AG seeks deal to protect watershed as decades-long lawsuit drags on

After a years-long legal battle with some of the world’s largest poultry producers over pollutants in one of Oklahoma’s most important waterways, the state attorney general still thinks he can strike a deal with the powerful industry.

Oklahoma is still waiting on a ruling in a two-decade-old lawsuit that could have far-reaching consequences for the Illinois River and the surrounding region. But the parties could still reach a settlement outside of court.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond says he wants a clear plan to restrict poultry producers from spreading bird waste on farmland in the Illinois River watershed.

Pollution from the phosphorus in chicken litter spread on fields in the watershed remains in the soil from years earlier.

“We can’t fix it today, but we can fix it over a period of years,” Drummond said.

Drummond has been at odds with the poultry industry over who is to blame for pollution in the region. Drummond admits wastewater treatment plants that discharge into the river and population increase in northwest Arkansas over the past 20 years have contributed to pollution, but not as much as poultry companies contend. “Poultry is still complicit,” Drummond said.

The Illinois River runs about 100 miles along the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas. About half a million people live in the surrounding watershed that spans parts of the two states. In Oklahoma, the river flows into Lake Tenkiller, which is a destination for boating and fishing as well as a source of public drinking water. Phosphorus pollution that comes from sources including waste from poultry farms that dot the region can kill fish and cause algae blooms, poor water clarity, and foul-smelling and tasting drinking water.

Poultry farmers and cattle ranchers have used bird litter to fertilize their pastures, hay meadows and crops since the poultry industry boom in eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas began in the 1940s.

Previous talks between state and poultry companies were unsuccessful.

Drummond told The Frontier that it seemed to him the poultry companies stood to gain financially by dragging out the case.

“My observation is that poultry would rather litigate and appeal and delay,” Drummond said. “It’s economically beneficial. I wish they would change that.”

Under state Attorney General Drew Edmondson, Oklahoma sued poultry companies including Tyson Foods, Simmons Foods and Cargill in 2005 over pollution to the Illinois River watershed.

Edmondson told The Frontier that he and his team had been in negotiations with all of the parties involved for years. He was able to work out deals with the state and cities, but not with the poultry companies, he said.

Edmondson said he doubted the poultry companies would willingly reach an agreement with the state now, and would likely try to get the case overturned on appeal. “Over 20 years ago, and it’s still true today, the industry is not going to do anything in regard to protecting water unless they are paid to or made to,” Edmondson said, “and we can’t pay them, so we’ve asked the court to make them.”

Federal Judge Gregory Frizzell ruled in 2023 that the evidence from the trial showed poultry companies were liable for the damage caused by spreading poultry waste on fields and allowing it to wash into the rivers and streams for decades. The parties are waiting on a federal court ruling on whether evidence from a trial 15 years ago still holds true.

Other state leaders have not been supportive of Drummond’s continued pursuit of the poultry industry.

In a statement, Gov. Kevin Stitt said the lawsuit jeopardizes the state’s close relationship with corporate interests, and called for the immediate dismissal of the case, although the judge already ruled in the state’s favor.

“This 20-year-old lawsuit is simply an attempt by radical environmental extremists and greedy out-of-state trial lawyers to attack industries trying to follow the law,” Stitt said.

Stitt later said in response to questions at a press briefing that he would not support any sort of deal to limit the spread of poultry litter on farmland in the region. Such a requirement should go through the Legislature or the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, he said. “I wouldn’t be supportive of that at all,” Stitt said. “And I’ll say this to everybody out there, if we think that the Illinois River needs addressing and we think the application of fertilizer is not correct, then we need to fix that. And you fix that going forward, right?”

Stitt, who is in his last term, accused fellow Republican Drummond, who is running for governor in 2026, of extorting the poultry companies and trying to curry political favor with attorneys.

“There’s no possible way I would be for playing Monday morning quarterback, going to a business and staying ‘you’ve got deep pockets, you can afford it, even though you followed all the rules and had all the permits and you did everything we told you to do, now we don’t like it and want you to give us a billion dollars,’” Stitt said. “That’s basically what these trial attorneys are doing.”

Such a deal wouldn’t be unheard of. In Tulsa, Stitt’s home before he became governor, a settlement limits the amount of poultry litter that can be spread in the Eucha-Spavinaw watershed, the main source of drinking water for the area. The agreement was reached in 2004, after the city and state sued most of the same poultry companies in the Illinois River watershed lawsuit because of poor water quality.

