The Trump administration has cancelled a $417,000 federal grant that would have funded research on the social and economic impacts of biogas production from industrialized swine operations in North Carolina.

Over several years, scientists from RTI International in Durham and the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had planned to continuously monitor the air, and periodically sample rivers, streams, and private drinking water in Duplin and Sampson counties. The study would also have collected health data in the communities.

Duplin and Sampson rank first and second in the nation, respectively, in the number of swine farms, according to a University of Michigan study . They account for 4.2 million hogs on roughly 900 farms, state environmental

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