 According to Jeff Tietz, writing in "Rolling Stone" in 2006, the waste—a mixture of excrement, urine, blood, afterbirths, stillborn pigs, drugs and other chemicals—overflows when it rains, and the liners can be punctured by rocks.Responding to Tietz, Smithfield attributed the pink color of the waste to the health of the lagoons, and stated that the color is "a sign of bacteria doing what it should be doing.It's indicative of lower odor and lower nutrient content."