"Complaints become part of the record only if a violation is found, but the state has only 14 inspectors for thousands of hog, poultry and cattle farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs."

"ROWLAND, N.C.—Brenda Schwab stopped her 16-year-old Ford pickup truck on Gaddy’s Mill Road and pointed to a chocolate-colored ridge about 30 feet long and 5 feet high, resting in a field and close to the road. A cold downpour had turned the air clammy. It smelled like a rancid potpourri seeping through the truck windows, singeing the occupants’ sinuses and glomming onto their raincoats.

The dark ridges contained chicken feces intended to be spread on Robeson County pastures as fertilizer. Officials at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality call this waste “dry litter” because it is mixed with sawdust and bedding. Poultry farms in North Carolina that use the method of disposal don’t have to obtain a state permit to operate.

Schwab is in her 70s with short gray hair and works as a health care consultant. She lives a mile and a half downstream and downwind of a million animals raised on concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, in southern Robeson County.

Shoe Heel Creek runs past the CAFOs and through the back half of Schwab’s 73-acre property before entering South Carolina. She is worried about the water quality in the creek and nearby swamps. Farmers legally spray and spread tons of poultry and hog waste from CAFOs onto their fields as fertilizer, which can seep into groundwater and waterways."

Lisa Sorg reports for Inside Climate News March 9, 2026. [2]