OKLAHOMA CITY – A southeastern Oklahoman protesting the water-right application of yet another poultry farm in McCurtain County asked the state Water Resources Board to “step on the brakes.”
Brad Phillips said there are 57 chicken houses within three miles of Garvin, the town where he lives, and 67 within four miles. Each of those enclosures is up to 600 feet long – the length of two football fields – he said.
“Within a roughly 25-mile radius of Idabel, there are 59 industrial poultry farms – more than half built in the last 15 years,” Investigate Midwest, an independent, nonprofit news outlet, reported in June. Collectively, those farms contain “nearly 7.4 million birds at maximum capacity.” All but six of them “raise chickens for Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the country; the other six farms supply Pilgrim’s Pride, a Colorado-based multinational food company.”
Chicken farms in Oklahoma and Arkansas consume millions of gallons of water and generate thousands of tons of odoriferous “litter” (a polite term for waste) that is degrading water sources such as Lake Tenkiller and the Illinois River. In addition, numerous semi-trailer trucks hauling tens of thousands of birds in southeast Oklahoma are damaging local roads.
Rapid growth in McCurtain County – from poultry farms, marijuana farms and a tourism boom in Hochatown – “is putting mounting pressure on local water supplies,” the Investigate Midwest story continued. “And locals are starting to wonder just how much strain” the aquifer can endure.
And now another poultry operation with a dozen chicken houses is planned and wants several million gallons of subterranean groundwater.
Mai Thi Quynh Phan, Duc Minh Tran and Quang Phan Dang Tran filed an application with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board in December 2023 for a permit to pump 265 acre-feet of groundwater – 86.3 million gallons annually – from six wells penetrating the Antlers Sandstone groundwater basin. The water would be used to support poultry production.
Objections against the application were lodged by 31 individuals, families, trusts and companies. An administrative law judge conducted a hearing on the application May 8 in Oklahoma City.
The protestants were represented by a Tulsa firm and produced three witnesses to testify, including Phillips.
The protestants’ expert witness, Bob Jackman of Tulsa, “testified about the quality of the groundwater rather than the quantity of the groundwater, which is the only aspect of groundwater that is within the jurisdiction of the OWRB,” the ALJ wrote.
The applicants’ expert witness, Matthew Coe, testified he has been a registered professional engineer since 2011 and he is a certified hydrologist and member of the American Institute of Hydro-Technology. Coe’s testimony supported the application. Poultry farmer has law on his side The ALJ’s report noted that by state law, the owner of a tract of land is also entitled to the fresh water that’s atop or underneath that land if the water does not form a definite stream.
Tran owns 265 acres of land in McCurtain County, between Millerton and Garvin, and thus has a right to the groundwater beneath it.
He testified he intends to use the groundwater for poultry production, which is recognized in the Administrative Code as a “beneficial use” for agriculture.
Tran said rural water is not available “on his side of the road,” and a connection would require the rural water district to drill under a highway “at a cost to him of $500,000,” the administrative law judge wrote.
Tran said he plans 12 chicken houses, with each of the six proposed wells serving two houses; those wells have not been drilled yet, he told the ALJ. He also said there is one existing well on his property that is for domestic use but is too small for his agricultural use.
The Oklahoma Administrative Code defines “domestic use” as the use of water by an individual, a family or household, for household purposes, for farm and domestic animals “up to the normal grazing capacity of the land,” and for irrigation of land up to three acres for growing gardens, orchards and/or lawns.
His land overlies the Antlers-Sandstone groundwater basin. The maximum annual yield for that basin has been established by the Water Resources Board and the equal proportionate share is 2.1 acre-feet per acre per year.
That means Tran would be authorized to pump 181.33 million gallons of water each year from the groundwater basin. However, his attorney told the Water Board that Tran said he needs just 6 to 7 million gallons of water per year (approximately 21 acrefeet) for his poultry operation.
Chris Neel, chief of the OWRB’s Water Rights Administration Division, told the OWRB during their regular monthly meeting on July 15 that “between 5,000 and 10,000 acre-feet of water” is being withdrawn from the aquifer. Usage of water from the Antlers Sandstone is “relatively small,” he said.
“The facts are not disputed,” Tulsa attorney Connor Andreen told the Water Board.
His client, Quang Tran, is a U.S. citizen who owns 265 acres in McCurtain County and is therefore requesting a permit for 265 acre-feet of water. “It’s a reasonable request,” especially since he could have sought more than twice as much: 556.5 acre-feet.
Also, Tran applied for water from a “confined area of a water basin that will not affect any surface water,” Andreen said. Less than Tran sought but more than needed “I’m not protesting the chicken farms,” Phillips told the Water Board on July 15. Instead, he expressed concern about water quality degradation and health issues that arise from poultry litter being spread.
However, Phillips was informed by Neel that water quality is not within the agency’s jurisdiction. That issue is regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality and/or the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Neel said Phillips asked that Tran’s application be tabled “until a third-party review of water quality and quantity” in the a rea.
The protestants “had ample time to prepare evidence” for presentation to the Water Board, “and you had a legal adviser until he resigned recently,” board member Bob Latham told Phillips. “This is an agricultural use and does not fall within the purview of this board.”
OWRB attorney Sarah Gibson said she forwarded to the state Agricul ture Department evidence about the McCurtain County chicken farm that was presented to the OWRB.
Latham made a motion to approve Tran’s water right permit application, “but with the beneficial use request for groundwater limited to 42 a/f (13,685,700 gallons) for this property.”
Voting aye were members Darren Cook, Grove; Tom Gorman, Bartlesville; Heather McCall, Edmond; Ron Justice, Chickasha; Suzanne Landess, Guymon; Bandy Silk, Sayre; Robert L. Stallings, Enid; and Latham, of Tulsa. Member Jarred Campbell of Idabel, district manager of the Lit tle River Conservation District, abstained.
Newspaper publisher and former state lawmaker Jerry Ellis of Valliant commented afterward about the Water Board’s minimal oversight of water use permits. “Without any requirement to install meters on wells, there’s nothing to stop them from pumping an endless amount of water,” Ellis noted. “They’ll just be on ‘the honor code’ – and we all know how effective that is today.”