Jan. 2, 2025
Oklahoma poultry case enters its 20th year as arguments over pollution continue
The arrival of 2025 marks the 20-year anniversary of an Oklahoma lawsuit against several poultry companies, including Tyson Foods, over water pollution from chicken waste used as fertilizer. The case is still ongoing.
Two years after ruling against the poultry companies, a federal judge is still weighing what restrictions, if any, to impose.
In a hearing last month, a soil scientist, who was called as a witness for the state, testified that the only way to get the water pollution under control is to ban the use of chicken litter as fertilizer completely.
“Nothing else will begin to clean up the problem until the land application of poultry waste stops,” wrote Gregory Scott, a scientist with the Oklahoma Conservation Commission.
The poultry companies claim pollution is decreasing and more chicken waste is being transported out of state. Oklahoma’s governor has sided with the companies, calling the ongoing lawsuit “frivolous.” The governor even fired one of his cabinet members for attending last month’s hearing.
This week’s feature story explores the latest in the case and how Oklahoma’s current attorney general is urging a federal judge to mandate new restrictions on how chicken litter is disposed of.
You can read it here.
— Ben Felder, editor in chief
GRAPHIC: As Trump policy changes loom, nearly half of farmworkers lack legal status
By Mónica Cordero, Investigate Midwest/Report for America
The nation’s agriculture sector, which relies heavily on undocumented workers, could face a significant challenge when President-elect Donald Trump takes office this month amid promises to enact stricter immigration policies.
The percentage of undocumented farmworkers — those without legal status — dropped from 54% in 2020 to 42% in 2022, according to the USDA and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Trump said his mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would start with the “criminals,” but that “you have no choice” but to eventually deport everyone in the country illegally, according to a December interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
View the graphic.
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