Why do Chicken farmers feel threatened by Oklahoma suit?
Handling chicken waste has long been part of doing business in this watershed. For decades, farmers took clumps of bird droppings, bedding and feathers from the houses and spread them on their land as an inexpensive fertilizer for other crops. The two states sanctioned this by issuing the farmers permits, and the industry says no individual companies or farms have been accused of violating environmental regulations. But Edmondson says the sheer volume of the waste spread on the land — estimated at 345,000 tons per year — has wreaked environmental havoc. Runoff carries bacteria into lakes and streams, where it threatens the health of tens of thousands of people who boat and camp in the valley every year. He says the industry took the least expensive way out when it could have burned the litter as energy, processed it into pellets or even composted it until the pathogens died.
