CHEROKEE COUNTY, Okla. — Since December, many producers of Oklahoma's poultry industry have clucked at Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s handling of a two-decade-long lawsuit between the state and the six largest American poultry corporations over chicken litter contamination in the Illinois River watershed.
At one point, contracts with local producers were in serious jeopardy.
“Nothing about what he said made me feel at ease (or) made me feel like we were going to get some things resolved,” LouAnn Hays of R-3 Farms on the Adair County-Cherokee County line told 2 News Oklahoma on June 14, a day after AG Drummond spoke with 2 News about the settlement reached with all six companies.
Hays and many other producers in the area have been skeptical at best of Drummond’s promises of a favorable settlement to end the lawsuit, especially after one attempt was blocked by a judge earlier this year.
“We've got a great settlement that will bring finality to eastern Oklahoma," Drummond said in a Zoom interview with 2 News. "The poultry farmers of our counties on the eastern border don't have to worry, don't have to look over their shoulder. Their contracts are being renewed, and they'll continue to produce poultry, eggs and broilers in eastern Oklahoma. And our water will improve over time.”
The signed, $44 million binding agreement is not up to a Tulsa federal judge to sign off on this time, Drummond's office said, but the Federal Tenth Circuit court has to release the underlying judgment.
- Previous Coverage>>> 21-YEAR LAWSUIT ENDS: Oklahoma AG reaches nearly $44 million settlement against poultry producers
Drummond assures producers the worry is now over.
“You don't have to worry about your future. You don't have to worry," he said. Broiler and egg production families of eastern Oklahoma will stay in business as long as they wish.”
Drummond’s office said there is not yet a timeline for the tenth circuit to release the December 2025 judgment that began the pressure to reach a settlement.
Hays however, said she won’t believe the settlement or the attorney general’s promise of job security until she sees it – especially when it comes to contracts for companies like Tyson retaining farms like hers.
“Tyson could say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go flock to flock,’ or Tyson could say, ‘We’re going to give you a two-year contract but you’ve got to do X, Y, and Z,’” Hays said. “That’s our livelihood. We are banking on this chicken farm. My husband doesn’t have another job. We don’t have farmhands. He runs this farm on his own.”
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