Poultry

Lawsuit Update 11/8/2024:

October, 2024: ODAFF and the Interested Parties (Poultry Farmers) have issued an appeal (as expected). We will continue to press our claims, defend the favorable ruling from District Court and remain hopeful.

Judge Crutchfield rules for Spring Creek Coalition, June 28, 2024.

This is a HUGE win for Spring Creek Coalition and for all the people in NE Oklahoma impacted by industrial-sized poultry farms. SCC Board members are excited. We feel like celebrating! But we also know that there is a long road still ahead with an appeal likely. Thank you, all, for your support in getting us this far.

Motion for Summary Adjudication filed August 08, 2022, in the District Court of Delaware County before Judge Barry Denney. Judge Denney is retiring. Hearing transferred to Judge Crutchfield.

Hearing on standing held March 2023. On April 12, 2023, Judge Crutchfield rules SCC has standing and can continue to present lawsuit

Hearing on Motion for Summary Adjudication held Friday, October 13, Delaware County Courthouse, Jay, OK. Read Kelly Bostian’s article on hearing.

Background:

“Do you know that six poultry houses are being built on the banks of Spring Creek?” 

So much has happened since that first phone call to Spring Creek Coalition from Nancy Kimbrell, Oaks Town Clerk, back in April 2018.  Emily Oakley of Three Springs Farm, located less than a quarter mile from the new houses, fought with passion and joined with others to defeat those houses.  Then the calls came in from all over Northeast Oklahoma.  “How did you do it?  We are being inundated with poultry houses!  Help!”

Two amazing women stepped up to lead the fight and make sure citizens’ voices were heard: Pam Kingfisher and Brandy Whaler.

Starting with a meeting of some 60 people at Peggs Community Center, Emily passed the baton to these two women who then proceeded to hold bi-monthly meetings that ballooned to include hundreds of passionate folks in the Oaks-Kansas areas of Oklahoma directly affected by the poultry house influx. They formed a group called Green Country Guardians (GCG).

There are no magic bullets.

Voices were heard. Representatives of all the major government entities were brought in to address concerned citizens over a two-year period. Little changed.

But the fight continues. problem areas:

Water quantity. Several wells and a spring in the area went dry in 2018 for the first time. Spring Creek is spring-fed. Without this water source, there will be no creek. Is this due to the large amounts of water that poultry houses pump from the underlying Roubidoux aquifer? We cannot say for sure. The USGS started a 5-year study of this aquifer in 2017 that will start to address this question. This study is projected to be finished in 2023.

Water quality. The biggest threat to our water comes from the massive amounts of poultry litter produced. Poultry litter makes an excellent fertilizer and it is readily available. Ranchers spread it on their fields to grow grass for cattle. Nitrogen is used by the grass. The phosphorous component is over-abundant. It remains in the soil and leaches into the creek. This can cause nutrient-loading, too many nutrients, which can result in algae blooms, depletion of oxygen, and death of fish and other life in the stream.

action plans:

Litigation: We have hired environmental lawyers to make sure the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture lives up to its own statutes to ensure that no state waters are polluted.

We are the only group studying the overall health of Spring Creek, upstream to down, at six sites.

We test for phosphorous, E. coli, enterococcus, and other signs of contamination.

Watershed Plan: We are partnering with the Oklahoma Conservation Commission to develop a Watershed Assessment Plan that will work with creek stakeholders (farmers, ranchers, landowners, Cherokee Nation, county commissioners and more) to look at the complete watershed and assess problem areas and solutions.