"North Carolina Factory Farms Lose Effort to Limit Pollution Lawsuits"

"The state’s new Democratic governor vetoed a bill to limit plaintiff compensation in CAFO nuisance lawsuits, though the Republican-dominated legislature could overturn the veto as early as this week."

"Elsie Herring has been fighting for decades against the industrial hog farm that moved in beside her family’s Eastern North Carolina property in 1986 and began spraying the fecal material of 2,000-plus hogs onto the field that ends eight feet outside her kitchen window.

But last Friday, when newly elected Democratic Governor Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would protect the hog industry from lawsuits like one she and about 500 others have filed against a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, she breathed a sigh of relief—at least for the moment.

“This is a really big deal,” Herring said from her home in Duplin County, where hogs outnumber people 40 to one. “It was a bad bill that only protected the industry. I’m very glad the governor is standing up and doing the right thing by the people.”"

Christina Cooke reports for Civil Eats May 9, 2017.