A truck carrying hog waste spilled portions of it at five locations across a roughly six-mile stretch of Sampson County roadwayMonday morning, leaving waste but no evidence of who actually caused it. The truck and driver remained unidentified as of Tuesday morning despite efforts by county officials to locate the vehicle.
Sampson County Fire Marshal Prentice Madgar said he received the first call reporting a spill Monday at 7:40 a.m.
“There were actually five different locations we had to go clean up,” Madgar explained Tuesday morning. “One of them was White Oak Church Road and Fredrick Road; one of them was McKenzie Road and White Oak Church Road; then White Oak Church Road and The Avenue; then The Avenue and Bonnetsville Road; and then it was Zoar Church Road and Bonnetsville Road.”
Madgar said he believes all five spills came from the same truck, with the locations forming a path west across the county.
“Every stop sign the driver came to, they dumped that (waste),” he explained.
“We couldn’t find them,” Madgar continued. “We’ve tracked them and looked at everybody. … We haven’t been able to find out who it was yet, but it was definitely coming out of a dead box from a hog house, without a doubt.”
Madgar said there are not many people in the area who have hog houses, and officials contacted those they knew of while trying to identify the source.
“We checked with them, and they were like, ‘No, we haven’t had a truck go that way,’” Madgar shared.
Without cameras in the area, he stressed that “it’s almost impossible to prove anything, unless we can track them down.”
Madgar explained that Sampson County Emergency Services personnel are typically able to identify the source of spills.
“Generally, they happen where we’ve got a camera, or we can get out to the landfill where we’re going most of the time and catch them right there,” he said. “We went out to the landfill yesterday, and they (the driver) evidently didn’t go to the landfill.”
Madgar said the driver could have been traveling toward Duplin County or Fayetteville, but officials had no information as of Tuesday morning confirming where the truck was headed.
Spills continue to occur across Sampson County and within the Clinton city limits, close to a pace of at least one per month. In some cases, drivers stay with the truck and are cited; in other cases, trucks leave the scene and the mess behind.