Closing arguments are taking place today in the Waterkeeper Alliance trial against Berlin, Maryland-based family farmers Alan and Kristin Hudson in the U.S. District Court of Maryland in Baltimore. The lawsuit is being closely watched as the outcome could have far reaching implications for the Delmarva chicken industry and family farms across the country. It is not known when U.S. District Court Judge William M. Nickerson will issue a ruling in the case.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2010 by the Waterkeeper’s Alliance, accused the Hudsons and Perdue Farms, for whom the Hudsons are contract growers, of violating the Clean Water Act. The violation was based on a pile of material on the property that was erroneously assumed to be chicken waste, but was instead municipal sewage sludge from Ocean City, Maryland, that was used to fertilize crops. The Maryland Department of the Environment inspected the farm, confirmed the pile was biosolids, asked the Hudsons to move the pile, and the Hudsons complied.
Lawyers for the Waterkeeper’s Alliance argued manure leaving the poultry houses from ventilation fans and foot traffic polluted a ditch along the farm which leads to the Pocomoke River. Perdue Farms was named in the suit with the Waterkeeper’s Alliance saying that the company controls how Hudson runs his farm and should share responsibility in managing its poultry manure.
SaveFarmFamilies.org, which is raising funds for the Hudsons, will have a spokesperson available for news reporters immediately following closing arguments. Perdue Farmes issued at statement saying, in part, “in closing arguments today Perdue’s attorneys reitereated that this lawsuit is not about stopping pollution but part of the Waterkeeper Alliance’s war on the poutlry industry declared at the Eastern Shore Poultry Summit in 2007. We are confident the judge will see that the Waterkeeper Alliance and Assateague Coastal Trust came to court to advance an agenda rather than right a wrong.”
