Mississippi environmentalists push hog farm suit
Date: 07-Feb-00
Country: USA
The class action suit, filed last month against North Carolina-based
Prestage Farms and several subcontractors, would compensate 160 families
who live near hog farms, processing plants and meat packers in Chicksaw
and Clay counties.
The families, backed by the Sierra Club, a California-based
environmental group, claim pollution from the sites has led to unusually
high incidents of asthma, migraines and other illnesses.
"Sometimes when I walk outside, I end up vomiting," said Jim Norman, a
57-year-old cotton farmer whose family has lived in Chicksaw for five
generations.
"This stench can give you diarrhoea and sinus headaches. It's like
living inside a gutter," he said.
For the past three years, Norman and other residents who live near the
farms have fought to have more regulations placed on hog growers. In
most cases, the farms are either owned by Prestage or the owners
contract with the company.
Large hog farms in Mississippi are sometimes home to as many as 7,000
hogs. Last year, state health authorities released a study that cited
possible respiratory problems for people living near the facilities.
Prestage Farms said it had a good environmental track record and would
defend itself against the lawsuit.
"We have absolutely no intentions whatsoever of settling with this
lawsuit. They (the claims) are totally unfounded and frivolous," said
Ron Prestage, the president of the company's South Carolina division,
which oversees operations in Mississippi.
In 1998, the Sierra Club helped implement a two-year moratorium on hog
farm expansion in Mississippi.