Associated Press

Okla. lawsuit blames river's decline on poultry.

7/14/05

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) -- When Drew Edmondson went to college here, the nearby Illinois River flowed so clear he could stand chest-deep and still see his toes. The water was such a temptation, "I majored in river," he says four decades later.

With the river now murky and green, the Oklahoma attorney general's nostalgia quickly turns to blame aimed at the $2 billion poultry industry straddling the Arkansas-Oklahoma line.

"I've seen it change," Edmondson said. "It's watching the slow destruction of a probably irretrievable asset."

Last month, he sued 14 Arkansas poultry companies in federal court -- including three run by Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer -- for allegedly tainting Oklahoma waters with waste from millions of chickens and turkeys.

Applied to farmland as fertilizer, the poultry litter has created a verdant landscape in the Illinois River watershed. But the land can't hold all the nutrients, and the runoff believed to be fueling explosive algae growth downstream in Oklahoma amounts to hazardous waste, the state's lawsuit alleges.

"It's nice to have green land," Edmondson said. "It's not so nice to have green rivers."

The water is still safe for swimming and fishing, but phosphorous fuels algae growth that reduces clarity, depletes oxygen and can kill certain populations of fish.

At the point where the Illinois River crosses from Arkansas into Oklahoma, phosphorus levels rose from the mid-1990s until 2003, when there was a 12 percent drop in the five-year average, according to water monitoring for the Arkansas-Oklahoma Arkansas River Compact Commission.

The drop came a year after Oklahoma imposed its first numerical standard for scenic river quality -- 0.037 milligrams of phosphorus per liter of water.

Arkansas environmental authorities say efforts by Arkansas cities to reduce phosphorous from wastewater treatment plants appeared to be paying off.

But J.D. Strong, chief of staff for Oklahoma's secretary of environment, said the dip is largely attributable to an abnormal dry spell that meant less runoff from farms.

"We know that 80 to 90 percent of the phosphorous that travels down that river occurs in a handful of rainfall events," Strong said. National Weather Service records show that, this year, average rainfall amounts in the region are 6 to 8 inches below normal.

The conflict over water that Arkansas and Oklahoma share is a long and bitter one.

Oklahoma took Arkansas to court in the 1980s over wastewater releases from Fayetteville, Ark. The case ended in 1992 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the releases could continue but Oklahoma could require Arkansas to meet its water quality standards.

In 2003, the states declared a truce with a pact that gave northwest Arkansas cities as long as 10 years to meet Oklahoma's new phosphorous standard.

The agreement, however, didn't address phosphorous from poultry waste runoff.

The average annual phosphorus load climbed 38 percent between the 1980s and the period covering 1998-2002, a time of expansion in the poultry industry and explosive growth in cities in the western Ozarks.

If the executives of the poultry companies traveled to Ed Fite's farm outside of Tahlequah; if they crossed under the highway in the tunnel his grandfather had built to accommodate a 1962 Cadillac with a canoe on top; if they stood amid the wildflowers on the yet-beautiful river, he'd try and convince them it needs their help, not another fight.

"I don't know anyone who would want to come and destroy this river," said Fite, who spent his first decade as head of the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission doing battle with Arkansas.

Water quality at normal flow likely will improve as the cities build new wastewater treatment plants. But Fite said the problems with runoff during hard rains are worsening as trees are cleared to build roads, houses and shopping malls in booming communities in northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

On his own farm, Fite stopped fertilizing the hay field flanking the river years ago and created a strip of natural vegetation to slow runoff.

The commission is spending $250,000 on lease agreements to create similar riparian zones along about 16 miles of river, something Fite believes could make a big difference if done throughout the watershed.

"The river is still in pretty good shape," he said. "It's still a natural resource that warrants the protection."

The Illinois River attracts a half million visitors a year and contributes $9 million to $12 million to the state's economy, Fite said. But growing chickens is part of Oklahoma's economy, too.

Of the 2,871 poultry houses in the watershed, 508 are in Oklahoma.

Edmondson says he wants the companies, not the farmers, to pay for the cleanup. But Bev Saunders, who raises broilers with her husband on their Colcord farm and manages an advocacy group called Poultry Partners, said her family's future is tied to Peterson Farms, the small company they serve.

"If the companies don't survive, we don't survive," she said. "If we don't survive, it could have a drastic impact on America's food supply."

A recent poll shows most Oklahomans support the lawsuit, which gained steam with the 2003 settlement between the city of Tulsa and six poultry companies and the city of Decatur, Ark., over tainted drinking water.

The $7.5 million agreement required Decatur to improve its wastewater treatment system. It also set limits on the application of poultry waste to land in the watershed.

Before the deal was struck, a federal court deemed phosphorous a hazardous substance and found poultry companies liable for nuisances created by their contract growers.

Edmondson remains hopeful the state and companies can avoid a jury trial. He has held off issuing summonses to see if ongoing talks -- with meetings scheduled Tuesday and again in August -- produce a settlement.

The court filing would be needed to enforce even a negotiated settlement, he said.

But after years of negotiations, he believes he's given the poultry companies enough chances to avoid costly litigation. In 2001, at their first meeting, he said he told them he wouldn't seek damages or cleanup costs if they agreed to truck excess waste out of the watershed.

"They had an opportunity to do the right thing," he said. "And they refused to do it."

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