Why DEQ trusted a Raleigh real estate agent with the site of a massive hog waste spill
Four years ago, millions of gallons of hog waste spilled from a Wayne County hog farm and into a nearby swamp. But this year, the same hog farm has continued to leak sludge into public waterways and violate its environmental requirements, racking up thousands in fines. The farm’s new owner, who bought it at auction in 2024, hasn’t paid any of these fines, nor has he submitted several requested reports to the state. In fact, the farm’s new owner has never run such a farm himself. He’s a Raleigh-based real estate agent named Wallace Green operating under the name Biox Renewables, a one-person limited liability corporation that has no website and no office. The farm, formerly called White Oak Farms, is home to an anaerobic digester — a device that captures the methane from hog manure and turns it into renewable energy. Businesses that own a farm with a digester are subject to supposedly strict permitting requirements. Green, however, has faced few consequences for failing to comply with those requirements. He doesn’t have any full-time employees overseeing the farm’s pits of hog waste. He’s over a year behind on submitting required documents to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, prompting
