On June 15, around 11 p.m., yet another agriculture truck spilled a portion of its cargo on Clinton roadways, perhaps the worst spill of its kind so far.
Why the worst? Because this time, it wasn’t just waste slung across our highway; it was the bloated carcasses of dead hogs. Not one or two of them either, more like nearly a dozen, littering both sides of U.S. 421 near North Boulevard.
The sight was bad enough: pigs bursting at their fleshy seams lying on the sides of the road, in the center of the road and along the roadway for several hundred feet. The smell was worse, a scent that lingered in the air, permeated clothes and left anyone unfortunate enough to be at the site for the clean-up with their senses heightened and not in a kind or appealing way.
This was the second spill in just a few short weeks, the last one happening Memorial Day weekend near Sampson Community College.
Sadly, these spills are happening far too often in the city, and even across the county, an avoidable problem that should cease to occur.
But that’s not going to happen until either sharp financial teeth are put into state laws — and strictly enforced — prohibiting trucks from hauling such waste uncovered or loosely secured on state and local roads and highways. Laws also have to make punishments tough enough that trucking companies, and those who use them, commit to ensuring those loads are secured such that seepage and spills when hauling waste byproducts don’t happen.
These are not generally accident-related spills. They usually involve a commercial truck or 18-wheeler that slows for a stoplight or starts off after a stop, sloshing unprotected and uncovered sludge onto roadways or, in last week’s case, dead hogs.
The last spill involved a truck owned by Ag Protein, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, reportedly the first such incident involving this company in at least five years. To his credit, the driver did not leave the scene and helped a clean-up crew rectify the awful incident.
And to the credit of Smithfield officials, the response to the spill was quick and an apology was issued, complete with assurances that further driver training would be forthcoming to help ensure incidents like the June 15 one did not happen again.
“We are committed to working together to continue to be a good corporate partner,” Ray Atkinson, senior director of external affairs for Smithfield, said last week.
But talk without action is no panacea.
That is why we sincerely hope Smithfield is, indeed, committed to doing what it takes to stop this type of nuisance from occurring in Sampson and any other county across our state.
What’s more, we hope Smithfield, which has powerful sway across the pork industry, works with lawmakers and other similar companies to encourage better highway practices when it comes to hauling ag waste and dead hogs.
Clinton Mayor Lew Starling and City Council, as well as the Sampson County Board of Commissioners, are doing everything within their local government power to see that changes happen, but it is going to take far more legislative muscle to accomplish the task at hand.
Laws need to be changed, attitudes adjusted and commitment made to being good stewards of our roadways.
As it stands now, NC General Statute 14-399.3, enacted via the N.C. Farm Act, allows for what amounts to a traffic citation for the driver of the vehicle and, in some cases, criminal penalties for the transport company should a judge see fit to make such a ruling. The law also gives the judge some leeway to make the transport company pay full restitution for the cost of the emergency road cleanup
Drivers are subject to a citation if they leave the scene of a spill or fail to remain at the spill until law enforcement arrives on scene. But there’s little weight behind these laws, little in the way of fines and a lot of leeway when, and if, a case actually gets to court.
That needs to change.
It is our hope that residents, local leaders and our state representatives talk often and emphatically to ag officials and lawmakers in Raleigh, letting them know the severity of the problem and seeking help to find viable and enforceable solutions to the problem.