Armes, Cox Criticize Edmondson

Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s recent actions indicate he has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on frivolous litigation, two lawmakers said today.

Reps. Don Armes and Doug Cox said Edmondson’s recent announcement that he was re-testing water wells in the Locust Grove area for bacteria show that Edmondson is “lacking evidence in support of his long-running lawsuit against the poultry industry and the use of poultry litter as a fertilizer on farmland.”

“After three years of litigation and reportedly spending $25 million on experts, Mister Edmondson has failed to come up with any evidence that poultry producers are violating state environmental regulations,” said Armes, a Faxon Republican who chairs the House Agriculture & Rural Development Committee. “He has not provided the court with any evidence that anyone’s health has been affected by the use of poultry litter on farmland in the Illinois River Watershed."

“I was disappointed that Attorney General Edmondson would make accusations based on apparent assumptions, rather than operating on the scientific evidence used by the Health Department investigators,” said Cox, a Grove Republican and medical doctor.

The two legislators noted that a federal court ruled last year that Edmondson had not proven that bacteria in the waters of the Illinois River Watershed are caused by the application of poultry litter rather than by other sources, including cattle manure and human septic tanks.

Now, only seven months before Edmondson’s case against the poultry industry is scheduled to go to trial, they noted Edmondson is suddenly claiming Oklahoma poultry farms have made people sick and even killed one person.

Edmondson recently announced his agency would test well water near Locust Grove, claiming it was contaminated with bacteria from chicken waste and led to the August death of Chad Ingle and the illnesses of more than 300 other people who ate at the Country Cottage Restaurant in Locust Grove.

However, the Oklahoma Department of Health had already tested those wells and ruled them out as the cause of the illness.

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