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Six people were killed in Picher, Okla., this weekend as a giant tornado swept through. The not-so-bright bright side: It's likely that some fatalities were avoided, since many residents of Picher have already left. Picher is so polluted with mining waste that it's listed as a Superfund site; the town's booming lead and zinc mines closed decades ago, and its population has dwindled from 20,000 to 800. Now, as if the twister fatalities weren't tragic enough -- at least 17 other people were killed elsewhere in Oklahoma and Missouri -- U.S. EPA officials are testing in Picher to see whether the town's survivors are at risk from the lead-tainted dust blown off of the town's huge piles of mining waste. After the tornado, "I think people probably have had enough," says John Sparkman of the Picher housing authority. "There's just nothing to build back to any more."

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Oil spill adds agitation to tri-state flooding

A 42,000-gallon oil spill in Kansas is complicating state and federal response to flooding that has walloped that state, Oklahoma, and Texas. Weeks of rain have forced evacuations and caused at least 11 deaths. On Sunday, workers at a Coffeyville, Kan., oil refinery began evacuation procedures, but a malfunction sent black gold into the Verdigris River. Officials are watching warily as the ooze seeps toward Oologah Lake, a popular recreation area that also provides drinking water for the city of Tulsa, Okla. "There are nine public water supplies along the Verdigris and the Oologah Lake, and none of them are currently affected," said Skylar McElhaney of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality yesterday. "Some of the water plant operators are increasing the level of disinfectant as an additional safety measure." With the smell of petroleum fouling the air, residents have been warned to avoid floodwaters. Which, what with the flooding and all, may be easier said than done.

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With feds asleep at the wheel, states sue to protect air and water

Frustrated by federal inaction, states and localities are increasingly suing companies and even each other in attempts to curb air and water pollution. Oklahoma, for instance, has filed suit against eight companies that operate chicken farms in neighboring Arkansas, charging that farm pollution is damaging a tourist-attracting lake. Kentucky is weighing whether or not to sue Virginia over a strip-mining operation that could pollute a fish-filled Kentucky reservoir that lures in tens of thousands of visitors a year. With Congress and the Bushies having dropped the ball on pollution enforcement, state attorneys general are stepping up. "It's more than a trend, it's an ideological decision that's been made by the Bush administration," says New York Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Eliot Spitzer, who's taken the lead in many an environmental lawsuit. "Into that void we have stepped in to enforce the law."

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A person driving through the South might notice the chicken houses dotting the hills and flatlands. He might marvel at the larger ones, as long as a football field. He might react to their gagging stench for a moment, and then forget as he travels on. But those who live near the structures -- stuffed with as many as 25,000 chickens each -- combat the odor and health hazards daily.

Not yer pappy's chicken coop.

Photo: USDA.

"There's a horrible odor, a stench, and I have flies and rodents digging in, trying to get into my house," says Bernadine Edwards, whose 39-acre farm near Owensboro, Ky., is surrounded by 108 chicken houses within a two-mile radius. "It is unbelievable."

The 65-year-old school bus driver, who recently bought a purifier to help her breathe easier in her home, says the value of her property has plummeted since the chicken houses arrived in the early 1990s. "I'm too old to start over," she says. "I can't afford to. My house is paid for."

Edwards is not alone. Over the last 15 years, the country has seen a boom in chicken farming. Today, the industry is serving a cocktail of injustice and pollution to rural residents, and most of them aren't in a position to fight back.

Since the early 1990s, observers say, thousands of chicken houses have cropped up across the South as consumer demand for poultry has grown. Today, the U.S. is the world's poultry leader, with production of broilers, turkeys, and eggs valued at $29 billion in 2004, according to the National Chicken Council. Broilers -- chickens raised for meat -- generated $22 billion of that. The leading broiler production states in 2004 were Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, which is home to the world's largest poultry producer, Tyson Foods.

