A settlement of almost $44 million resolving the State of Oklahoma’s 21-year lawsuit against six companies over poultry litter pollution in the Illinois River Watershed was announced last Monday.
Oklahoma sued Tyson Foods (including Cobb-Vantress Inc.), Cargill, George’s, Peterson Farms, Cal-Maine, and Simmons Foods in 2005. Last December a federal judge found the companies liable, then rejected a narrower settlement with four of the six companies this spring. The July 13 agreement resolves the case in full, covering all six companies.
The settlement will be in effect for seven years, and companies must follow all of Oklahoma’s litter-management laws during that time.
“This agreement allows us to turn the page on a dispute that has gone on for far too long,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said.
“It protects Oklahoma’s water, provides certainty for our poultry industry, and shows that difficult problems can be solved through persistence and good-faith negotiation. When the court asked us to strengthen the agreement, we went back to work and reached a better result. Every company has now made enforceable commitments with clear deadlines, creating a balanced solution that protects our natural resources while supporting one of Oklahoma’s most important industries.”
“I’m just a spectator now,” former Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who filed the lawsuit against the poultry companies in 2005, told Southwest Ledger on Tuesday. “I don’t know everything the current occupant of that office knows.”
Nevertheless, “I have scanned the 37-page agreement, and my major concern is that nothing” extends the mandates beyond seven years, Edmondson said. “My worst fear is that in seven years, the poultry companies go right back to doing what they have been doing. I hope Judge Frizzell [senior Northern Oklahoma U.S. District Judge in Tulsa] looks closely at that.”
Seven years may seem like a long time, Edmondson said, “but they can fly by in a heartbeat.”
Settlement terms
The settlement agreement provides that the defendants will:
•Pay $41,671,000 into an Environmental Relief Fund for watershed stewardship and litigation costs to be transferred to the Oklahoma Conservation Commission;
•Pay a combined $420,000 in penalties to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality;
•Establish a combined $1.9 million Auditor Fund to pay for an agreed-upon independent compliance monitor;
•Underwrite, or secure funding for, half the cost of installing vegetative buffers on qualifying poultry farms along Lake Tenkiller and the watershed’s Scenic Rivers, to filter runoff before it reaches the water;
•Submit to annual compliance certifications and audits, with financial penalties for any company that does not meet its litter-reduction commitments;
•Progressively reduce the volume of poultry litter that is removed from poultry houses each year and applied to the land within the watershed.
In exchange, the State of Oklahoma will move to set aside the December 2025 court judgment and close out the lawsuit once the settlement is finalized.
“This settlement protects our water and Oklahoma’s thriving poultry growers. Families in this watershed have waited 21 years for that outcome,” Drummond said. “I’m glad all six companies came to the table to help us get there. This is what it looks like when everyone works together” to solve a knotty problem.
The six defendants do not admit any liability “arising out of the transactions or occurrences” alleged in the state’s complaint, Drummond noted.
Watershed is 1M acres
The headwaters of the Illinois River Watershed (IRW) are in northwest Arkansas and its terminus is Lake Tenkiller, which covers 12,900 surface acres and has a shoreline of more than 130 miles in the Cookson Hills of the Ozark Mountains of Cherokee and Sequoyah counties.
The watershed – an area that drains to a particular body of water – encompasses a little over one million acres in northeastern Oklahoma (Adair, Cherokee, Delaware, and Sequoyah counties) and northwestern Arkansas (Crawford, Benton, and Washington counties).
Within the watershed are the Illinois River; its major tributaries, including the Baron (aka Barren) Fork River, Caney Creek and Flint Creek; and Lake Tenkiller, named for the prominent Cherokee family who owned the land and ferry that were bought to create the reservoir.
The earth-fill Tenkiller dam, which impounds the Illinois River, was constructed between 1947 and 1952 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for purposes of flood control, hydroelectric power generation, water supply, and recreation. The lake opened in 1953.
Poultry companies ‘degraded, impaired lands and water’
Then-Attorney General Edmondson filed suit against Tyson Foods and other poultry companies on June 13, 2005, in Tulsa’s Northern District federal court, accusing them of degrading and impairing “the lands, water, and other natural resources” of the Illinois River Watershed.
The state and the poultry companies agreed to the proposed settlement “to resolve fully and finally all claims that were brought or could have been brought” against the companies. The settlement is intended to “supersede and replace” a judgment the federal district court for the Northern District of Oklahoma entered against the six companies on Dec. 19, 2025.
“Court approval is needed to release the judgment, which is part of this settlement,” Carrie Burkhart, deputy press secretary for Attorney General Drummond, informed Southwest Ledger on Tuesday. “That request goes to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals” in Denver. “We don’t have a timeline to share yet on when that will happen.”
