Poultry lawsuit awaits decision
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008
TULSA — Oklahoma’s failure to link a single sick person to the spreading of poultry litter on farm fields is why a federal judge should allow the practice to continue, a Fayetteville attorney argued Wednesday in U. S. District Court.
Judge Gregory Frizzell heard two hours of closing arguments, but he made no decision on whether to temporarily ban the practice in the Illinois River watershed. Frizzell didn’t say how quickly he’ll decide, but Oklahoma has pressed the court for a quick decision because it contends poultry litter spreading in the spring poses a significant threat to people.
Robert George, representing Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc., told Frizzell the lack of documented illnesses is telling, and it’s one reason among many that the court should deny Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s request for a preliminary injunction to ban litter spreading.
“This court cannot speculate about missing or hypothetically sick people,” George said.
Edmondson disagreed, saying he believes more than 1, 000 people a year get sick from poultry litter’s impact on the Illinois River, suffering gastrointestinal infections from campylobacter, strains of E. coli and salmonella.
Those illnesses, which cause diarrhea, nausea and other symptoms, aren’t reported because people who fish or float in canoes in the river disperse widely to Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and other parts of Oklahoma.
Edmondson sued eight poultry companies in federal court in 2005, accusing them of polluting the watershed with poultry litter. Oklahoma claims the litter threatens the health of people who recreate in the Illinois River that’s popular for canoeing and fishing.
Edmondson borrowed a line from American novelist Gore Vidal in his 30-minute speech to Frizzell.
“If you poison the river, the river will poison you,” Edmondson said.
Later, Edmondson said the gastrointestinal diseases reported are only the “tip of the iceberg.”
The state contends poultry litter, a mixture of bird manure and either wood chips or rice hulls, is solid waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 and the litter threatens the health of people in the watershed.
Attorneys on Wednesday touched on every detail that unfolded in the hearing’s first eight days.
Fred Baker, an attorney for the South Carolina firm Motley Rice that’s assisting Edmondson, said litter is solid waste. Among his reasons is that Congress didn’t specifi- cally exclude animal manure from the federal act.
“That’s very telling, your honor,” Baker said.
George said poultry litter and other animal manure wasn’t intended to be subject to the limitations of the federal law. He said Edmondson should seek the help of state legislatures in Oklahoma and Arkansas if he wants poultry litter spreading to stop.
“It’s not a waste,” George said. “It’s a fertilizer.”
Baker contended the state doesn’t have to show “proof of actual harm” to humans. Instead, Oklahoma must show “reasonable cause for concern,” he said.
“If err is to be made, it must be made in favor of public health,” Baker said.
George disagreed, but he didn’t look to Vidal’s words. Instead, George repeated a line uttered Tuesday by Louis Bullock, a Tulsa attorney working for the state.
“The absence of proof is not proof of anything,” George said.
Later, George responded to Edmondson’s “iceberg” comment. “Before you have a tip of an iceberg, you must have an iceberg,” George said. Farmers who live in the 1 million-acre watershed, which straddles the Oklahoma-Arkansas line, said they’ve fretted about the injunction since Edmondson requested it in November.
Gene Pharr, who lives near Lincoln and raises chickens for George’s Inc. of Springdale, said in a telephone interview that he believes less than 10 percent of the poultry litter has been spread on farm fields so far this year. That’s because farmers generally wait until drier conditions between June and September to spread litter, Pharr said.
“People are very upset because they don’t like that a federal judge may have that much control when they aren’t even represented at the hearing,” Pharr said.
Poultry farmer Earl Hunton, the son of poultry farmer and Washington County Judge Jerry Hunton, said farmers have talked plenty at coffee shops and livestock sale barns about the injunction sought by Edmondson.
The Huntons, who raise chickens for Simmons Foods of Siloam Springs on a farm near Prairie Grove, put litter out in November, soon after Edmondson asked for the injunction.
“We took that opportunity,” Earl Hunton said. “I’m sure other farmers have done the same thing.”
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
