Oklahoma says Tyson worked more to improve its public image than protecting environment

Okla. quizzes ex-Tyson exec over training document

TULSA, Okla. — Poultry giant Tyson Foods Inc. cared more about preserving its public image than protecting a million-acre watershed from environmental pollution, attorneys for the state of Oklahoma claimed Tuesday.

The allegation against the world’s largest meat producer came during Oklahoma’s questioning of Preston Keller, who was the Arkansas company’s director of environmental agriculture until he left in 2005.

Keller was first on a list of current and former poultry company executives Oklahoma planned to put on the stand this week in its federal lawsuit against 11 companies.

Tuesday marked the 16th day of the sprawling trial, which began in September.

Oklahoma claims the industry knew about the problems caused by decades of chicken waste dumping in the Illinois River watershed, but did nothing, or very little, to curb old ways of doing business.

The companies have maintained that their contract growers — the farmers who raise the birds — have broken no laws in their handling of the waste because they received permits from Oklahoma and Arkansas to spread the waste as an inexpensive fertilizer on fields or sell it to other farmers.

Louis Bullock, an attorney for the state, showed a PowerPoint presentation developed in-house by Tyson, which emphasized that the most important concern for the company was maintaining a positive image.

Oklahoma claims the company paid only lip service to the other goals listed in the presentation — such as reducing the amount of chicken waste in the watershed or better educating growers about the potentially harmful environmental effects of the phosphorus-rich waste, known as poultry litter.

Instead, Bullock claimed, the company’s goal was to create the image that it was doing its part to protect the environment.

“Obviously, if we’re viewed as pursuing the right thing, we’d be better perceived,” Keller testified Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, Oklahoma attempted to give U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell, who is hearing the nonjury case, a peek inside the machine that is America’s poultry industry, and its role in dealing with the byproduct of doing business in this watershed for decades: tons and tons of chicken manure.

Oklahoma says since the companies own the birds from the time they’re hatched to when they’re collected and trucked to the processing plants, they also own the waste that comes with them. The companies say the waste is the responsibility of their contract growers.

The other defendants named in the lawsuit are Cargill Inc., Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production LLC, George’s Inc., George’s Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc.