By John L. Moore
The Morning News

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has a clear line of sight, for now, in his fight against eight poultry companies on pollution in the Illinois River watershed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe's request to bring the water quality battle straight to the highest court.

Beebe asked the court in November to intervene in the suit Edmondson filed against the poultry companies in a Tulsa federal court in June.

That lawsuit could potentially devastate the area's economy if poultry companies are forced out of Northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, Beebe said.

"The Supreme Court's decision is disappointing, but not surprising. We are exploring other options," Beebe said. He said the court rarely exercises its ability of original jurisdiction, which allows the court to hear a case between two states without the lawsuit first going through lower courts.

The court's order denied the motion without comment.

Beebe also argued that the Arkansas Oklahoma Arkansas River Compact Commission was the proper venue to resolve water quality disputes between the two states.

"The main thing we were interested in was trying to solve the problem through the compact based on the science and the issues and not on the money," he said. "And we wanted to provide a voice for the actual farmers in this who otherwise don't have a voice."

Edmondson's lawsuit also threatens Arkansas's sovereignty by attempting to reach across the border to impose Oklahoma law in Arkansas, Beebe said.

Edmondson praised the court's decision, referring to Beebe's filing as a "corporate poultry scheme" to delay the lawsuit in Tulsa.

"The (poultry) companies' legal, political and public relations tricks will neither distract nor deter us," Edmondson said.

Edmondson claims the companies have violated various federal and state laws by not properly controlling the application of chicken litter on fields and farms in Northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

Nutrients and pollutants in the chicken litter wash off those fields into streams and rivers and pollute the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller, Edmondson claims. The lake supplies the city of Tahlequah, Okla., with drinking water.

Bev Saunders, a representative for Poultry Partners, a group of more than 400 local farmers, said farmers in the area realized Beebe's claim was a long shot.

"Of course, we'd hoped the Supreme Court would step into this situation and force all parties to work together toward solutions that we all could live with. Unfortunately, multimillion dollar lawsuits won't and don't do that. It appears that's where this is headed now," Saunders said.

Oklahoma and Arkansas have battled for years over phosphorus levels in the river, but Edmondson's suit goes beyond the phosphorus issue.

He accuses the poultry companies of polluting the watershed with arsenic, zinc, copper, pathogenic microbes and chicken hormones, as well as nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen.