Oklahoma City-Agriculture interests are incensed and warn of serious consequences if Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson succeeds in his attempt to obtain a court order to stop the use of poultry litter as fertilizer in the Illinois River watershed. “We don’t like this one bit,” said Marla Peek, Oklahoma Farm Bureau director of regulatory affairs. “Poultry growers in the watershed are abiding by state law, but that’s not good enough for the attorney general. If there’s a water quality problem why aren’t the appropriate federal or state agencies taking action?” Poultry Partners Manager Bev Saunders warned, “While this action would have a serious impact on the poultry producers, it will also have a huge impact on beef, hay and grass producers in the area. The landscape of northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma has changed throughout the year to the credit of poultry litter. What used to be sage grass fields are now green pastures. Barren lands that in the past would have caused soil runoffs are now seeded and growing in grasses.” Citing imminent danger to public health, Edmondson has filed a motion asking a federal judge in Tulsa to prohibit the application of poultry waste within the 1,640 square mile watershed. It was his latest move in a lawsuit against Tyson Foods and other integrated poultry producers based in northwestern Arkansas, accusing the companies of knowingly violating state and federal environmental laws with their careless waste-dumping methods. “We can show that fecal bacteria in poultry waste is reaching the surface water and groundwater,” Edmondson said in a media release. “Scientists found areas where the bacterial counts in runoff water from poultry waste disposal fields were similar to those found in raw, untreated human sewage.” Environmental groups applauded the injunction request. Save the Illinois River President Kurt Robinson said he has been calling for similar measures for some time. “I think it’s an excellent move and long overdue,” Robinson said. “A large part of the recorded data suggests most of the pollution in the Illinois River is coming from runoff, and the fact that poultry waste is being used as fertilizer in the basin has been a huge concern due to its high phosphorus content.” Poultry Partners’ Saunder responded that Edmondson is ignoring the fact that BMPS, the entity that administers a poultry litter hauling program, recently reported to the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission that it tracked the transfer of just over 74,000 tons out of the watershed in the past 12 months.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain