Battle over chicken droppings looms

Battle over chicken droppings looms
By KELLY KURT AND MELISSA NELSON Associated Press Writers
Tulsa World, 07/17/05

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TAHLEQUAH -- Arkansas farmer Gene Pharr scoffs at suggestions that chicken droppings are hazardous and he fears a lawsuit targeting the industry could put the waste on par with industrial solvents, pesticide remnants and old car batteries.

Decades of spreading chicken waste on the Ozark Mountains have turned the region a lush green, but a federal court lawsuit filed by Oklahoma's attorney general could stop the practice and, according to Pharr, gut an industry that has for 75 years helped transform an isolated region into a vital part of the economy.

"We could see the loss of this industry to this country," said Pharr, whose 125,000 chickens at his farm in Lincoln in northwestern Arkansas are but a fraction of the region's $2 billion industry.

But Oklahoma's attorney general, Drew Edmondson, sees it another way. He remembers that, as a college student in Tahlequah, he could stand chest-high in the Illinois River and still see his toes.

"I've seen it change," Edmondson said. "It's nice to have green land. It's not so nice to have green rivers."

Last month, he sued 14 Arkansas poultry companies -- including three run by Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer -- accusing them of tainting Oklahoma waters with the so-called litter from millions of chickens and turkeys.

Edmondson says phosphorus from the litter fuels algae growth that reduces the clarity of rivers and streams, depletes oxygen and can kill certain populations of fish. Oklahoma's law suit seeks money to clean up the Illinois and is using the same South Carolina law firm that handled lawsuits against tobacco companies.

"The poultry industry is not the tobacco industry and poultry litter is not a hazardous waste," said Janet Wilkerson of Peterson Farms, a spokeswoman for the companies being sued. The farmers have banded together as a group called "Poultry Partners" in an effort to have a voice they say they didn't have in previous litigation.

The poultry industry has been good for the economy of northwestern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Tyson is a Fortune 100 company that had $26.4 billion in revenue last year, and thousands of people work in the industry -- from hatcheries to slaughterhouses to processing plants.

According to the lawsuit, Arkansas has 2,363 chicken houses in the Illinois River watershed while Oklahoma has 508. The chickens add phosphorus waste equivalent to 10.7 million people per year, Edmondson says.

Poultry companies say Edmondson is ignoring phosphorus added to the water by a growing population. But while the region is rapidly expanding -- the Milken Institute rated it as the nation's No. 1 economic growth region in 2003 -- it still has well fewer than 1 million people.

(Blog Admin. note: Portions of Grand Lake's, (where Grove gets it's water supply), watershed is affected by run-off from poultry farms in Southwest Missouri)