DATE: Wednesday, April 9, 1997              TAG: 9704090443

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   79 lines

OWENS WILL OPPOSE FARM RESTRICTIONS IF COASTAL COUNTIES ARE NOT PROTECTED

An Albemarle legislator says he won't back a controversial bill that would restrict hog farm operations in certain areas of the state but not in many coastal counties.

Rep. W.C. ``Bill'' Owens, D-Pasquotank, said Tuesday he will not endorse a House proposal that gives counties more power to regulate the hog industry and imposes a one-year moratorium on new or expanding swine farms and lagoons.

Hog industry supporters have rallied in Raleigh for a week, seeking defeat of the bill introduced by Moore County Republican Richard Morgan. The legislation is before the House Rules Committee.

As written, the moratorium would apply only to non-coastal localities that have less than 75,000 residents and receive more than $150 million from travel and tourism.

Coastal counties in the northeast do not fit the bill, and that has some local leaders worried that such a law would push pork producers east.

The area already is home to several relatively small hog farm operations.

``With the way it is now, I will not be supporting it,'' Owens said in a telephone interview from his Raleigh office.

``I will try to protect the coastal counties, along with the other counties, and make sure that, in fact, they are not throwing those operations down to the east,'' Owens said.

The leader of the state Senate, Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said Tuesday he had not seen the bill but would not support anything that excluded certain areas.

``If there's going to be a moratorium, there's going to be a moratorium everywhere,'' Basnight said by telephone.

If the intent of the bill is to provide protection from pollution, Basnight said, then all counties should be covered.

``If we have a hog farm that's polluting, we should shut it down wherever it occurs,'' he added.

Those comments came a day after Currituck County commissioners voted to draft letters to both men asking that all coastal communities be included in the bill.

``It kind of gives me the feeling they're trying to shift all the hogs to the coast,'' said Commissioner Gene Gregory, who initiated Monday night's discussion.

``We wouldn't have any kind of power in the zoning process that everyone else in the state would have,'' Gregory continued.

Other commissioners agreed that uniform coverage was needed.

``The board needs to be able to control these large hog operations,'' Commissioner Paul O'Neal said.

Hog operations now are governed by a state agency. Local governments have little or no say when a hog farm opens, as was the case last year when a hog farm opened near the Virginia border in South Mills.

Nearby residents fear the Camden County operation, which its owners say will include about 4,000 hogs when fully built, eventually could contain up to 20,000 or more pigs and could damage the quality of life and property values in the neighborhood.

``We've got some large tracts of land available in Currituck - very large tracts next to houses, schools and communities,'' O'Neal said.

The new bill would allow boards of commissioners to grant special use permits and hold public hearings before a swine farm could be built or expanded once a moratorium is lifted.

Both Owens and Basnight recently received publicity for accepting contributions linked to the hog industry.

The two men were far from alone.

A report from the Chapel Hill-based research group Democracy South indicated that 80 percent of North Carolina's legislators had received contributions from hog farmers, lobbyists or political action committees.

Owens later returned his $200 contribution, according to one published report.

Basnight received about $12,000. The Senate president pro tem got the money as part of about a half-million dollars raised in last year's political campaign.

``I didn't know I got it, but obviously I had it,'' he said, adding that the money in no way influenced him on industry regulations. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Carolyn Faircloth and Danny Ducker, both of Roseboro, N.C., rally

outside the Administration Building in Raleigh on Tuesday.

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