NC Senate calls for blanket permits for hog farm methane systems
Environmentalists cry foul, saying the bill is an effort to "lock in" the system of storing hog waste in ponds and spraying liquid watse on nearby fields.
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Senate Bill 605 – North Carolina’s annual farm bill – includes a number of changes in state agricultural policy. The most controversial deals with the permitting process on biogas operations, which typically amount to covering a lagoon of hog waste to capture methane rising off the pond so it can be burned for energy.
As of now, the operations have to be permitted by the state. Senate Bill 605 would create a blanket permit, allowing farms around the state to implement the digester systems instead of requiring them to be permitted one at a time.
The new process would be similar to the current process for hog farms in general, about 2,100 of which are all covered under one general permit re-upped every five years.
Supporters argue that the streamlining will allow farms to install new equipment that now takes months, if not longer, to get approved. So far, only a couple dozen farms have these permits, lawmakers said Tuesday.
Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, called the bill’s biogas section “lipstick on a pig” and an attempt to “lock this broken lagoon system in for decades to come.”
The measure cleared the Senate 29-20, a largely party-line vote – Republicans voted for it, most Democrats against. The bill moves to the North Carolina House for more debate.
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