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Feasibility Study Report: Management of Swine Lagoons Following African Swine Fever Outbreak
Citation:
Cleland, J. Feasibility Study Report: Management of Swine Lagoons Following African Swine Fever Outbreak. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-22/209, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
This feasibility study will increase national preparedness for an African Swine Fever virus (ASFv) outbreak within the pork industry by evaluating potential options for hog lagoons that could be used to minimize potential virus spread to neighboring farms and minimize the downtime that pork production facilities would have to endure before being allowed to restart operations following an ASFv response.
Description:
As a product of the collaborative research between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA’s) Office of Research and Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), this report evaluates options to prevent the spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) from swine lagoons in the event of a potential outbreak of the disease in the United States. Outbreak response actions at contaminated animal operations include depopulation, decontamination, and other measures to prevent transmission of the disease to unaffected operations. A particular concern for disease outbreaks at swine operations is the management of waste lagoons that may be acres in size and many feet deep. For example, weather and other occurrences (e.g., natural disasters) have the potential to cause lagoons to overflow and release untreated material to the environment.