THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607040555
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SOUTH MILLS LENGTH: 147 lines
A rat infestation drove railroad conductor Marvin Myers out of his Chesapeake townhouse six years ago.
Now, his newest neighbors are forcing Myers to flee his $130,000 South Mills home, which he put on the market this week.
``I got rid of the rats. And now I'm moving in with the hogs,'' the Country Heritage subdivision resident said Wednesday.
Throughout Camden County's northernmost residential developments, property owners are protesting a Virginia farmer's plans to open a hog operation off U.S. Route 17 near the state border.
They are upset that the pig farm - which could eventually hold 20,000 or more swine - will taint their well water, air quality and the community's pristine image.
``People are going to come across the state line and be saying, `I wonder what that smell is?' That's going to be their welcome to North Carolina,'' said Bob Fraser, one of Myers' neighbors and a vocal opponent to the pig farm.
But those involved with the agricultural enterprise say that's hogwash.
The smell from ammonia produced by pig manure will not be as pervasive as people think, hog farm supporters say.
The fully enclosed waste pits, and their location, should not adversely impact nearby homes or produce leakages and overspills that could create environmental disasters, said Dr. Fred Cunningham, a veterinarian who runs hog operations for Williams Farms of North Carolina.
The company is one of several owned by farmer Frank Williams, who lives in Virginia Beach. Williams Farms of North Carolina, based in Moyock, has operated hog farms in Camden and Currituck counties for about 20 years.
One of them is located to the southwest of South Mills in Belcross, on farmland owned by Sterling Gregory, who lives nearby.
Gregory said on Wednesday that he'd just seen a group of children happily swimming at a pool party behind a private home 100 yards from the farm on N.C. Route 34. A church group was expected to come over later in the day, he added.
``If it was very bad, these groups wouldn't be coming up,'' Gregory said. ``I've been in the hog business 35 years or more. And I've never had a complaint.''
Gregory admits he can occasionally smell faint traces of hog waste from the open lagoons on his property. ``If the humidity gets real high, you can get a little odor. But we've never had any complaints,'' he said.
At the South Mills farm, five buildings with a more modern waste system are under construction.
One is a stud pen that will house 112 boars and be located 0.6 miles from both the nearest house and the historic and heavily traveled Dismal Swamp Canal.
Four other buildings will be nurseries, each holding 1,040 piglets weighing between 10 and 45 pounds. The structures will sit 1.4 miles from the nearest dwelling and the environmentally sensitive canal, Cunningham said.
The pig pens will include fully enclosed pits, capable of holding two years' worth of waste contained within eight-inch-thick concrete walls, Cunningham said.
Because of the size of the piglets, the amount of waste generated will be less than the amount adult swine produce. A prescribed amount of manure pumped from the pits will be injected into nearby crops at plant level, reducing the risks of runoff, he said.
Piglets raised at the South Mills farm, like the ones at Belcross, later will be sent elsewhere to be readied for market.
Although a ventilation system will blow exhaust into the environment, the buildings meet state setbacks, which were designed to minimize odors that could be offensive to nearby residents, Cunningham added.
Some question the distance between hog buildings, roads and other private properties.
Fraser and other opponents say the boar building is too close to a wooded lot, owned by the Ashton Lewis family of Gates County.
The building should be at least 100 feet from property lines unless a neighbor consents to it being closer, Fraser said. Lewis family members said this week that no such permission has been granted.
But Cunningham said that the number of boars being boarded are fewer than the number needed for that requirement to kick in. Recently, the buffer between waste lagoons and neighbors has been lengthened to 500 feet.
Operators selected the pens' locations, he said, because they believe they will create the least impact on nearby developments.
``We went out of our way to try and make this friendly and to make sure this would not affect those families,'' Cunningham said.
Not everyone sees it that way.
``They may smell good on the grill. But they don't smell good in the process of growing up,'' said Mike Andrews, who has lived for eight years on Culpepper Road, about four miles south of the controversial site.
Andrews' ranch home is on a street that includes several $300,000 dwellings. ``It just seemed like a nice place to set down roots,'' he said.
Last year, smoke from timber being burned on the same property frequently drifted to Andrew's subdivision, he said. ``You'd wake up in the middle of the night coughing and think your house was on fire,'' he said. ``If the smoke will come down here, there's no reason to think hog odor won't.''
Bill Bland is one of several Hampton Roads transplants who moved south of the border to enjoy South Mills' slower-paced, bucolic surroundings.
``I wanted to provide a little bit better atmosphere to raise my children in,'' said Bland, who is self-employed and has lived in the Country Heritage subdivision for more than six years.
Unlike neighbor Marvin Myers, Bland plans to stay put - pigs or not.
``It's going to affect my quality of life,'' he predicted. ``I will not be able to live in the manner I'm used to.''
Others worry that property values will plummet, which could be catastrophic for families that have sunk everything into their homes or planned to use the equity to help pay for college tuition for their children.
Waverly Sawyer, a Camden Realtor and contractor, said home values could drop 10 to 20 percent if the hog operation grows substantially beyond the initial five buildings.
Sawyer said that part of South Mills, passed by thousands of Outer Banks-bound motorists daily, was being primed for residential and commercial development.
Sawyer was considering a golf course community a few miles south of the Williams farm operation. ``Now we're going to put those plans on hold until we see what happens,'' he said.
Although the property is large enough to accommodate a huge number of pigs, Cunningham said Williams Farms does not intend to produce massive numbers of livestock.
``We have no plans to put that kind of animal volume out there,'' Cunningham said.
Some South Mills residents have contacted their state and county elected officials and asked them to intervene.
Because the hog operation has been designated a farm, rather than a business, there is little the county can do to regulate it, said Camden County Commissioner Samuel Shaw, who is chairman of the board.
``That's a farming operation. We never could stop it. The state gave them permission to do it,'' Shaw said.
North Carolina has apparently granted permission to a lot of pork producers, who are expected to raise more than 8.2 million hogs this year.
Because of the lack of local control, some people in Camden County have worried that the new hog farm will get out of hand.
But Cunningham said his hog operation is regulated, primarily by the state's Department of Environmental Management.
Contractors must abide by building codes. And the amount and application of manure injected into croplands is determined by the state.
Another area of local concern is tourism, which is gaining more attention, thanks to the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center about 3 1/2 miles from the hog farm.
Last year, 600,606 visitors traveling in 222,447 vehicles stopped at the rest area that serves both U.S. 17 motorists and Intracoastal Waterway boaters.
Penny Leary-Smith, director of the welcome center, said she is not sure what impact the hog operation might have on tourism. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
Officials with a hog farm going up in South Mills say modern waste
systems and the relatively young ages of the animals will keep
offensive odors from wafting over to neighboring homes. But Bob
Fraser, right, and other nearby residents say the farm will taint
their well water, air quality and the community's pristine image.
``People are going to come across the state line and be saying, `I
wonder what that smell is?' That's going to be their welcome to
North Carolina,'' Fraser said. by CNB