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Posted: February 5, 2010

Hog farmer indicted on water pollution charge

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Clarkton, N.C. — A federal grand jury indicted a hog farmer in eastern North Carolina Thursday on charges related to the illegal dumping of waste into a tributary to the Waccamaw River.

Freedman Farms, Inc., and William Barry Freedman, 45, of Clarkton, are charged with violating the Clean Water Act, making false statements and obstructing justice.

State officials investigating a tip found that more than 332,000 gallons of hog waste had been discharged from the farm into Browder’s Branch between Dec. 15 and 20, 2007. Freedman provided documents to investigators that falsely described legal disposal of waste during that same time period, according to the indictment.

Copyright 2011 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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5 Comments


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Latest Comments
I'm glad someone noticed, tls71996. Them pullets are full of . . . pollution . . . also, just like them hogs. NC DENR needs to be on the lookout for them too, I just wish they would control all waste instead of singling out hog farmers and small towns - easy pickin's with minimal controversy.
Click to view my profile clickhere
February 5, 2010 6:36 p.m.
Hey Clickhere....PULLET ...SUPRISE???? It has been 20 minutes and I still can't stop laughing! OMG!!! It's Pulitzer Prize!..LMAO....
tls71996
February 5, 2010 6:15 p.m.
Water quality is a joke. They allow muncipalities to dump raw sewage into rivers by giving them a permit to do so, maybe it costs some $$. They're only supposed to dump when the sewage threatens to overflow anyway. Some smaller towns years ago got caught dumping like the big cities do, but since they didn't have a permit, they got fined. Same thing happens with hog farmers. The N&O put quite a few small operators out of business in the mid 90's with their Pullet Surprise winning series of articles on hog operations and sewage run-off, but they missed the big polluters - large operations and the cities. Water quality is really bad in the eastern part of the State, it all does flow downhill. USGS has some pubs on all this.
Click to view my profile clickhere
February 5, 2010 4:41 p.m.
"This has got to be a joke. You can go to every creek in Sampson County and there is a hog farm on it."

yes, but everyone doesn't release their lagoons into the creeks.
Jeremiah
February 5, 2010 4:23 p.m.
This has got to be a joke. You can go to every creek in Sampson County and there is a hog farm on it.
ech
February 5, 2010 3:26 p.m.
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