Poultry farms are growing in northeast Oklahoma. And residents don’t like it.
Opponents met recently in the town of Peggs. Their meeting attracted residents from Tahlequah to Colcord, according to the Tulsa World.
Residents are concerned about water and air quality, health and water shortages and they’re ready for a fight. Here’s why. The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry lists 41 licenses for new or expanded poultry operations in the past year.
Sixteen of the licenses are in Delaware County where there is a total of 96 new chicken houses. Simmons Foods is connected to all but one.
Simmons is in the process of constructing a new plant just north of an existing operation in Decatur, Arkansas. It is expected to open next year and expand to full capacity by 2022.
The plant is only about 25 miles from where Oklahoma residents are fighting the expansion of poultry operations around their homes.
Simmons says with its new and expanded operations in Arkansas, it anticipates a 16 percent growth in the number of chickens processed. It also means an increase of more than 200 chicken houses with half on existing farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.
As the Tulsa World reported, all operations must be licensed by the department and any operations that disturb more than one acre of land must have a building permit that addresses storm water management, said Jeremy Seiger, director of the Agriculture Department’s Environmental Services Division.
Placement of the houses in relation to homes, other structures or watersheds is not regulated, he said.
No clear evidence points to the poultry operation expansion as the cause for the recent water problems, but Kent Wilkens, chief of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board Planning and Management Division, said it is possible in theory.
