On the border

State line, lawmakers create some irony

Poultry firms in Northwest Arkansas couldn’t be blamed one bit if they had a serious question for Oklahoma’s House of Representatives. The question might be: Where were you when we needed you?

House lawmakers in the Sooner State last week approved a piece of legislation declaring that “land application of poultry litter in compliance with a current nutrient management plan shall not be the basis for criminal or civil liability in Oklahoma.”

That, friends, is a big ol’ pile of irony.

Eleven Arkansas poultry companies were the targets of a lawsuit by Oklahoma’s attorney general all the way back in 2005. He claimed the companies were liable for pollution in the Illinois River, which originated in Northwest Arkansas and eventually flows west into Oklahoma. The poultry companies defended themselves then waited. And waited. It wasn’t until January 2023 a federal judge ruled against the poultry companies, asserting their management of “nutrients” was insufficient to prevent pollution of the river.

And now lawmakers in Oklahoma want to protect their poultry farmers from exactly the same kind of litigation. That’s rich.

Representatives of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Federation said the organization sought the legislation specifically as a result of the federal ruling against poultry interests in Arkansas. But the protection this bill would afford to poultry growers in northeast Arkansas wouldn’t extend past the state line into Northwest Arkansas, a federation spokesman said. Growers in northeast Oklahoma, if they are sending their product over the line to the Arkansas companies, would be protected by the House bill if it passes the Senate, he said.

“We believe if you’re following the law, you should not be sued,” the federation’s vice president of public policy, Steve Thompson, said.

Naturally, Oklahoma state law doesn’t have any impact on federal court and the laws it applies. So Arkansas poultry industries don’t get a reprieve from the federal courts.

Critics of the proposed Oklahoma law say it’s pure protectionism of poultry farmers, which may prove popular but isn’t good for the environment. The question that comes to our minds is this: If a nutrition management plan approved by the state is insufficient, is that the farmer’s fault or the state’s?

Hardin said the bill would protect poultry growers, “but the state of Oklahoma would be wide open” to court action if it wrote inadequate regulations and approved management plans that did not work.

Both states could do a better job of that kind of work.

Still, it’s hard to grasp the logic through which the world produces a federal judgment against one set of poultry companies then potentially offers protection to others, all because of a man-made boundary on a