Poultry Industry Defends Poultry-Waste Spreading

TULSA, Okla. ¯ Arkansas-based poultry companies told a federal judge that attempts by the state of Oklahoma to stop the spreading of poultry waste in the Illinois River watershed uses unreliable evidence and could force area farmers out of business.

Drew Edmondson, Oklahoma attorney general, requested a preliminary injunction this past November against the poultry companies arguing that unless the court grants the request by spring of 2008, the fecal bacteria found in poultry waste could pose a health threat to the 155,000 people who recreate in the river valley annually. Oklahoma contains more than 576,000 acres of the 1 million-acre watershed.

The injunction request is part of Mr. Edmondson's ongoing lawsuit against more than 12 Arkansas-based poultry companies accused of polluting the Illinois River watershed with chicken litter. The poultry companies, in their response to Mr. Edmondson's request, filed Tuesday in federal court allege the watershed shows no evidence of increased disease.

While Mr. Edmondson claims that an imminent risk to health has loomed over the watershed for 20 years, "the imminence of that alleged risk is contradicted by the failure to manifest in a single case of illness," the companies responded. The poultry companies maintain that granting an injunction could cost farmers and growers in watershed counties between $39 million and $77 million during the first year it would take effect.

Read the full MeatPoultry.com story here.