Fumes From Iowa Hog-Manure Pit Kill Father and Son

Hogs in a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). Note the slatted floor. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_Animal_Feeding_Operation#/media/File:Hog_confinement_barn_interior.jpg">EPA</a>/WikiMedia

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Here’s another reason why Americans should think twice about how the United States is emerging as the globe’s hog farm: concentrating thousands of hogs in one place means concentrating huge amounts of their shit, too; and that shit puts off gases that are so noxious that they can kill people who work near them. Think I’m exaggerating? Get this, from the Des Moines Register:

A father and his son who were so close that they were “like glue” were killed Saturday by noxious fumes from a northwest Iowa hog manure pit—the second father and son in the Midwest to die of poisonous manure pit gases this month.

These large, indoor facilities confine hogs above their own waste on a slatted floor—the waste falls through the slats and collects in a pit below. An incredibly putrid aroma—I’ve smelled it—shrouds these facilities. The air contains hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and volatile organic compounds. Hogs can live above these poison-gas cesspools because giant fans keep the air moving. But when something goes wrong beneath the slats, workers have to venture into places where there is no effective ventilation. And that’s what happened on this Iowa hog farm, to heartbreaking effect.

The two were repairing a pump at a hog confinement when a piece of equipment they were using fell into the manure pit, Wempen [a relative] said. Austin Opheim went into the pit first to retrieve the equipment, and his father followed him after realizing his son had been overcome by gases, Wempen said. …  “(Gene) was carrying Austin on his back and bringing him up and he got almost to the top and he got overcome, and down they went,” she said.

An eerily similar father-son tragedy occurred in Wisconsin earlier in July.

Such disasters can usually be averted by donning proper breathing equipment when venturing beneath the slats. But in recent years, Midwestern hog facilities have been beset by a mysterious foam that settles at the surface of manure pits, which creates a buildup of volatile gases that that has caused many explosions. Back in June, two workers at a Minnesota hog farm died in a fire that erupted after they had been cleaning the slats of an empty hog facility—apparently the result of “power-washing activities bursting the foam bubbles in the manure pit” below. And last year, reports the trade journal Pork Network, a “similar fire in Iowa severely burned Leon Sheets, a past president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, as he power-washed one of his hog barns.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate