Poultry litigation too costly for business
One company closed its Oklahoma operations
Poultry litigation too costly for business: One company closed its Oklahoma operations

By Jim Stafford

Published: February 21, 2008

TULSA — Attorney General Drew Edmondson's quest to block the spread of poultry waste in the Illinois River watershed of Northeastern Oklahoma continued Wednesday with one less integrated poultry company than anticipated sitting at the defense table.

Before arguments began Wednesday in the courtroom of Federal Judge Gregory K. Frizzell, defense attorney Jay Jorgensen addressed the court on behalf of Springfield, Mo.-based Willow Brook Farms, which raises and processes turkeys.

Willow Brook has elected not to participate in the hearing on Edmondson's request for an injunction that would halt application of chicken litter on land inside the million-acre Illinois River watershed, Jorgensen told the judge.

"The cost of litigation has gotten so great that they are closing their operations in Oklahoma,” Jorgensen said.

Frizzell replied that Willow Brook was "taking a risk” by not presenting a defense.

"The truth is that operations in Oklahoma and Arkansas are at risk (of an adverse ruling),” Frizzell said.

Jorgensen emphasized that he was not representing Willow Brook but merely advising the judge of the company's status in the hearing. Jorgensen is listed in court documents as an attorney representing Tyson Foods in the hearing.

During a break, Edmondson said that Willow Brook remained one of 13 defendants named in the state's multimillion dollar lawsuit against the poultry industry for alleged damages caused to the Illinois River watershed. A trial is expected to be heard next year, but Edmondson is seeking the injunction to immediately halt spread of poultry waste in the interim.

The state continued to build its case to halt land application of poultry waste in the Illinois River watershed by bringing a pair of scientific experts to the witness stand in Wednesday's sessions.

First up was John Fisher, a geologist who conducted an extensive survey of the number of poultry houses in the watershed. He also surveyed the geological formations in the watershed area, which he said lends itself to harmful elements from poultry waste leeching into the ground.

"It sets up a circumstance in which poultry waste has the ability to quickly penetrate into the subsurface,” Fisher said on the witness stand. "It readily enters the groundwater.”

Fisher also conducted chemical analysis of Lake Tenkiller, into which the Illinois River feeds. That analysis found that current levels of phosphorous, arsenic, zinc and copper in the lake are substantially higher today than when the lake was created in the early 1950s. All of those elements are found in poultry waste.

However, under cross examination Fisher told the court that traces of those elements are found everywhere.

"Everyone in this room, you me, the rug, the wall probably contain some (of those elements),” Fisher said.

What about human waste? attorney Robert George asked.

"Sure.”

"Has the human population increased (in the watershed)?” George asked.

"The human population has approximately tripled,” Fisher said.

Next up was Bernard Engel, a professor and department head in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. Engel provided a calculation of the amount of poultry waste generated in the Illinois River watershed annually and how much of that is applied by poultry farmers to land within the watershed.

The 1,853 poultry houses in the watershed product at least 345,436 tons annually, a number that Engel described as "conservative.” Most of it is applied close to home, he said.

"It is land disposed, typically a few miles from the house in which it was generated,” Engel said.

In fact, about 30 percent of poultry waste is applied to land within one mile of the house in which it is generated, Engel said, citing numbers obtained from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. Sixty percent of chicken litter is applied within three miles and 80 percent within five miles, he said.

George responded with a document during his cross examination of Engel that showed that only 116,400 tons of poultry waste was applied in the watershed for the eight year period from March 1998 through April 2006.

Earlier in the day, George cross-examined plaintiff's expert witness Christopher Teaf, assistant director of Biomedical Research at Florida State University.

Teaf had been presented by Edmondson's team late Wednesday and presented numbers that showed salmonella and other bacterial infections in Adair County were far higher than counties elsewhere in the state. Adair County is in the heart of the Illinois River watershed, which would bring residents into contact with water and any bacteria it might contain.

However, under George's cross examination, documents were introduced that showed salmonella cases in Adair County declined from 9 in 2005 to 5 in 2006, and that other counties in the watershed area had far lower numbers of infections.

George also questioned Teaf's "edge of field” water samples from the watershed that showed bacterial counts equivalent to those found in raw sewage spills. He claimed that Teaf discounted the impact cattle would have on bacteria counts in fields and pastures in the area.

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