CENTER - Bernie and Judy Walters say they have never been bothered by the pollution from the coal-burning power plant about two miles from their home. But a proposal to put a 5,000-pig operation even closer has them thinking about raising a stink.

"I'm sure not crazy about having that smell at my house," Judy Walters said of the proposed hog farm south of Center that could crank out nearly 140,000 piglets annually. "It will devaluate our house if we ever want to sell it - that's what we're concerned about."

Bernie Walters worries that the smell will prevent him from having an outdoor barbecue.

Center does have hogs already, about 2,000 of them in three separate finishing facilities outside of town.

"It's not like we don't understand it," Oliver County Extension Agent Rick Schmidt said.

Schmidt said he's taken a neutral stance on the latest proposal.

"It's not my job to take a position, good or bad," Schmidt said. "Questions are going to have to be answered before it's built, otherwise we're going to have to live with it."

Pork producers are looking to bring big hog businesses to North Dakota to keep pace with a growing market. But even with the promise of jobs, they are running into objections from people worried about the suffocating stench and the potential for runoff from cesspools.

"Smell is an issue," Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson said. "Manure smells, and pig manure is more offensive than most."

Johnson, however, remains a big pig proponent.

Hog production in North Dakota last year was the fourth-lowest in 100 years, the state Agriculture Department said. The state had 157,000 hogs as of Dec. 1, down 7 percent from the previous year.

"That's almost nothing," Johnson said.

The record number of hogs in North Dakota was set in 1943 at 1.1 million. Johnson would like to see those numbers again.

Livestock production has the "greatest economic multiplier effect" on the state's economy, he said.

Johnson said only 20 percent of the state's agriculture revenue comes from livestock, compared with about 50 percent in neighboring states.

"It's pretty clear we could do more," he said.

Towner County is home to the biggest state hog development in recent years, with one 20,000-hog farm and a 3,000-sow barn built in 2004, said Craig Jarolimek, a spokesman for Canadian swine management group Elite Swine Inc., a subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods, in Brandon, Manitoba.

Elite Swine has been met with opposition in other parts of North Dakota.

Company officials said Langdon-area investors abandoned plans in 2003 to build a large hog farm there after pressure from critics. Also that year, Elite Swine withdraw its application for a 6,000-hog feeding operation about 10 miles from Walhalla, on a site half a mile north of the Manitoba-North Dakota border, after residents from both countries complained.

This month, the Ramsey County Commission has denied a permit to build a 21,000-hog business near Edmore.

Viking Feeders LLP, a group of farmers and businessmen who have partnered with Elite Swine, have said the county's ordinance may be illegal. County officials indicated they will review it.

Brothers Dan and Bill Price, cattle ranchers from Center, and William Cornatzer, a Bismarck physician, want to put a hog operation on reclaimed mining land south of Center.

The idea is for each of the 5,000 artificially inseminated sows to produce litters of up to a dozen piglets nearly three times a year.

"That's a lot of little pigs," Bill Price said.

When the piglets are about 20 days old, they would be shipped to other farms to grow to up to 50 pounds before being sent off to finishing barns to be fattened for slaughter.

Pig manure from the facility would be injected into the reclaimed mining land, making it more fertile, the Prices said.

The facility would employ about 19 workers, with an average salary of $33,000.

"It would put about $600,000 annually back into the community," Bill Price said.

The brothers want to get the $7.5 million hog operation running next year.

Schmidt, the county extension agent, said the hog operation "has a pretty fair chance of going if the odor issues are addressed."

Last month, about a dozen Center residents traveled to Manitoba to visit a facility similar to the one proposed near town.

Bernie Walters was among those who went on the tour. He said he was impressed with the operation, but it still stunk.

"It was a no-nonsense hog business," Walters said. "But if they're a real good thing, then why are they such a hard sell?"

The issue may come before the County Commission in about a month, after some informational meetings.

Three of the county commissioners are hog farmers, Schmidt said.

Jarolimek and the Prices said there are ways to lessen the stench of hog operations, including better ventilation, waste treatment and a special diet for the hogs that makes the manure less malodorous.

"The hog industry has always gotten a black eye on smell, but technology keeps changing to improve the smell," Dan Price said.

Jorden Krecklau, Judy Walters' brother, said he heard the same pitch when a hog farm was established near Noonan, in northwestern North Dakota, about a decade ago.

"At the time they built it, they had all the answers and assured us it wasn't going to stink," Krecklau said. "We listened to them, and we're sorry we did. I would fight it like crazy if they wanted to put up another one around here."

Susan Schiffman, a professor at Duke University, said studies have shown that people exposed to hog odor for an hour complained of such things as headaches, eye irritation and nausea.

"There is technology that can help control the smell," Schiffman said.

Agriculture Commissioner Johnson said hog operations must be strategically placed. He said that probably hasn't happened enough in the past.

"You don't want to put a hog facility where neighbors are going to object - they need to be in open spaces," Johnson said. "In North Dakota, we have a lot of those places."