In first suit of its kind, enviros sue poultry giant Perdue over Cheasapeake Bay pollution

Environmental groups in Maryland have filed suit against the poultry industry for polluting the waters that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. The Assateague Coastkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance alleges that harmful levels of pollution are flowing from a drainage ditch from Hudson Farms in Berlin, Md., Timothy B. Wheeler of The Baltimore Sun reports. The farm raises 80,000 chickens a year under contract with poultry giant Perdue, which is also named in the lawsuit.

"The Pocomoke River is already impaired with nitrogen, phosphorus, E. coli and fecal coliform bacteria," Assateague Coastkeeper Kathy Phillips told Wheeler. "That's exactly what we have pouring off this facility, and the Pocomoke River is carrying it to the Chesapeake Bay." When the group gave the farm two months notice of its intent to sue in January, the Maryland Department of the Environment said the pollution was from the Ocean City sewage treatment plant, not chicken farms. Tuesday the department told Wheeler it is investigating whether Hudson Farms is polluting.

The lawsuit is the first targeting Maryland's chicken industry for water pollution, Wheeler reports. "The Chesapeake Bay is in trouble enough already," Phillips said. "If we have to go after it one polluting point-source at a time, that's what we'll do." Perdue demanded a public apology after state regulators blamed chicken manure, and "threatened to sue the environmental groups for alleging that it has any responsibility for the farm," Wheeler writes. (Read more)