Recently, I completed a project for Rhetoric class in which I did a rhetorical analysis of the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. The section of the book I analyzed was entitled "Pieces of Shit," and focused on massive lagoons of pig waste surrounding the factory farms of pork production megacorporation Smithfield. These poisonous lagoons have caused atrocious damages to the surrounding areas and people.
What exactly are these 'lagoons'? What makes them so dangerous? Picture a lake about 3 acres in area, and around 30 feet deep. Now, instead of water, imagine that lake is filled with pig shit. That's a lagoon. And not just shit, mind you, but stillborn and dead piglets, afterbirths, vomit, blood, urine, antibiotic syringes, broken insecticide bottles, hair, pus, and body parts, among any other kind of wastes produced by factory farming (Foer). The pig feces alone contain "ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide (think sewage gas), carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorus, nitrates and heavy metals." The combined waste hosts over 100 microbial pathogens that can be extremely harmful to humans, like salmonella (Tietz). The worst part is that there can be over a hundred of these lagoons in one place, typically around a slaughterhouse. And when a lagoon becomes too full, the waste either leaks out into the local water supply or is sucked out and sprayed either onto a nearby field or just, you know, into the air (fuck it, why not?).
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| Three lagoons next to a pig factory farm |
In 2010, Rolling Stone published an article by Jeff Tietz called "Boss Hog," a piece that revealed Smithfield's practices, including these lagoons and their effects. Tietz tells the following horrific story that illustrates just how dangerous these lagoons are to humans:
"A worker in Michigan, repairing one of the lagoons, was overcome by the smell and fell in. His 15-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit" (Tietz).
Most people that have heard anything about factory farming know of the terrible pollution caused by the industry. What most of us fail to remember, however, is that people actually live near, sometimes almost on, these factories. The suffering of those living in these areas is, in my opinion, the most well-hidden aspect of factory farming. The costs that corporations such as Smithfield externalize onto other people and the environment are enormous. Remember how the lagoons can leak into water supplies? That's not regulated by the government at all, and is perfectly legal. Just as legal is the spraying of shit into the air and onto fields. And that liquified shit finds its way very easily into the lungs of local citizens, who consequently suffer from "persistent nosebleeds, earaches, chronic diarrhea, and burning lungs" (Tietz). In addition, over half the children that grow up on the factories suffer from asthma, while those living nearby are twice as likely to develop asthma (Thicke). People in these surrounding communities have protested and have even managed to pass some laws that restrict this noxious pollution, but because of the power of the industry, the regulations are rarely, if ever, enforced (Foer).
All that mess is on a good day. Imagine if one or more of Smithfield's lagoons flooded or spilled. Oh, wait...it did. In 1995, 20 million gallons of lagoon waste spilled into the New River in North Carolina, a spill twice as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. I couldn't find a picture of the Smithfield spill (which should tell you something), but here's the Exxon spill for reference:
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| Remember, this is half the size of the Smithfield spill |
Excellent post, as always.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dr. Morris!
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