Public meeting scheduled May 28 on proposed water quality permit for Smithfield's Tar Heel hog plant
RALEIGH -- A May 28 public meeting has been scheduled to allow final comment on a revised water quality permit under consideration for Smithfield Packing Co.'s hog slaughtering facility in Tar Heel.
The Division of Water Quality will hold the 7 p.m. meeting at Bladen County Community College off Highway 41 in Dublin. Three hundred and seventy-five written comments have already been submitted to DWQ regarding the draft permit, which went to public notice Feb. 9.
Preston Howard, director of DWQ, said substantial public interest regarding the proposed Carolina Food Processors permit prompted his decision to hold a meeting to further explain the proposal and to allow additional comment.
Pork producers and related industry interests have submitted the vast majority of comments.
DWQ plans to issue the facility a revised National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit with several added conditions. Those conditions include the following:
Processing capacity at the plant would be limited to the current production of 24,000 hogs per day or a total of 144,000 hogs per week;
Carolina Food Processors would not be allowed to process hogs from any finishing operation in North Carolina that has received a violation notice from DWQ in the preceding 12 months, beginning on the permit issuance date;
The company could not process hogs from any new or expanded swine farms permitted during any legislatively mandated moratorium. North Carolina is currently under a moratorium, which Gov. Jim Hunt signed into law Aug. 27, 1997; and
Within 90 days of the permit issuance date, the Tar Heel facility would have to submit to DWQ a plan for optimizing efficiency of its wastewater treatment operations and maintenance.
Carolina Food Processors would be allowed to build additional wastewater treatment equipment to help recycle part of the waste stream for reuse in the plant, rather than discharge treated waste into the Cape Fear River.
In January, Smithfield dropped its nearly 3-year request to increase slaughtering capacity from 24,000 to 32,000 hogs per day and to increase its discharge of treated wastewater into the Cape Fear River from 3 million to 4.5 million gallons per day.
A copy of the draft permit and a sketch showing the discharge location are available by contacting Dave Goodrich, supervisor of the NPDES Unit, Division of Water Quality, P.O. Box 29535, Raleigh, NC 27626-0535; telephone, (919) 733-7015, extension 517. Copies are also available at the division's Fayetteville Regional Office in Suite 700 of the Wachovia Building, (910) 486-1541.
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Date released: April 2
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