Source: Tulsa World
A poultry production worker clears chicken litter from a chicken house in Delaware County. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell’s findings in a lawsuit earlier this year put the responsibility for decades of phosphorus contamination in the Illinois River watershed directly on the poultry industry.
Oklahoma’s lawsuit against major poultry producers could go to federal mediation if the state’s attorney general gets his wish.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond told journalists at the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Press Association on Saturday in Shawnee that the lawsuit focused on water quality in the Illinois River Watershed has him “in a tough spot.”
He also said he doesn’t hold much hope for his wish to come true.
Drummond said he doesn’t see himself as a litigant but as the attorney general elected into the job to settle the longstanding conflict. He said clean-water advocates on one side and poultry industry leaders on the other see the issue in zero-sum terms. It pits clean water, which he “supports 100%,” against a robust poultry industry, which he said is vital for eastern Oklahoma.
“It’s they have to win, and you have to lose,” he said. “I’m hopeful we can find a path through which we win — state, water and poultry.”
On Jan. 17, U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell issued a detailed 219-page finding on the case in the federal Northern District of Oklahoma. He ordered the opposing parties to come to a resolution by March 17 or risk having him hand down his own ruling to resolve the case. But he allowed a 60-day extension in March and scheduled a hearing for his Tulsa courtroom on Friday.
Now a change of venue is on the table.
Frizzell’s decision and findings of fact on the lawsuit, initially filed by Attorney General Drew Edmondson in 2005, sided heavily with the state and put the responsibility for decades of phosphorus contamination in the Illinois River watershed directly on the poultry industry.
Evidence cited by Frizzell found that nonpoint source pollution results from removing poultry litter from large-scale chicken farms and using it as fertilizer for crops and grazing lands.
Drummond said phosphorous concentrations in the soil are allowed up to 300 pounds per acre, even in sensitive watersheds.
“That’s saturation-level,” Drummond said. “The scientific standard is 65 pounds.”
Any solution would require the poultry industry to find new disposal methods for tens of thousands of tons of poultry litter annually spread on farmlands and to perhaps mitigate some of the problems the judge’s findings attribute to past practices.
Drummond characterized as “chippy” the negotiations with leaders at Tyson Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cal-Maine Inc., Cargill Inc., George’s Inc., Peterson Farms and Simmons Food, defendants in the case.
He said he offered the industry a first try at a proposal and that the result lacked teeth. His office returned with “a much more aggressive” approach, and the poultry groups recently responded with a more modest offering.
“Just yesterday, we decided instead of going back in front of Frizzell next week, where he will chastise us and probably hold us all in contempt, we asked him to go into federal mediation so we can engage a 10th Circuit judge — not from Oklahoma, from Utah — who has a lot of experience in environmental law.”
Drummond said a judge who is an expert in the subject area and based in another state might put fresh eyes on the Frizzell decision and gain headway with the poultry industry. He said the industry needs to be persuaded to work with a state attorney general who wants to find ways to phase in changes and help the industry evolve.
“I want to find commonality, and we won’t find it in federal court,” Drummond said. “We’re going to have to do it through mediation.”
However, he added, he doesn’t hold out too much hope. He might be the only one who favors that approach. “But we’re going to try our hardest,” he said.
Drummond said leaving the ruling to Frizzell could be hard on the industry.
“Oh, he’ll kill ’em,” he said. “That won’t be good for Oklahoma.”
