BALTIMORE,
Md., Dec. 20, 2012 - A U.S.
District Court judge today threw out a suit by attorneys representing the Waterkeeper Alliance against a Maryland
family and Perdue Farms, saying that the an environmental group led by Robert
F. Kennedy Jr. failed to prove its allegations that runoff from the farm
violated the Clean Water Act.
The decision by
Senior Judge William M. Nickerson will be regarded as a setback for
environmental groups who hoped to hold poultry integrators such as Perdue
liable for pollution from farms where their poultry is grown under production
contracts and as a major victory for the poultry industry, which helped finance
the defense of the Berlin, Md., couple’s farm.
Waterkeeper sued contract chicken growers Alan and Kristin
Hudson of Berlin, Md., and Perdue in March 2010, claiming that
chicken manure seeped from the farm into local waterways that ultimately flowed
into the Chesapeake Bay.
“The plaintiff has failed to meet its burden of establishing
that there was a discharge of pollution from the poultry operation on the Hudson farm,” Nickerson
said in a 50-page opinion. He also found “insufficient evidence to impose CWA
liability on Perdue.” While a 1988 precedent found circumstances in which a
poultry processor can be held liable for actions of its contract growers, the
integrator must “manage, direct or conduct operations specifically related to
pollution.”
In the Hudson
case, he said, what Perdue required was “related to bird health and product
quality, not pollution.” He added that the evidence suggested that because
Perdue had educated its growers about management practices to limit pollution,
the Maryland-based company “should be commended, not condemned. Perdue appears
to have tried to take the lead in addressing some of the very issues about
which the plaintiff is concerned,” Nickerson wrote.
“It appears to the court . . . that Waterkeeper has a goal
of using the CWA to force integrators, like Perdue, to seriously alter, if not
abandon, their operations on the Eastern Shore,”
he said. The judge had telegraphed his sentiment in an order in March that
denied requests for summary judgment, setting the stage for a trial in October.
He wrote that “it seems clear that the original plaintiffs in this action were
looking for an opportunity to bring a citizen suit under the CWA against some
chicken production operation under contract with a major poultry integrator.”
National
Chicken Council President Mike Brown applauded the ruling. “We feel like
this was a lawsuit against all of us, and we are pleased that Judge Nickerson
ruled that the Waterkeeper Alliance had not met the standard of preponderance
of evidence in its argument. Today's ruling is a win for Delmarva's family
farmers and against radical environmental activists who disregard the facts,
sue first and ask questions later.”
He said that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who took the
side of the farmers and criticized the University of Maryland Law School for
allowing students at its legal clinic to represent the Waterkeeper, “said it
best – that this unfair attack on a family farm represented an ‘ongoing
injustice’.” Poultry industry groups including NCC
and numerous state and county
Farm Bureaus and Farm
Credit of contributed to the Hudson’s
legal defense fund.
The defense group
issued this statement: “All along we've said that this lawsuit threatens family
farms across the country, and the trial revealed the true agenda of the groups
and of the individuals involved in the case – to use trumped up pollution
charges to attack poultry farms. We believe it's clear that the Waterkeeper
Alliance, the Assateague Coastal Trust and the University of Maryland
Environmental Law Clinic did not prove their
case. They have continuously changed their story to find some reason to vilify
a hardworking farm family just because they raise chickens. The best they could
come up with is that dust from the poultry house fans and the small amount of
litter from foot traffic in and out of the poultry house constitute a violation
of the Clean Water Act.”
#30
For more news: www.Agri-Pulse.com
