Tyson leaves litter decisions to poultry growers, exec testifies

By DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer - 11/4/2009


A Tyson Foods vice president testified Tuesday that although the company provides "chickens, feed and advice" to its "growers," it has no role in any decision they might make to apply poultry litter to the land in the Illinois River watershed.

Patrick Pilkington, Tyson's vice president of state government relations and regulatory affairs, described the growers — or chicken farmers — as independent contractors who provide housing and act as caretakers for the birds until they reach the proper weight and the company picks them up.

The state is suing 11 poultry companies — including Tyson — saying they are legally responsible for the handling and disposal of poultry waste that the state says has damaged the watershed.

During his testimony Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell in Tulsa, Pilkington said Tyson's logo is seen on its contracted chicken farmers' property so that Tyson feed truck drivers can recognize the farms where they are to deliver food for the company's birds.

Without such identification, he said, it is not unprecedented for a driver to inadvertently drop off feed at a farm that raises another company's birds.

During his Sept. 24 opening statement, Attorney General Drew Edmondson said poultry companies control the industry despite their attempts to shift blame for pollution in the watershed to the growers with whom they contract.

Edmondson said it is difficult to understand how those organizations could claim that they are not responsible for the safe disposal of waste associated with their birds.

The defense countered that the state is trying to make the companies responsible for the decisions of independent poultry farmers.



David Harper 581-8359
david.harper@tulsaworld.com


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Tulsa World Reader Comments
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Riverok, Tahlequah (11/4/2009 8:32:26 PM)
Poultry companies blame everyone else for the pollution of the Illinois River watershed even their growers and cattle owned by the growers. Poultry growers traditionally spread excess poultry waste in order to get the nitrogen they wanted. This saturated the soil with phosphorus from the poultry waste and the phosphorous ran off into streams and lakes. I sincerely doubt many poultry groups purchase any commercial fertilizer to get the nitrogen they want for their pastures. The use of commercial fertilizer is cost prohibitive in an area where there is abundant chicken manure. The Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake will never improve until Oklahoma gets a handle on excess animal waste, especially chicken waste. Riverok

Democrat, Tulsa County (11/5/2009 6:05:42 AM)
Tyson has perfected the southern "sharecropping" system. Tyson makes the profit and their "croppers" bear the risks. NICE!!!

Get out of my bidness!, The Republic of the United States of America (11/5/2009 8:15:55 AM)
"Training is also up to the producer." What all can you guys train your chickens to do? And why would you when Tyson is just going to shrink-wrap 'em anyway?

droopy, wagoner (11/4/2009 7:22:26 AM)
CCC Edmondson actually made the opening statement? Thats amazing, what happened to his "unpaid" hired guns.

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (11/4/2009 7:37:38 AM)
This the way many corporations operate in todays world. They hire "independent contractors" and have complete control of their operations, production and training. But it lets them claim it's independence if its hired contractors are brought up on illegal operations. The insurance insurance industry is bad about this in regard to their agents.

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (11/4/2009 10:25:34 AM)
NE girl...So what you're saying is the poultry producers are making a conscious decision to pollute the watersheds and rivers...Is that what you are saying?

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (11/5/2009 8:24:49 AM)
I remember scuba diving in Tenkiller yrs ago and you could see 150 ft in all directions, now if you can see 5ft you would be lucky. Why is that NE Okie girL? Who bears the responsibility for that. It looks like it's not Tysons fault and it not the producers fault. What is your answer.. Just saying sorry about that won't cut it.

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (11/5/2009 10:07:43 AM)
You didn't answer my question? I grew up on a dairy farm, so I understand what you're saying BUT at some point steps have to be taken to change what we are doing to the environment in the name of production. In western Okla we've used up the water in the aquifers to irregate. We've got to be more inventive...easy days are over. We predict we will soon be growing our own food and raising our own chickens just for our own use.

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (11/5/2009 10:02:29 PM)
NE Okla Girl..I still feel that corporations like Tyson have more responsibility in the total picture of where we are with pollution and with making producers work for as little as they can get buy with. It all get down to corporate profits and stockholders. I would be interested to find out what the CEO for Tyson has made over the past five yrs. Good Luck with your business.

