods spokesman Jerry Hotstetter said the comments are similar to ones Kennedy made in North Carolina earlier this year. "It was nothing new from our perspective," he said.

But Hotstetter said the company was not scared by the advocacy groups' team of legal talent. "We've already said that their lawsuits were without merit."

Hotstetter cited a Thursday New York Times article that quoted Phil Carlton to support his comments.

Carlton is a former N.C. associate justice currently representing Smithfield Foods in the lawsuits. In the article, Carlton criticized the legitimacy of the lawsuits claiming that they were improperly filed and stretched state law.

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.