As if North Carolina hadn't suffered enough from the storm called Florence, the state now faces a nasty side effect of the flooding: massive amounts of escaped pig poop.

According to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), 21 pig-manure lagoons “overtopped,” releasing feces and urine into the environment. The lagoons, dug into the earth next to pig housing, are where the state’s more than 2,000 industrial-sized hog farms pump animal waste, which is then treated with waste-eating bacteria. The bacteria give lagoons a distinctive pink color.

At least 89 lagoons in the state are at imminent risk of also releasing animal waste, according to data issued Wednesday by the DEQ.

The state is home to almost 10 million pigs – second-most in the nation, after Iowa – many of which live in storm-affected Sampson and Duplin counties, according to the BBC.

Escaped waste can cause severe health and environmental damage, according to The New York Times. Rain and flooding from Hurricane Floyd caused similar issues in 1999, leading to algae blooms and massive fish kills.

Also, excess nitrates that move from groundwater into water supplies can cause “blue baby syndrome,” where nitrogen blocks the ability of red blood cells to carry enough oxygen, causing a baby's skin to turn blue, according to the Times.

“You basically have a toxic soup for people who live in close proximity to those lagoons,” Sacoby Wilson, a professor of public health at the University of Maryland, told Vice News. “All of these contaminants that are in the hog lagoons, like salmonella, giardia, and E. coli, can get into the waterways and infect people.”

Millions of animals, mostly turkeys and chickens have drowned in the flooding. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said that 3.4 million chickens and turkeys had died, along with 5,500 pigs.

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