Poultry dangers overstated, expert says

TULSA — Federal Judge Gregory K. Frizzell lectured participants in a hearing Friday on the rule of law facing the state in its request for an injunction barring spread of poultry waste in the Illinois River watershed.

"We all know the remedy being sought here under the law is extraordinary,” Frizzell told attorneys and spectators before the first witness was called to the stand on Day Six of the hearing.

"There is a high burden to meet that standard,” Frizzell continued. "There are a number of high hurdles that need to be crossed to meet that remedy.”

Standing before Frizzell when he spoke was defense attorney Patrick Ryan, who represents Tyson Foods Inc., one of 13 poultry corporations targeted in a lawsuit filed in 2005 by Attorney General Drew Edmondson over alleged pollution of the Illinois River watershed by poultry waste.

"Well, that is the standard,” Ryan said during a mid-afternoon break in the hearing. He said he did not know what sparked the monologue.

Edmondson concurred that the judge was merely pointing out the challenge of proving an injunction. He said he did not draw any conclusions from Frizzell's comments.

"There comes a point where the law says that we don't have to prove that someone got sick or will get sick,” Edmondson said. "We have to prove there is a risk. The court has to err on the side of public safety.”

Frizzell told the attorneys that he was holding Monday and Tuesday as well as part of Wednesday to conclude the hearing. Ryan responded that the defense intends to call 11 expert witnesses.

First to the stand Friday was Dr. Herbert DuPont, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas Medical Center in Houston. DuPont is a professor of epidemiology at the UT Medical School who has studied intestinal diseases for three decades.

"I'm a scatologist — the study of stools,” DuPont said to laughter at one point in his testimony.

DuPont contradicted previous plaintiff's experts that the waters of the Illinois River watershed pose a danger to people using or consuming it. The number of pathogens in the water that cause intestinal disorders in humans is too low to cause harm, he said.

The state has tried to show through expert witnesses that poultry waste spread on pasture land in the watershed area has leached into the waters, causing them to be a danger to people.

Plaintiffs' witnesses have testified that the bacteria indicators in the water point to poultry as the sources of contamination.

But DuPont testified that the amount of two common pathogens found in poultry — salmonella and campylobacter — is so low in the Illinois River that "you couldn't drink enough (river water) to make yourself sick.

"The counts are low when you look at some of the pathogens, salmonella and campylobacter. This isn't a problem in my opinion.”

The main source of intestinal disease outbreaks in the United States is food, he said. And sources for water-borne outbreaks usually are from human sewage, he said.

Later, in his cross examination attorney Louis Bullock asked