TULSA – Oklahoma’s 20-year-old lawsuit over poultry pollution isn’t dead after all.
A federal judge shot down agreements between the state and several poultry producers in a 20-page ruling that was issued Wednesday.
Gregory Frizzell, the Judge for U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, wrote that the settlements — which have been negotiated over the past several months — lacked proper funding to help the state recover from phosphorus pollution caused by chicken waste and did not hold those responsible for pollution accountable through civil penalties. In addition, Frizzell said the settlements didn’t do enough to mitigate ongoing pollution from chicken farming operations.
“Had the parties truly wished to reach a negotiated resolution of this matter without regard to outcome, such agreement could have been reached at any time in the nearly three years between the court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and the Judgment,” Frizzell wrote. “The parties’ failure to do so suggests they ‘roll[ed] the dice’ and now seek to erase the result of that gamble through vacatur, (Latin for the phrase, ‘it is vacated).”
Frizzell’s ruling set off a series of responses from the state’s political leaders, including the attorney general, the governor and state lawmakers.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s spokesperson, Leslie Burger, said the AG’s office was disappointed in the court’s ruling.
“These agreements followed months of goodfaith negotiations and would have delivered more than $31 million to address poultry litter pollution in the Illinois River Watershed,” Burger said in a statement sent to Southwest Ledger. “Our focus remains on securing fair and reasonable agreements, a focus shared by all four of the settling defendants in this case.”
Burger said Cargill, George’s, Peterson Farms and Tyson have already filed appeals of the court’s decision.
“They expressed their commitment to finalizing the settlements regardless of the outcome, including by private settlement, if necessary,” she said.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said he, too, was disappointed in the ruling. However, Stitt also criticized Drummond’s involvement, saying the attorney general’s recent actions caused the problem.
“My heart goes out to the poultry growers in eastern Oklahoma,” the governor said. “The uncertainty they face is unimaginable, and it was preventable if Attorney General Drummond had
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