Legislation saying livestock manure is not hazardous waste passed the House Wednesday.

Senate Bill 1444, by Rep. Terry Hyman, D-Leon, and Sen. Charles Wyrick, D-Fairland, says "in no case shall manure be defined as or considered a hazardous substance or a hazardous waste."

The bill responds to a lawsuit filed last year by Attorney General Drew Edmondson, which accuses poultry farmers of polluting water in northeastern Oklahoma with chicken litter. Because arsenic, copper and zinc are found in chicken feed, Edmondson contends those substances pollute water as the litter is applied to the ground as fertilizer and runs off into streams.

Bill supporters say the attorney general's lawsuit will designate animal waste as hazardous, requiring specialized and expensive storage and disposal, even for small Oklahoma farmers and ranchers.

Opponents say Oklahomans' health should come first, and if the material is hazardous, it needs to be properly controlled.

Charlie Price, Edmondson's spokesman, said just saying manure isn't hazardous doesn't make it safe. Price said the bill would not affect the pending lawsuit since the language would not be retroactive.

"We're not saying poultry waste is necessarily hazardous, but it has hazardous things in it," he said. "What if it does contain hazardous materials? It either does or it doesn't, and that will be up to the court to decide."

Senate Bill 1444 is supported by the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Oklahoma Farmers Union and other agriculture groups.

Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, said it is dangerous to say waste will never be hazardous.

"Medicine and manure are very similar," Cox, the House's lone doctor, said. "When used properly, they can do some great things, but when used improperly, they can be harmful."

But Hyman said Oklahoma farmers need to be protected from overregulation.

"At the rate things are going, we'll have to slap diapers on every cow before we haul them down the road in a trailer," Hyman said. "There's 5.4 million head of cattle and 3.2 million people in Oklahoma. If animal manure is hazardous waste, then the entire state is a hazardous-waste area."

The bill passed the House, 68-27, and will return to the Senate for consideration of House changes. The Senate rejected similar legislation earlier this session.

"At the rate things are going, we'll have to slap diapers on every cow before we haul them down the road in a trailer. There's 5.4 million head of cattle and 3.2 million people in Oklahoma. If animal manure is hazardous waste, then the entire state is a hazardous-waste area."Rep. Terry Hyman, D-Leon