Like chemical companies and industrial hog farmers, poultry producers don't tend to place these concentrated animal-feeding operations, or CAFOs, in ritzy neighborhoods beside multimillion dollar McMansions. Instead, chicken houses commandeer spacious rural areas, where local residents need the income and their neighbors won't speak out against them -- or are unaware of the factories' environmental and health consequences.

"These companies seek rural areas where unemployment, or underemployment, is high and people are desperate for ways to stay on the farm," says Aloma Dew, a Sierra Club organizer in Kentucky. "They assume that poor, country people will not organize or speak up, and that they will be ignorant of the impacts on their health and quality of life."

The companies provide local growers, who work under contract, with chicks, feed, medicine, and transportation. Growers take care of the rest, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction, maintenance, and labor costs. When the company requires upgrades, the costs fall to the growers. The massive amounts of manure, too, are their responsibility. (In Arkansas alone, chicken farms produce an amount of waste each day equal to that produced by 8 million people.) Payment is results-oriented, based on measures like total weight gain of the flock. It's a system, says the United Food and Commercial Workers, that leaves 71 percent of growers earning below poverty-level wages.

A far cry from free range.

Photo: USDA.

If growers protest, companies can cancel their contracts, leaving farmers responsible for incurred debt, says Laura Klauke, director of contract agriculture reform at the North Carolina-based Rural Advancement Foundation International. And that debt can be substantial: since banks in the region will more readily loan money for poultry houses than other types of agriculture, Klauke says, some farmers put everything on the line, mortgaging their property to make a living this way.

"If those contracts are canceled -- and they can be if the farmer doesn't do what the industry wants -- then that farmer could literally be homeless," said Klauke. "I know farmers who have been in that situation." (Industry representatives did not respond to requests for comments on this or any of the concerns expressed in this story.)

More frightening than the economic balancing act may be the health and environmental hazards posed by chicken farms, from the arsenic, ammonia, and other chemicals found in feed and manure to threats from diseased animals. While traditional farming can carry similar risks, CAFOs are especially hazardous because of the tight confinement that defines them. "The fact is, you put hundreds of animals in a very small area, that creates problems that would not exist if these animals were distributed across the countryside," says Barclay Rogers, who successfully litigated a pollution case against Tyson in Kentucky in 2003.

Rogers says the industry grew rapidly with little regulatory constraint, and has been "riding roughshod" over land and people. While CAFOs must follow federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, he says, many growers try to "duck and weave" regulations. "The industry may stand up and say we are over-regulating, and that we have all of these permits, but the practical aspect is that they have devised many ways to avert pollution controls," said Rogers. "That's why we are seeing the fouling of water and air. We just now are coming to grips with these consequences, as people are catching up and realizing what has happened to them."

Last year, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson (D) filed suit against Tyson, Cargill, and several other poultry companies, seeking to stop water pollution caused in his state by soiled chicken litter dumped in Arkansas. Polluted runoff, also known as non-point source pollution, is the biggest remaining water pollution problem in the U.S., according to the EPA, which cites agriculture as the largest source of such pollution. Edmondson described the problem as "an economic development issue, an agricultural issue, and a quality-of-life issue." Not to be outdone, Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe (D) -- who is running for governor -- countered in November by suing the state of Oklahoma directly, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit Oklahoma from forcing his state's poultry farmers to adhere to the stricter standards. Both cases are still pending.

This messy interstate situation is just one indication of the many unknowns at stake. "Some of the [environmental] consequences of these CAFOs are just not clear," said Van Brahana, a geologist at the University of Arkansas who studies groundwater. "What we do know is when you have a lot of organisms living in close conditions and you have a buildup of chemicals, you might get a cause-and-effect relationship. The scary thing is we just don't know right now."

The effects on those who work directly with the animals are clearer. "In rural America, the poultry companies can get workers for a song, and the workers are so grateful to get the jobs," says Jackie Nowell of the United Food and Commercial Workers. These workers -- usually poor, and often African American or Hispanic -- "are exposed to feces [and] any disease the chicken has," Nowell says. "There are also horrible levels of dust and dander inside these houses."

