Poultry Industry Argues Okla. Could Have Done More

JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The Arkansas poultry industry tried Monday to show that Oklahoma had the power to fix the pollution problem in the Illinois River watershed without hauling poultry processors into federal court but failed to do so.

The 11 companies Oklahoma is suing used the cross-examination of Ed Fite, the director of Oklahoma's Scenic Rivers Commission, to illustrate what the state could have done before the 2005 lawsuit was filed. Oklahoma's lawsuit claims runoff from fields spread with tons of chicken litter has polluted the river valley on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border.

Last week, Fite testified he was in talks with the industry for more than a decade about ways to move chicken waste out of the watershed, but the industry failed to change its practices.

Monday, poultry industry attorney Tom Green asked Fite why Oklahoma has not banned farmers from letting their cattle defecate in the valley's rivers and streams, restricted cattle from grazing in riparian areas or regulated the use of commercial fertilizer, which contains the same phosphorus that poultry litter does.

Green asked Fite whether it was "humanly possible" for Oklahoma to implement any of the restrictions.