The state\u2019s uniquely lax regulation permits chicken waste to collect outdoors \u2013 but there\u2019s no easy way to complain about it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jefferson Currie II is at war with flies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spotted flypaper dangles from the ceiling of his home in North Carolina<\/a>\u2019s Scotland county. He shows off a two-quart jar trap, marketed as an outdoor pest control solution for farms, full of flies he\u2019s caught indoors. On Zoom meetings for his job as the Lumber Riverkeeper with the non-profit Winyah Rivers Alliance<\/a>, he mutes himself and goes offscreen to avoid distracting others with the heavy thunk of his pump-action, salt-shooting plastic fly gun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flies are here, said Currie, because North Carolina\u2019s poultry industry has given them the perfect feeding grounds: massive piles of feces, urine and sawdust bedding, cleared from industrial-scale chicken barns. These heaps of waste are left exposed to the elements for days on end before being worked into agricultural fields as fertilizer. He lives half a mile from a facility with 16 such barns and within a mile of a dozen more, which grow birds on a contract basis<\/a> for companies such as Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms and Mountaire Farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI come outside some mornings, and with my cup of coffee I get a nice mouthful of chicken litter,\u201d Currie said with a rueful grimace. \u201cChicken manure in the mouth: It just tastes good, smells good, feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Large \u201cdry litter\u201d poultry operations like those of Currie\u2019s neighbors have swelled across North Carolina in recent decades. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the state sold over 972 million meat birds<\/a> in 2022, up from about 663 million in 1997<\/a>. Nearly three-quarters of those birds came from farms averaging over 918,000 chickens each per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That growth has probably stemmed, at least in part, from North Carolina\u2019s uniquely permissive regulatory regime. Dry litter facilities are exempt from the waste permitting requirements that apply to industrial swine or cattle operations. State law forbids local governments from zoning land to restrict poultry barns. Concerned communities have practically no way to slow the spread of poultry production or demand mitigation of its harms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the state department of agriculture and consumer services gathers details about poultry farm locations, which could help assess the industry\u2019s collective impact in a given area, it will not share any data with researchers or regulators, citing a law that keeps identifiable farmer data secret. No other state, including larger producers like Alabama and Georgia, places such lax requirements on industrial poultry growers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A joint investigation<\/a> in 2022 by the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer <\/em>in Raleigh estimated that North Carolina\u2019s poultry operators generate about 2.5bn pounds of manure<\/a> each year, creating substantial pollution. (Bob Ford, executive director of the North Carolina Poultry Federation<\/a>, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The industry\u2019s rise has acutely affected rural counties like Scotland (22.4 million broiler chickens sold in 2022, compared with 7.7 million in 1997) and neighboring Robeson (52.9 million in 2022, 16.9 million in 1997). The region includes some of the state\u2019s densest populations of Black, Latino and Native residents, among them Currie, an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With few state-level avenues for regulatory relief available, Currie and fellow Lumbee activist Donna Chavis, together with the non-profit Friends of the Earth<\/a>, took their case to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Last April, they partnered with the environmental justice clinic<\/a> at the Vermont Law and Graduate School to file a formal complaint<\/a> against the North Carolina department of environmental quality (NCDEQ) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The complaint alleges that NCDEQ is \u201cabdicating its responsibility\u201d to regulate an industry with proven environmental impacts in North Carolina and beyond, including nutrient leaching into waterways and ammonia emissions into the air. Currie said he had personally observed high bacteria levels, algal blooms and fish kills, all tied to runoff from poorly managed chicken waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because these impacts disproportionately fall on communities of color, the complaint continues, Title VI empowers EPA officials to require tighter state rules as a condition of future support. The agency is a major funder, allocating almost $291m<\/a> to North Carolina\u2019s environmental regulator in the 2022-23 fiscal year alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you have a state like North Carolina disregarding its public protection mission in favor of an entrenched industry, the legal tools under the big environmental statutes are limited,\u201d said Christophe Courchesne, a Vermont Law professor and attorney who helped file the complaint. He says environmental justice groups have increasingly turned to Title VI as a creative legal strategy, including in North Carolina, where a 2018 settlement<\/a> over another complaint against NCDEQ led to stronger monitoring of swine facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the few instances<\/a> where North Carolina has put restrictions on poultry farms, advocates say, the state rarely punishes violations. For example, explained David Caldwell, Broad Riverkeeper with the non-profit MountainTrue<\/a>, regulations prevent farmers from leaving piles of chicken waste standing uncovered for more than 15 days, but that rule is often ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caldwell has partnered with the non-profit SouthWings<\/a> to conduct aerial monitoring of poultry farms and document uncovered litter piles. \u201cI remember one particular pile of waste as big as my house, and it was never covered up \u2013 I probably flew over it 10 times,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On another occasion, Caldwell conducted three flyovers of his watershed\u2019s biggest poultry facility within a 16-day period, documenting the same uncovered litter piles on each occasion. He shared that evidence with NCDEQ, asking the state to require a cleanup; instead, he said regulators just visited the site and asked the operator to cover the piles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other riverkeepers told the Guardian <\/em>that the state refuses to consider their photographs of uncovered waste as evidence of violation, even as it commits few of its own resources to monitoring poultry. Without NCDEQ keeping a close eye on these facilities, said Caldwell, non-profit water protectors are one of the few groups trying to hold the industry accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Josh Kastrinsky, a NCDEQ spokesperson, declined to comment on the Title VI complaint, and a public records request filed on 24 January seeking the department\u2019s internal communications on the matter remained unfulfilled as of press time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo date, the department does not have statutory permitting authority for dry litter poultry waste management systems,\u201d Kastrinsky said. \u201cThese operations are deemed permitted under [state administrative code<\/a>] and must comply with certain restrictions and record-keeping on storage and transfer of dry litter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although NCDEQ is the Title VI complaint\u2019s target, North Carolina\u2019s legislature shares much of the blame for the current situation, said Brooks Rainey Pearson, a lawyer with the non-profit Southern Environmental Law Center<\/a> who was not involved in the filing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s been lobbying for greater oversight of the poultry industry in the capital of Raleigh since 2012 and says the Republican-dominated general assembly hasn\u2019t allowed any progress. House Bill 722<\/a>, the poultry waste management bill she helped the Democratic representative Pricey Harrison introduce in the last legislative session, was immediately buried by the Republican-led House rules committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have a legislature that is catering to factory-farm interests. They\u2019re very strong lobbies,\u201d Rainey Pearson said. And legislators from impacted areas often have ties to the poultry industry; Republican representative Jarrod Lowery, who represents Robeson county and serves on the state House\u2019s agriculture committee<\/a>, was previously a spokesperson for Mountaire Farms and sat on the North Carolina poultry federation board. (He also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear if the Title VI appeal to the EPA will be any more successful than efforts at the general assembly. While federal standards call for the agency to determine whether it will consider the complaint within 90 business days of receipt, the matter was still listed as \u201cunder jurisdictional review\u201d as of 20 March, 11 months after its filing. EPA officials did not acknowledge the Guardian\u2019s requests for an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n