That’s not a denial of the role they play. They’ve been saying there are other contributors. We’ve said ‘Yes, that’s true, but you are the biggest contributor.’ What separates the impact of poultry litter from cattle manure is timing. [Explaining that cow manurem for example is deposited by the cows year round, whereas poultry farmers saturate the ground with it in the Spring, at the beginning of the growing season, just as the weather is warming up and people start going to the river for recreational purposes].

People don’t canoe in those other rivers. We are willing to go where the evidence takes us. The evidence points at the poultry industry, not the cattle industry. We could be more active in fencing cattle away from streams and having setbacks from rivers, but if we want to get into the pollution of the Illinois River, the answer is in poultry.

Labels: Drew Edmondson, Poultry Lawsuit