“There are still important steps ahead, but I am hopeful this agreement will bring this decades-long case closer to a responsible conclusion and provide greater certainty for eastern Oklahoma families,” said state Rep. David Hardin, R-Stilwell.
Environmental Relief Fund
The six companies “shall collectively pay $41,671,000” into the Environmental Relief Fund within 30 days of termination of the IRW lawsuit. The defendants will decide among themselves how much each company’s apportionment will be.
The Oklahoma Conservation Commission will use that fund “for the exclusive purpose of furthering environmental stewardship of Oklahoma’s scenic waterways, and for payment of litigation fees and/or expenses incurred” by the State of Oklahoma and/or its outside private attorneys in the IRW lawsuit.
No part of the Environmental Relief Fund “shall constitute” nor be “construed as, or treated as” constituting payment for penalties, fines, treble or multiple damages, forfeitures, or punitive recoveries,” the agreement stipulates.
Payments to the Environmental Relief Fund are due within 30 days after the courts vacate the prior judgment and dismiss the case.
Buffer strips
The six poultry companies also will support construction of riparian buffer strips in the Illinois River Watershed.
That requirement applies to any of the six companies that contract with any grower that has land abutting Lake Tenkiller or a designated Scenic River in the watershed “who continues to land-apply poultry litter” and installs a vegetative riparian buffer on that land.
No company will be required to spend more than $5,000 per acre or $100,000 in total for any single buffer strip. Those buffer strips must be completed within three years of the July 10, 2026, effective date of the settlement.
Penalty Fund
By July 24, the defendant companies must place into an escrow account specific sums: Cargill, $60,000; George’s, $10,000; Tyson, $190,000; Cal-Maine, $70,000; and Simmons, $90,000.
These payments will qualify as having “satisfied” and “discharged” the penalties imposed upon them in the Dec. 19, 2025, judgment.
Two days after termination of the Illinois River Watershed lawsuit, the Penalty Fund “shall be released from escrow and paid to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality Revolving Fund,” the agreement provides.
Cargill and Peterson certified that no poultry houses in the watershed “are owned or operated” by them “or any producer under contract” with them.
Litter removal commitments
During the term of the agreement, each of the six companies “will comply with” specific obligations “as to poultry litter generated from poultry houses owned or operated” by any of the companies, or by an independent grower, operating under contract with that company, that is physically located in the Illinois River Watershed.
In years 1 and 2, no more than 40% of litter removed each year from poultry houses of each company’s contract growers can be land-applied to soils “located within either the Oklahoma or Arkansas portions” of the watershed.
In years 3 and 4, no more than 30% of the litter removed each from the poultry houses can be spread on land within the watershed.
In years 5 through 7, no more than 20% of the litter removed from poultry houses of each company’s contract growers can be applied to land in the river’s watershed.
Poultry litter exported from the Illinois River Watershed to meet those specific limits may not be land-applied in any other nutrient-sensitive watershed in Oklahoma.
The litter removal commitment “may be extended by mutual written agreement of the parties,” the settlement states.
The intent of these provisions is to reduce the level of nutrients – specifically nitrogen and phosphorous – that are causing low-dissolved oxygen levels and high chlorophyll-a concentrations in the watershed.
If the weight of a load of litter removed from a poultry house operated by a grower “cannot be reasonably determined using a scale,” that litter cannot be applied to any land in the IRW.
Poultry litter stored temporarily in a covered shed “or in any other manner allowed by state law” cannot be considered “removed” for purposes of the commitment “unless and until” it is hauled away from the farm or land-applied to the soil “in a manner compliant with” the settlement.
Auditor chosen
Within two months after the effective date, Oklahoma State University professor Scott Stoodley will be “engaged” to audit the companies’ compliance with their litter removal commitments.
Also, the six companies will collectively deposit $1.9 million into an escrow account to pay for the auditor’s services. The companies and their contributions will be: Cargill, $325,000; George’s, $250,000; Peterson, $50,000; Tyson, $950,000; Cal-Maine, $150,000; and Simmons, $175,000.
If the Auditor Fund is exhausted, the State of Oklahoma will be responsible for underwriting any additional auditing activities. If any surplus or balance remains in the fund at the termination of the settlement will be added to the Environmental Relief Fund.
Dr. Stoodley is an environmental scientist with more than three decades of experience in water quality and related environmental issues. He is the Assistant Director of Research in Environmental Science at OSU.
He received a bachelor’s degree in wildlife management from West Virginia University, a master’s degree in environmental studies from Baylor University, and his Ph.D. in environmental sciences from Oklahoma State.