NE Oklahoma Girl, NE Oklahoma (11/4/2009 10:07:02 AM)
They don't have complete control over our operations. They give us advise on what to do, and it's the producers decision whether to follow it or not. Production is in the producers hands since most of them are paid based on production, they tend to do what they can for the health of the birds. Training is also up to the producer.

NE Oklahoma Girl, NE Oklahoma (11/4/2009 10:55:04 AM)
No, you're making a gross assumption and twisting my words. You say it like we pour litter into the creeks. We're not. We use it on fields for a fertilizer, after we have a soil test to tell us how much nutrients we lack. Most often, we spread very little because Phosphorous levels are easy to obtain, we usually have to come back in with urea and spread that to meet the nitrogen levels. We do it more precise than people do with their lawns, but when we do it, we get brow beat.

NE Oklahoma Girl, NE Oklahoma (11/5/2009 8:27:31 AM)
I can tell you that as a poultry grower, my family buys quite a bit of urea to spread with the litter we use. You can only get so much from litter, and records must be kept with soil tests. The remainder of the litter (the bulk of it) goes wherever our cleanout crew contracts to send it. What are people going to do when the farmers band together and tell you to go find your own food cause we're not growing it anymore? I know, they'll gripe and blame the US farmer for the high prices of chicken coming from China. Try being a farmer for a day, can't win doing anything, and darn sure can't make much money.

NE Oklahoma Girl, NE Oklahoma (11/5/2009 10:59:23 AM)
I'm sorry. The question wasn't there as I was typing my response. The people who are at fault is everyone in the watershed, and yes, that includes the farmers, all of them, not just poultry. That includes city folk, people with bad septics, etc. There's been so much change in just the past 10 years. More folks move away from the city to live in the country, more construction occurs, etc. I'll admit that most farms aren't as clean as they could be, but they still meet regulations (or most do anyway). No farmer wants more regulations, but that's the way we're headed since the few that don't try to clean up their act, screw it up for those that do. I see more and more farmers moving toward cleaner alternatives, but it's hard when no money is being made, and you can't pay for things like hauling litter away. I would like to see something come up near here that would give farmers a place to take that litter, but they would have to make something off of it to offset the cost of cleanout.

US Food, (11/6/2009 1:49:59 PM)
"Who is responcible?" that truly is the million dollar question. Poultry growers are more educated on this situation than any other group (besides researchers). Growers in both AR and OK go through required education hours. Noone cares more about our natural resources than America's farmers. They do understand the environmental concerns and follow nutrient management plans that are developed using the most current up-to-date science avaible. Applying poultry litter to the land as a fertilizer has a excellent water quality benifit. It provides nutrients for the forage to grow, increasing ground cover and reduing erosion. I argue that if poultry litter hadn't been applied to the land over the past 50 years to the poor highly erodible soils, there wouldn't be a lake Eucha, Spavinaw, or Tinkiller - they would all be filled with sediment. Runoff research shows that if you have good ground cover like on pastures and hayfields there is very little soil loss, so even if the soil test phosphorus is high very little of that soil is leaving the fields. There are hundreds of sources for bacteria, pathogens, nutrients and sediments in the river and although I'll be the first to admit that poutry does contribute - by no means is it the only source. Does anyone else find it coincidental that the water quality issues and lawsuits began at the same time as the housing boom in NW Arkansas? Everyone is wanting to blame poultry but I would argue that if you look at what has been going on in the Eucha/Spavinaw and IR river watersheds since 2000 when the most recent round of lawsuits started the largest change in both of these watersheds was/is construction and ubanization. Many of these construction sites were old poultry farms that had high soil test phosphours and we have all seen how well construction companies implement their stormwater permits - NOT! The sediment that erodes from those sites have high levels of P and also contributes to turbidity in the streams and lakes ie. the visibility issue in Tenkiller. I'm not saying that the construction/urbanization is totally to blame but I am they are part of the problem.



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