Hog slaughter rule promises cruelty, injuries, health and wildlife risks

With the daunting speed of modern hog slaughter lines comes crippling worker injuries, horrifying animal welfare and food safety concerns and waste discharges that contaminate waterways with fecal matter, pathogens like E. coli and nitrogen pollution.

In an effort to address these risks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has long maintained a maximum slaughter line speed limit of 1,106 pigs per hour in hog slaughter plants.  

But in recent months, to “increase industry efficiency” the Trump administration gave meatpackers free rein to remove those line-speed limits and reduced the number of federal inspectors on the slaughter line.

The consequence is that approximately 11.5 million additional pigs are expected to be killed each year in the slaughterhouses anticipated to move into this new regime, imperiling worker safety, environmental health, animal welfare and the safety of the meat and meat products these plants produce.

That’s why the conservation group where I work as an attorney joined six other animal welfare groups to sue the administration’s push to gut slaughterhouse safety and oversight regulations.

One of the focuses of my work is to protect environmental quality and wildlife health by addressing the pollution generated by slaughterhouses. According to EPA, for example, the slaughterhouse industry is one of the nation’s largest sources of nutrient pollution to waterways, which threatens drinking water safety and harms already imperiled fish and mussels.

But federal Clean Water Act rules regulating pollution from slaughterhouses are dangerously out of date, a lapse my organization is additionally seeking to correct.

The combined result is that slaughtering millions more pigs at these plants will produce massive quantities of additional wastewater being poured into systems ill-equipped to sufficiently treat it.  

Further environmental harms will come via the increased demand for industrially farmed animals. The American Public Health Association recently called for a moratorium on industrial farm animal operations, finding that “large amounts of manure and other untreated waste created by concentrated animal feeding operations pose a threat to air quality, drinking water and human health,” including by spreading antibiotic-resistant pathogens.  

While this rule is bad for those of us who never have to set foot in a slaughterhouse, it’s even worse for workers and animals. Increased line speeds are shown to lead to accidents that augment the pain and suffering of the hogs and increase serious worker injuries, including severe cuts and amputations.  

Indeed, a USDA assessment from the rule’s pilot program paints a troubling picture of the animal welfare and food safety violations that result from increased line speeds, concerns recently reiterated by federal inspectors.  

We are confident that this administration’s logic-defying push to reduce protections for workers, animals and waterways will not stand up in court. But that doesn’t change how disgraceful it is that Trump’s USDA would stoop to even attempt to take this dangerous backward step.

Hannah Connor is a senior attorney in the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program.