A North Carolina district court judge has ruled that hog producer Murphy-Brown LLC must clean up water pollution tied to 11 different operations. Judge Malcolm Howard ruled that the company must live up to an agreement that it signed 11 years ago to clean up sites in Bladen, Columbus, Duplin, Pitt, Sampson and Scotland Counties, reports U.S. News & World Report.
"Considering that each of the farms were identified ... by conditions including lagoon leakage and elevated nitrogen concentrations, the corrective action is necessary to mitigate such conditions," Howard wrote.