"With the EPA struggling to collect data on these huge farms, understanding their pollution levels is almost impossible."

"After Hurricane Matthew churned across North Carolina earlier this month, swollen rivers deluged poultry and swine farms, killing millions of chickens and thousands of hogs and sending potentially toxic animal waste coursing into waterways.

It could take weeks or months for North Carolinians to learn the scope of the pollution or where it came from—if they ever do.

'We may never know how bad this was or the extent of the damage,' said Travis Graves, a North Carolina-based member of the Waterkeepers Alliance, who has been surveying the scene from the air. 'The state doesn't even know how big the poultry industry is here.'"

Georgina Gustin reports for InsideClimate News October 21, 2016. [2]