The storm drowned more than 5,500 hogs and flooded vast areas with manure from lagoons that were either breached or topped by the hurricane.
The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has partnered with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to extend its program to buy out swine operations within the state’s 100-year floodplain, the state agency said in a news release.
Using funding grants from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the state will be able to institute permanent conservation easements to the farms.
The program began in 2000 after Hurricane Floyd. It offers an opportunity for swine production operations with a high risk of flooding to convert to other forms of agriculture more compatible with floodplain locations.
A total of 42 swine operations from the 100-year floodplain have been bought out so far for $18.7 million.
The hurricane also claimed 3.1 million chickens.
There is a flood plain that extends more than 30 miles from the shoreline with a river drop of only two feet, and it floods when a storm surge comes from the ocean and/or when heavy rains fall.
Hurricane Florence brought both a storm surge and heavy rains.