Nowell adds that researchers in the region are currently exploring the possible crossover of various viruses from poultry to humans, like avian flu. "That's a real concern. These workers and people who live near these houses will be on ground zero of an outbreak."

Flies cluster around a pile of
carcasses in Missouri.

Photo: USDA.

Workers in poultry processing plants also face serious dangers from machinery, carpal tunnel syndrome, and health hazards such as contaminated microorganisms and dust. "There are huge health and safety violations in every plant," says Jennifer Rosenbaum, a lawyer with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. In 2004, for example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to Tyson for alleged violations after an employee was asphyxiated when he inhaled hydrogen sulfide, a gas created by decaying organic matter. OSHA fined the company $436,000.

Poultry companies "hire relatively low-income people, immigrants who have less of an understanding of rights and health issues," Rosenbaum says. Simply put, she says, the companies are hurting the South's small towns while they fatten their own wallets.

Katie Tillinghast lives in rural northwest Arkansas. In early January, she received a call from a neighbor who told her he planned to put three large turkey houses on his property, 200 yards away. Tillinghast wants to stop the project, but the only plausible choice would be to buy her neighbor out at $3,000 an acre -- and he owns 73 acres. She can't afford that, and knows it's highly unlikely that a rich buyer will step in to help.

You'll never look at chicken nuggets
the same way again.

Photo: USDA.

Like other states, Arkansas does not yet have a law to protect residents from these operations, though several states have considered such legislation. So Tillinghast can't do much but worry -- about her drinking water, about avian flu, about noise and light pollution, about air quality. "I agree someone should be able to do what they want to do on their land," Tillinghast says. "But I don't think you should be able to do something that hurts your neighbors."

Many others agree with her, but local dynamics can make it hard for activists to issue a battle cry. "Often these plants are the only major industry in town," says SPLC's Rosenbaum. "Everyone goes to church together or went to high school together. Everyone knows everyone, and it's hard to fight that."

Groups like the Sierra Club have fought the poultry industry for many years, but only recently have they begun to collaborate with people on the ground. In 2004, a group of growers, workers, and environmental, public-health, religious, and social-justice organizations created the National Poultry Justice Alliance.

Do Good

The idea came from the Glenmary Commission on Justice in Ohio, a group of Catholic brothers and priests who have worked in the South since 1939. Marcus Keyes, the commission's director, says he was inspired by a statement from the Catholic Bishops of the South in 2000 about workers' rights. "These are moral issues -- the rights of workers, conditions of workers, pay and benefits," said Keyes. "These are human rights issues, and environmental [issues, but] in the end they are all moral issues." The group's members are working to strengthen the alliance before launching a major campaign.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit may come to trial in early April that could up the ante. While previous suits have dealt with pollution and workers' rights, this one tackles the issue of health effects on residents. In 2003, a group of citizens from Prairie Grove, Ark., a town of 2,500, filed a lawsuit against several poultry producers. Citing a connection between the community's high cancer rates and arsenic contamination from chicken litter spread as fertilizer, they are seeking damages from the companies that own the birds (not, it should be noted, from the local growers). Their lawyers say cancer rates in the small town are 50 times higher than the national average.

The Prairie Grove effort has grown to include about 100 plaintiffs in multiple suits, each of which will be tried separately. Supporters say that legal action may be the only way to bring these issues to light and hold the industry to higher standards. If the court rules in Prairie Grove's favor, the decision could provide ground for others to stand on. Until then, the only ones winning in this despair-filled industry are the mammoth corporations.

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Under federal regulations, private developers have to pay market rates to lease land bordering the 456 lakes owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But last month, Ronald Howell signed a 50-year rent-free lease on 280 along Oklahoma's Skiatook Lake, which is owned by the corps, to build a $10 million resort, complete with marina and golf course. What gives? It seems the corps leased the land for free to a public agency (which is allowable under federal rules) and Howell subleased the land with the full approval of the corps. The Army Corps has granted some 1,300 rent-free leases to public agencies, and it says the Oklahoma situation is not newsworthy. But critics beg to differ, pointing to Howell's role as a prominent Republican fundraiser and finance chair for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe plays a lead role in overseeing the corps, and, in fact, urged the agency to grant swift approval to the Skiatook Lake lease.