Drummond’s continued pursuit of the poultry companies in the state case goes against Stitt’s business-friendly attitude, he said.

“This will tear our state apart business-wise,” Stitt said. “The reason we’re a pro-business state and we’ve got so much momentum is that there is assurance and confidence that Oklahoma doesn’t treat companies like California does. And if we go down this road, it is going to be devastating for new entries and new businesses. They’ll say ‘hey, it’s just not worth it. We’ll go somewhere that really stands with the rule of law.’” Poultry companies involved in the lawsuit did not respond to requests for comment.

Marvin Childers, president of the Poultry Federation, a group that represents the industry, said his organization is concerned that activists and attorneys are using the lawsuit to “end farming and ranching in the Illinois River watershed — and potentially far beyond — for years to come.”

“The Attorney General’s office continues to pursue an outdated lawsuit originally filed two decades ago by a prior administration whose goals do not reflect those of most Oklahomans,” Childers said in a statement. “This legal effort unfairly threatens the livelihoods of farmers, ranchers, and landowners who acted in full compliance with state regulations. The Attorney General refuses to recognize that Oklahoma’s own responsible agencies report the Illinois River to be a scenic jewel with quality measurements having improved steadily in the last 15 years.”

Without a settlement, any resolution to the case is still likely years away.

“We’re hopeful the judge comes out in favor of the state and sets out certain requirements for the poultry industry,” said Denise Deason-Toyne, president of the environmental group Save the Illinois River. “There will be an appeal, so we’ll have several more years of waiting.”

Deason-Toyne said she believes the Arkansas-based poultry companies have been able to hold sway over some legislators as well as the governor. Campaign finance records show poultry executives donated heavily to Stitt over the years, as well as former and current state political leaders.

That political influence, she said, has caused government officials to side with the out-ofstate corporations, rather than their own constituents.

“The governor wants this lawsuit dropped. Period,” Deason-Toyne said. “And the agencies that are participating are doing so cautiously because they’re all afraid they’re going to get fired.”

Drummond too said that the poultry industry has a “disproportionate” amount of influence in Oklahoma’s government.

“There’s a general fear of poultry by legislators and the governor,” Drummond said.

In September 2024, Stitt-appointed Secretary of Agriculture Blayne Aurther wrote a letter to the judge in the poultry lawsuit, expressing concern that a ruling that included court-ordered remedies for pollution would circumvent the role of the Legislature and governor.

The governor berated and fired his former Secretary of Energy and Environment Ken McQueen on social media in December after he found out McQueen was at the hearing, calling the case a “radical left attempt at backdoor regulation through litigation” McQueen, who was already set to resign a few weeks before Stitt fired him, said the governor had said nothing about him attending the hearing beforehand. Stitt’s spokeswoman, Abegail Cave, said the governor had explicitly instructed McQueen not to attend.

Miles Tolbert, the state’s secretary of environment when the lawsuit was filed in 2005, said the issue drew a lot of political attention at the time, but the lines were not partisan. Former Republican Governor Frank Keating had pushed for more regulation of the poultry industry.

“He sort of set an example on the Republican side about how you could care about Oklahoma’s rivers and lakes and still be true to your principles,” Tolbert said.

Stitt replaced McQueen with Jeff Starling, a corporate attorney and Devon Energy’s former general counsel.

Starling, who the governor’s office declined to make available for an interview, did not attend the nearly two-week-long poultry hearing. But in January, Starling told Oklahoma Farm Report that Drummond should fire an outside law firm that helped with the case, describing it as a “plaintiff’s law firm.”

Drummond dismissed the idea of firing the firm from the case. Oklahoma has already won in court, unless an appeals court takes up the case.

“There’s nothing to do,” Drummond said. “It would be like firing a surgeon after he’s cut your arm off. ”

Now the state is asking a judge to order the poultry companies to reduce their distribution of bird waste in the region and pay for clean-up costs. A ruling could come at any time.

But a compromise could help speed things up, Drummond said.

“We can find a path where we have a strong poultry industry and clean water,” he said.

The Frontier (ReadFrontier. org) is a nonprofit newsroom that produces fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma.