Internationally best-selling author of four novels, Corban Addison, admitted that his first narrative non-fiction about the hog industry, specifically about hog waste, was going to be a heavy lift to get anyone to read.
John Grisham read it and stated this in his forward: “Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle, “Wastelands” is a story I wish I had written.”
Addison, who has degrees in law and engineering, was confident he could create dramatic interest around the litigation. He felt this was another untold civil rights story.
He embedded within the community of plaintiffs and lawyers to introduce readers to the long-suffering victims and the ingenious group of lawyers who fought for them, for seven years through five federal trials. One of those dedicated lawyers lives here in Park City.
The story is set in rural North Carolina, where tobacco growing transitioned into hog raising. Over the decades, a few men gained power and changed what had been many small family farms into a giant corporation. It raked in massive profits while the farmers were left with the work, the risk and the responsibility of waste disposal.
If you need facts and figures to understand the scale of the problem, consider this. Within four counties, the hog population is nine million--35 times the human population. There are barns that contain 5 -15,000 animals. Each hog produces five times the waste of a human being. The individual farmers, with few guidelines or restrictions, are tasked with disposal of that waste. Hence the stockpiling, spreading and spraying which impacts anyone and anything within miles of these operations.
The majority of the adjacent landowners are lower income black and brown families who have owned the land for generations and have found no legislators willing to intervene or protect them and no lawyers willing to take on the corporation.
Like many of us, Addison is frustrated that politicians allow the despoiling of our land, air and water, protecting the corporations instead of the people. Nuisance cases have forced the industry to pay out settlements, but in many cases, they refuse and are not forced to change polluting practices.
“The very best I can do,” says Addison, “is offer the world truth through story. My goal is ultimately to use the story form to change the human heart one person at a time.”
“Wastelands: A True Story of Farm Country on Trial” by Corban Addison can be found at local libraries.