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2/25/99

Who are my neighborhood polluters?

  1. What is the worst county in North Carolina?
  2. Beaufort County. It produces 13,424,042 pounds of total environmental releases.

  3. What industry or industries are responsible for this country's poor ranking?
  4. In the town of Chocowinity, Singer Furniture Co., Stanadyne Automotive Corporation, and Fountain Powerboats, Inc.

  5. Where does your county rank statewide?
  6. I live in Cumberland County, and it ranks as the 17th most polluting county of the 100 in North Carolina. It produces 1,412,838 pounds of total environmental releases.

  7. What company is responsible for the problem in your area?
  8. I live within the Fayetteville/Northern Fayetteville/Fort Bragg area. The two most polluting companies in this area are Cargill Inc. in Fayetteville and Kelly-Springfield Tire Co. in Northeast Fayetteville. Cargill is a food and kindred products-producing company, and Kelly-Springfield produces tires.

  9. Is this company a subsidiary of another company?
  10. Neither Cargill nor Kelly-Springfield are subsidiaries.

  11. What is the chemical that has been the problem for this industry?
  12. Cargill produces a lot of n-hexane, which is a major noncancer risk, and Kelly-Springfield has been releasing lots of zinc compounds into the environment.

  13. What is the meaning of TRI?
  14. Toxics Release Inventory.

  15. How does this industry rank statewide?
  16. Cargill is the 20th top polluter of 100 in the state for total environmental releases, having released 656,000 pounds. The Cargill in Raleigh ranks 17th of 100 in the state.

    Kelly-Springfield is doing a much better job of keeping its pollution under control; it did not rank on the state's top 100 polluters list, so I went to the county ranking. For Cumberland County, Kelly-Springfield ranks 8th of the 9 most polluting facilities. In contrast, Cargill ranks 1st of 9 in the county.

  17. Can you compare NC to other states? Where does it rank?

I could, and I found out that NC was the 8th most polluting state in the nation, out of 55. It produces 81,175,583 pounds of total environmental releases.

Animal Practices:

  1. What is the worst county in North Carolina?
  2. Duplin County. It produced 4,300,000 pounds of total animal waste in 1997, and ranks among the top 20% of most polluted counties in the US.

  3. What industry or industries are responsible for this county's poor ranking?
  4. Hog industries are responsible for a very large percentage of total animal waste produced.

  5. Where does your county rank statewide?
  6. I live in Cumberland County, and it ranks as the 24th most polluting county of the 98 counties on the list (two counties are missing). It produces 260,000 pounds of total animal waste.

    In 1997, Cumberland County ranked 121 out of 1674 counties in the US in terms of hog waste.

  7. What company is responsible for the problem in your area?
  8. I live within the Fayetteville/Northern Fayetteville/Fort Bragg area. Hog companies are the major problem in this area, and the company with the highest rank in the county for hog waste pollution is called PX-18. It produced 47,000 pounds of hog waste alone in 1997.

  9. Is this company a subsidiary of another company?
  10. No.

  11. What is the chemical that has been the problem for this industry?
  12. Hog waste.

  13. What is the meaning of TRI?
  14. Toxics Release Inventory.

  15. How does this industry rank statewide?
  16. PX-18 ranks 26th in the state for hog waste.

  17. Can you compare NC to other states? Where does it rank?

I could, and I found out that NC was the 17th most polluting state in the nation in terms of animal waste, out of 50. It produces 25,000,000 pounds of total animal waste. This ranking was from 1992, the most recent ranking available.

For the 1997 ranking, NC was the 7th most polluting state in the nation, out of the 37 who submitted animal agriculture data to the USDA that year, producing 27,317,800 pounds of total animal waste.