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Jeff Seabright, executive director of the White House Task Force on Climate Change, is bailing out in the waning days of the Clinton administration for a plum job in the private sector, namely as vice president for policy planning at Texaco.

Muckraker had been hearing rumblings of the imminent departure for a week, but couldn't get calls returned by Seabright or task force spokesperson Paul Bledsoe.

Lo and behold, the call confirming the move came through on Wednesday, which just happened to be the same day Texaco officially announced Seabright's hiring.

In their press release, the company said Seabright "will be responsible for working with internal and external stakeholders to develop strategic initiatives on key public policy and corporate governance issues. Working with the company's business units, he will also assist in the design of effective implementation mechanisms for these strategies."

Care to try translating that gobbledygook into English? Email your attempts to muckraker@gristmagazine.com.

Reaction to Seabright's move essentially broke down along two lines.

One group argued that the addition of Seabright to the Texaco corporate masthead is one more indication that the company, among the many to quit the pro-industry Global Climate Coalition in recent months, is actually serious about implementing more environmentally friendly policies and working cooperatively with the federal government.

Another group argued that those in the first group must be smoking something. They say it's nothing but corporate sellout with a capital S.

"We often wonder why the Clinton administration is so bad on global warming," said Ozone Action Executive Director John Passacantando, an affirmed member of the second group. "Things like this give us little glimpses why."

David Gardiner, who had been the number two on the task force, will take over and keep the executive director's chair warm. Prior to joining the task force in July of last year, Gardiner had been assistant administrator for policy at EPA, where he led the agency's climate change efforts. Before joining the administration in 1993, he was legislative director at the Sierra Club.

As promised, we return this week to our region-by-region look at hot contests for House, Senate, and governor this fall. This week's tour takes us to the Southwest, home to many critical environmental issues, from saving the Rio Grande to closing a pumice mine on land sacred to Native Americans.

Arizona: Things should be fairly quiet in the Grand Canyon state this fall. Sen. Jon Kyl (R) is up for reelection but is not expected to get much of a challenge.

In the House, the only suspense appears to be which Republican will succeed retiring Rep. Matt Salmon (R). Top hopefuls include telecommunications executive Susan Bitter Smith, former Goldwater Institute Director Jeff Flake, and Tom Liddy, former legal counsel to the Republican National Committee.

There is a Democrat in this race, even though few expect him to win. David Mendoza, a union official who lost to Salmon by nearly 50,000 votes in 1998, announced late last month that he would take a second shot at the seat.

New Mexico: It's all about the Albuquerque-based 1st congressional district this year, where the absence of a Green Party candidate means Democrats have a shot at knocking off first-term Republican Rep. Heather Wilson.

Democrats have to survive their own June 6 primary, however, in which four candidates (none the party's top choice for the race) are battling for the right to take on Wilson.

The environment has already emerged as a major issue as the four Dems -- former Albuquerque City Councilor Sam Bregman, former U.S. attorney John Kelly, former state Rep. Bob Perls, and attorney John Wertheim -- have challenged one another on their green credentials.

In a recent debate, Wertheim criticized Kelly for working at a law firm that has defended oil and gas interests. Bregman and Perls, meanwhile, agreed during the debate that protecting the Rio Grande should be the most important issue in the race, while Kelly countered that preserving petroglyphs and saving the endangered silvery minnow should top the agenda.

The race probably leans toward Wilson, a moderate and likable legislator, but without a Green to siphon away votes (Robert L. Anderson of the Green Party took 10 percent in 1998 when Wilson won by only 6 points over a very weak Democrat), there is no reason the Democratic nominee should be anything but highly competitive.

Oklahoma: As in New Mexico, all political eyes in the Sooner State will focus on a single congressional district, in this case the Muskogee-based 2nd, which features a heavy concentration of Native American voters.

It's a hazy picture now, as both parties have crowded fields for the Sept. 19 primary.

The Democratic field is led by former White House fellow Brad Carson and state Rep. Bill Settle, a veteran Oklahoma pol who chairs the state House appropriations committee.

The Republican side is even more crowded. Retiring incumbent Tom Coburn has endorsed auto dealer Andy Ewing, but Ewing may have trouble escaping a late-September runoff that could leave him at a disadvantage to the Democratic nominee. That could spell particular trouble in a district long controlled by Democrats that voted heavily for President Clinton in both 1992 and 1996.

New Mexico will also be in play at the presidential level. Clinton carried it twice, but it went for George Bush in 1988 and is no lock for Al Gore this year.

Texas: Unlike New Mexico, the Lone Star State is off the table at the presidential level, with its favorite son leading the Republican ticket.

But there should be at least a couple of good House races.

Democrats think they recruited the perfect candidate in attorney Regina Montoya Coggins to defeat Republican Pete Sessions in the Dallas-based 5th district. Coggins, who has been a television commentator and worked in the Clinton White House, has raised close to a million dollars and had over half a million in the bank as of March 31.

Coggins clearly plans to make Sessions's environmental record an issue in the campaign (he received a score of 0 from the League of Conservation Voters in 1998). On Earth Day, when Sessions stopped by a Dallas elementary school to help students work on a new pond and gardens, Coggins's campaign manager Chris Turner told the Dallas Morning News: "This guy has one of the worst environmental voting records in the House of Representatives. ... A more appropriate thing would be for the students who have been studying about the environment and Earth Day to teach the congressman a little something about clean water and clean air. That would be a better use of their time."

The other potentially competitive district in Texas is the 14th, where Democrats will try to defeat Rep. Ron Paul (R), a surgeon who once ran for president as a libertarian.

Rice farmer Loy Sneary will try once again to unseat Paul in the rural Gulf Coast district, but Washington handicappers expect Paul to survive, particularly in a year with a Texas Republican at the top of the ticket.

Avid readers of the New York Times op-ed page noticed a new voice this week lauding George W. Bush as an underestimated defender of the environment, whose record is "far better than activists allow."

Texas's favorite son.

The author, Reason Public Policy Institute Director Lynn Scarlett (who is also a Bush advisor, though the Times neglected to mention this), reiterated many of the points becoming familiar to those who pay close attention to the rhetorical debate over Dubya's green credentials.

The basic arguments are these: Air quality is indeed bad in Texas, but only because the state produces much of the nation's oil and oil-based chemicals. Call this the "Texas makes, the nation takes" argument. The second point is that air quality is bad mainly because Bush's predecessors didn't do much about it. The third argument is that Bush has sponsored new emissions regulations for older industrial plants that are grandfathered under previous laws -- and the regs are not entirely voluntary, as environmental critics often claim.

Finally, Scarlett argues, Bush expanded a program begun under Democratic Gov. Ann Richards that encourages companies to reduce their toxic waste in order to receive "a special environmental logo," and he improved on a number of incentive-based programs encouraging companies to reduce emissions and individuals to protect wildlife.

It all amounts to a "new environmentalism," according to Scarlett, that relies not on government mandates but on incentives and voluntary agreements because, after all, "most people and most companies want to do the right thing."

Texas A&M oceanography professor Thomas J. Crowley fired off the first in what are likely to be many volleys back and forth over the merits of Scarlett's arguments in a Letter to the Editor published just a day after Scarlett's piece appeared.

"It is hard to believe that Lynn Scarlett's supportive description of George W. Bush's environmental program in Texas applies to the state where I live," Crowley wrote. "What we have here is reckless industrial development, with virtually no concern for the environment.

"Houston has surpassed Los Angeles as the most polluted city in the nation. Industry cooperation in reducing the poisoning of the chemical stew that passes for an atmosphere around Houston is a joke; industries moved there because there are few regulations (especially of state origin), and their powerful lobbyists have a firm grip on the governor to keep things that way."

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