Environmentalists have won a round in an ongoing dispute between a massive egg farm neighboring a national wildlife refuge in northeastern North Carolina.
A Hyde County superior court judge ruled Friday that the state has the authority to regulate airborne emissions under federal clean-water law – even though Republican lawmakers tried to protect the egg company from that regulation through legislation passed last year.
Judge Wayland J. Sermons Jr. said an administrative law judge must hold a hearing on whether the airborne emissions from a ventilation system at Rose Acre Farms polluted nearby waterways.
The judge also ruled that there were significantly higher levels of fecal coliform, ammonia nitrogen, inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus recorded in those streams since the egg farm opened.
