Rob: Oklahoma's poultry industry is a three billion dollar business
that provides more than twelve thousand jobs around the state.
Yet in recent years, Oklahoma's poultry industry has had its share
of unfavorable publicity.
In part, due to the issue of what to do with what poultry leave behind.
Called litter, it's a combination of wood shavings or rice hulls
used to soak up bird manure in poultry houses.
The litter, which contains phosphorus, is often used as a fertilizer on fields.
But if over applied, the phosphorus can degrade water quality should it
reach streams.
We begin today by looking at the debate over the impact of Oklahoma's
poultry industry and what it means for both our economy and our
environment.
Here's our Brian Bendele.
Brian: Chickens, litter and lawsuit, all words that at one time wouldn't
be used in the same sentence.
Contamination, phosphorus levels and watershed are all words that poultry
producers now hear too often.
Jackie Cunningham: I heard a poultry farmer once give a radio interview and she
said, "You know our children and our grandchildren, they live
on this land; they drink the same spring water that we do; and we would never
knowingly harm the environment and if there are other regulations or
problems that maybe we don't know about I don't think you will find a
farmer out there who's not willing to stand up and say I will do whatever I
can to make things better."
Brian: Something community relations director, Jackie Cunningham, with the
poultry community council wants Oklahomans to understand.
Cunningham: Each poultry company requires their independent contract
farmer to; one, abide by all federal state and local laws; and two, that
they operate under a federally or state approved nutrient
management plan.
Brian: And a producer must have one of those plans in place if they intend on
spreading the chicken litter, or manure, as fertilizer.
Yet it's becoming more and more difficult for farmers to utilize the litter
produced, because of contamination concerns stemming from run-off and
an increase in the phosphorus levels down-stream from the
poultry farms in eastern Oklahoma.
David Holcombe: I have never considered poultry litter to be a waste
product, never.
I do not like that term, waste.
It is not a waste.
Brian: David Holcombe is a sixth generation farmer and poultry producer
located just outside of Jay, Oklahoma, and says it all comes down to how you
manage the distribution of the litter.
Holcombe: We have soil tested since the beginning of time.
This is not a new issue for us.
But if the soils are managed properly, litter is applied properly, you
don't have an issue of phosphorus run-off or phosphorus overload; and
that is what we strive for here.
Brian: Holcombe runs 4 pullet houses that hold 10,000 birds per house,
and says the litter produced is a good source of fertilizer for his
Bermuda hay pastures.
And without it, he would be forced to use commercial fertilizer.
Holcombe: Commercial fertilizer has gone
through the roof this year.
It is terribly expensive.
Brian: And is just one of many concerns like the lawsuit filed in June of
2005 that Oklahoma placed on 14 poultry companies for polluting watersheds
which has inadvertently put pressure on producers.
Holcombe: I think one of the major things that we are going to have to worry
about, or that we are concerned about, is that we don't get so many rules
and regulations in here that it forces our
integrators out of the state.
And when that happens, and if that happens, our poultry barns that are in
Oklahoma become of no value, and we don't need a
place to store additional hay.
When we lose these, and they come off the tax rolls, and we see our
banks close, and we see our schools run out of money, then we may wake up
and realize that this wasn't the issue that we thought it was.
Now there is no question that litter is probably one of the issues, but it
is not the only issue that needs to be addressed out there today.
Brian: Leaving producers and officials between a rock of maintaining the
environment and a hard place of holding on to a 3 billion dollar industry
that provides over 12,000 jobs and affects
the livelihood of eastern Oklahoma.