China’s Using America As a ‘Sewer’
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spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:25 pmFather, I pray against China’s efforts to use and abuse America. 🇺🇸 Heal our land, Father, and protect our interests and people! In the mighty name of Jesus! AMEN🙏🏻❤️🕊
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:41 pmOur rural areas are suffering from poor waste management and a resistance to change — all while China is profiting.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:42 pmNorth Carolina is the home of more than 2,000 large-scale hog farms, primarily clustered in the rural eastern region of the state. factory-scale hog farming takes a tremendous toll on the surrounding environment, as hog excrement ends up polluting waterways, land, and air.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:43 pmMore than 200 of these North Carolina hog farms are owned or operated by Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the world, which in 2013 was acquired by the WH Group, a Chinese pork conglomerate that has been accused of feeding its hogs illegal chemicals.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:43 pmBut as reported by Rolling Stone magazine in 2018, that wasn’t the only safety concern raised by the sale:
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:45 pm“The Chinese government had a track record of using nominally private entities as proxies for state power. In 2011 … the government issued a plan directing Chinese companies to buy foreign food producers and farmland. In two years, Chinese nationals went from owning $81 million worth of American farmland to nearly $1.4 billion
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:46 pmChina Dumps Its Agricultural Waste in the U.S. In years past, the United States outsourced dirty industry processes to poorer countries. Today, China is doing the same, and it’s treating the United States as a developing nation. Granted, U.S. environmental policies—which have gotten increasingly lax over time due to regulatory capture by industry—are what allow for this “hostile takeover” in the first place.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:46 pmBelieve it or not, China doesn’t allow hog waste to be sprayed on fields as a means of disposal, as is routinely done here in the United States.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:47 pmIn China, hog farmers are forced to spend big bucks on wastewater treatment, digester systems to convert manure into natural gas, and odor control systems to shield nearby residents from the stench.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:47 pmAll of that makes pork about twice as expensive to produce in China than in the United States. Usha Haley, a professor at West Virginia University who has studied the Chinese takeover of American agricultural assets for well over a decade, told Rolling Stone:
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:48 pm“China will not care about the health of people living beside the hog farms. China will act in its own self-interest to leave the pollution here but take the valuable clean pork back to China.”
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:49 pmHog Farms Wreak Havoc Thousands of pigs are kept permanently indoors in these industrial “farms,” known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Urine and feces are piped outside into a giant open lagoon, and when the lagoon gets full, the waste is sprayed onto nearby fields.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:50 pmIndeed, several studies have concluded that living near CAFOs has a detrimental impact on health. For example, one 2018 study by Duke University found that people living in close proximity to hog CAFOs have:
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:50 pmHigher all-cause mortality. Higher infant mortality and low birth weight. Higher mortality due to anemia, kidney disease, tuberculosis, and septicemia.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:51 pmThe massive amounts of hog waste produced by these industrial farms also pollute well water and surface water with nitrates, phosphorous, and fecal bacteria, which in turn contributes to algae blooms that kill fish and can cause life-threatening illness in humans.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:51 pmThe largest cluster of hog farms in NC also happens to be located in a coastal floodplain, which further heightens this water pollution risk, as storm flooding washes the hog waste into the surrounding ecosystem.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:52 pmBiogas Permits Will Further Impact Underprivileged Residents You’d think this kind of pollution would be curbed by the federal Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations, but that’s not the case.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:53 pmthe EPA primarily regulates only the largest concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:53 pmBesides, getting rid of hog waste by spraying it on fields is perfectly legal, even though nearby residents end up getting showered with fecal matter on a regular basis … And now, their situation may get even worse.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:54 pmIn 2021, North Carolina regulators authorized four Smithfield-owned CAFOs to convert their animal waste into biogas fuel by installing anaerobic digestion systems, all without conducting a comprehensive impact analysis or including air and water mitigation requirements.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:55 pmBiogas Will Make a Bad Situation Worse As if that’s not bad enough, the 2021 Farm Bill passed by the North Carolina General Assembly also calls for the creation of a general permit for biogas production from CAFO waste, which will make it easier for other farms to follow suit.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:55 pmAnd as you’d expect from captured legislators, the draft of this general permit contains the same deficiencies as the four individual permits initially issued. As noted by the SELC in a supplement to its original complaint:
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:56 pm“Like the individual permits, industrial hog operations permitted under the Digester General Permit will produce dangerous new waste streams that will harm people living nearby. These operations will be authorized to dig new hog waste lagoons or cap existing unlined ones, install digester systems, store digester waste in open-air potentially unlined lagoons, and spray the ammonia-rich digester waste on fields across eastern North Carolina.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:57 pm“Since Complainants filed their complaint last September, the harms authorized by North Carolina’s issuance of the individual permits and the general permit have become even more evident.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40018Requests: 2385
July 21, 2023 at 3:57 pmAs stated in Complainants’ 2021 complaint to OECRC, digester systems exacerbate pollution and negatively impact human health.
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