RICHMOND — With Virginia in the thick of hurricane season, environmental advocates cautioned along with damages to homes and businesses, severe storms can send animal waste into riverways throughout the Commonwealth.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average hurricane season along the Atlantic coast.
As of 2020, there were more than 200 factory farms in Virginia and many factory farm operations store manure in lagoons as it waits to be treated. Manure from pigs, cows or chickens contain high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, which can hurt aquatic ecosystems.
John Rumpler, clean water director for the advocacy group Environment America, described a lagoon filled with animal waste in the path of a severe storm.
“There’s massive amounts of rainwater,” Rumpler explained. “What you get is the problem of overflow. These manure lagoons can overflow and all that animal waste can then wash out into a nearby river, lake and stream.”
Last year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved new regulations on animal waste storage to prevent groundwater contamination, including looking at 100-year floodplains, where groundwater may flow after heavy rains.
Rumpler pointed out there are a number of ways factory farms can prevent manure runoff into surrounding waterways, including not filling animal waste lagoons to the brim, which can spill over during severe weather systems.
At the end of the day, he added, the best way to protect waterways would be to not farm at such an industrial scale.
“We would say the prudent thing would be to grow our food in other ways and to help farms transition away from these massive operations that produce so much manure in the first place,” Rumpler urged. “These massive manure lagoons are accidents waiting to happen.”
Hurricanes and severe weather impact the Commonwealth’s economy. Damages from Hurricane Helene last year cost Virginia more than $600 million in agricultural damage, according to researchers at Virginia Tech.
