Tulsa Sues Poultry Companies

December 11, 2001

The City of Tulsa, OK, and the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority (TMUA) have filed suit in U.S. District court for the Northern District of Oklahoma against six out-of-state poultry processors alleging that "overwhelming taste and odor problems" in the city's drinking water are linked to waste from chicken production. Included as defendants are Tyson Foods, Cobb-Vantress, Peterson Farms, Simmons Foods, Cargill and George's. The City of Decatur, AR, is also a defendant in the suit.

In the suit the court is asked to grant monetary damages for additional costs incurred to treat excessive waste in the city's water, injunctions to stop further pollution of water, costs for future treatment of the water, and damages for polluting the water.

"The problem is simple," said Tulsa Mayor Susan Savage. "The industry has polluted our lakes and is causing their premature death. The degradation of Tulsa's water ties to the chicken litter that is applied to land in the watershed. We believe that must stop, and we believe the industry must be responsible for the cost of the clean-up," she added.

TMUA board chairman Jim Cameron echoed the mayor's sentiments, "We do not believe the taxpayers of Tulsa should be paying to clean up the mess created by those who have chosen not to be responsible for their own waste. Our lakes are dying due to this pollution," said Cameron.

Four years ago the Oklahoma Conservation Commission issued the first of three state water quality reports on Eucha and Spavinaw Lakes which identified the problem and the alleged causes. These studies and subsequent ones resulted in stricter regulations within the poultry industry and the elimination of commercial fertilizers and septic tanks as the cause of the pollution. However, the remaining pollutant, non-point agriculture runoff from chicken litter, remains and creates massive algae blooms in the lakes, causing taste and odor alterations to the drinking water coming into Tulsa, according to officials.