Few eschew phew lagoons.

• Position: Eastern

Nearly 10 years after Hurricane Floyd flooded dozens of hog-waste lagoons, Tar Heel leaders are still looking for ways to avoid a repeat. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods Inc., the state's largest pork processor, kicked in $ 15 million for research, scientists have probed alternatives, and the General Assembly banned new and expanded lagoons two years ago. So why do more than 2,200 farms--about the same as at the time of the hurricane--still use lagoons? Because alternatives repeatedly have been trumped by cost.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"The technology for hog waste has been lagoons for years and years," says Dewitt Hardy, environmental programs manager of the N.C. Department of Agriculture. "It's hard to get away from it." The latest effort to leave lagoons behind came in June, when the state signed up dozens of producers for a $1.1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture program to switch to other means of disposal.

Lagoons are shallow ponds typically holding 7 million gallons or more of waste. Solid waste settles, while liquids are sprayed on fields as fertilizer. During Floyd, floodwaters overran them, polluting rivers, streams and water supplies. Experts say hog farmers learned from the 1999 storm, but Michael Williams, director of the Animal and Poultry Waste Center at N.C. State University, fears...