Opinion ID: 172146
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Testimony at the hearing on Oklahoma's motion

Text: After arguing in its pleadings that the land application of poultry waste may present a risk to the waters of the IRW, Oklahoma offered, at the hearing on its motion for preliminary injunction, credible testimony tending to establish plausible pathways by which poultry litter constituents, including pathogenic bacteria, could reach those waters. Most notably, Dr. John Fisher testified at length about the pathways created by the region's karst geology. (Aplt.App. vol. V at 1621-35.) Explaining a geologic map of the IRW, Dr. Fisher testified as follows: [Fisher:] This shows the outlying boundary of the Illinois River Watershed. The bold black lines indicate major map faults.... [T]hese are major breaks in the rocks that comprise the bedrock here.... . . . . ... In this kind of terrain, we're sitting here in what's called the Springfield Plateau. It's part of the Ozark uplift, an uplifted feature in Arkansas. It's a dome. The dome spills and dips off to the west. It's why the rivers sort of run in a circle around the edge here in Oklahoma. It's why the Arkansas runs the way it does because it's running around the edge of that. The structural development of that dome, plus subsequent structural crustal deformations take place after all the bedrock that's here in this watershed has been deposited. And so what that means is all these fractures can penetrate every bedrock unit that's present because the fracturing happened after the bedrock was made. So if you wanted to sort of paint a brush over this, this place is broken like a cup. The drainage features within this watershed are generally structurally determined. They're flowing along zones of crustal weakness, along fractures. ... We have a structurally modified bedrock that's controlling the terrain. [Question from Plaintiff's counsel:] What's the effect of all this fracturing and the faulting that you are describing that's in this watershed as it pertains to the land spreading of poultry waste? [Fisher:] Even with kinds of rocks that aren't soluble like a granite, this would provide a conduit for waste deposited on the surface and [its] constituents to move directly into groundwater. The bedrock that's present here in the near surface is the Boone limestone and the Saint Joe limestone, which are both soluble. So this fracturing combined with the soluble nature of those rocks mean[s] these fractures become enlarged by dissolution. And so these become very, very good pathways for wastes that are present on the surface to enter the subsurface. ( Id. at 1622-24 (emphasis added).) Dr. Fisher went on to explain that the soils in the eastern and far western portions of the IRW (as opposed to those in the sweet spot in the central portion) have high potential for runoff during rain events. ( Id. at 1629.) Dr. Fisher also summarized the results of peer-reviewed studies, conducted by the University of Arkansas, of poultry-waste runoff on test plots of land: [Question from Plaintiff's counsel:] And can you tell the Court what was found with regard to those test plots and the runoff of poultry waste? . . . . ... Generally, what becomes of the poultry waste constituents after they leave the fields in this runoff? [Fisher:] Well, as they leave the fields in the runoff and probably in some instances even if they don't leave the field as runoff, theyonce it's been put on the field, it's entered the environment. Once water hasenough water has been put on this, if a material is present in the runoff, it enters ephemeral drainageways and those drainageways lead to permanent streams. And so runoff from fields enters streams. And as you can see in this sort of terrain, some of that material will also infiltrate and enter the groundwater. ( Id. at 1634 (emphasis added).) In summary, Dr. Fisher offered his expert opinion that the IRW's karst geology permits more ready transport of [poultry waste] materials into the surface water of the region, and that that karst geology facilitates the transport of poultry waste and its constituents into groundwater. ( Id. at 1640.) Other witnesses testifying as to poultry litter's risk to IRW waters included Oklahoma's Secretary of the Environment, Miles Tolbert, who quoted a Natural Resource Conservation Service report warning that `[n]utrients and bacteria from animal waste applied to fields and in inadequate domestic septic systems could potentially contaminate the Boone Aquifer,' which is the aquifer underlying the IRW ( id. at 1392-93); Dr. Christopher Teaf, who testified that because of its fine, powder-like structure, and because of its application in large quantities on focused areas over a short period of time in the year during which nearly half of the rainfall for the year occurs, poultry litter is more likely than cow manure to leach into the water supply ( id. at 1497-98, 1506-07), that the bacteria in poultry litter have adaptive mechanisms that permit them to survive the stresses of being applied to fields ( id. at 1500-01), and that the University of Arkansas's cooperative extension service has warned, in its Dry Poultry Manure Management publication, that mishandled poultry waste poses a risk to surface waters and groundwater ( id. at 1504-05); and Dr. Lowell Caneday, who testified, over stiff defense objections, about his experience watching poultry litter run off of a field during a rainstorm (Aplt.App. vol. VI at 1853-55) (And it looked as though the field was literally moving across the road in front of me as the float materials of the litter floated on the rain.). Even after properly excluding the testimony of discredited experts Harwood and Olsen, the district court thus had before it significant credible evidence tending to demonstrate land-applied poultry litter's risk to the IRW's waters and the people who use them.