Living Next to Large Scale Hog Farms (Part 1)

Everybody knows pigs smell. Not everyone though, knows how that smell can affect human health. Yet more and more people are being exposed to it. The old farms of a few dozen hogs are fast giving way to mega-farms. Forty percent of all hogs in the United States are produced on farms with at least fifty-thousand head. And more animals means more manure which concerns environmentalists and neighbors of these animal cities. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Gorenstein reports. not only is there a threat to water sources from runoff and contamination, but the stockpiles of waste release bad-smelling emissions and chemicals into the air: