|
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Water quality monitoring devices placed by Oklahoma officials in Arkansas streams have stirred up the long standing feud between the two neighboring states regarding pollution levels in shared streams. "The political gamesmanship of the Oklahoma attorney general is getting more pungent than any perceived pollution he thinks is coming from Arkansas," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. "Rather than operating in good faith to solve problems, he would rather continue disparaging Arkansas farmers and communities in order to keep his name in the paper." Those "problems" are the pollution of waters flowing into Oklahoma by Arkansas-based poultry farms. Several years ago, the Sooner State set water quality standards for several shared streams and demanded that its neighbor abide by those standards. Arkansas agreed to reduce pollution levels but countered that the standards were too strict for the farms to comply and still remain in business. Oklahoma insisted on compliance and, evidently, decided to increase its monitoring efforts in shared waters. "We were shocked to learn the monitoring has been going on without the knowledge of anybody in our state," said Janet Wilkerson, a spokeswoman for five poultry companies. County work crews in northwestern Arkansas discovered the water monitors and officials traced them to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who has been gathering information for a lawsuit to force reduction of runoff pollution from the poultry farms. But Charlie Price, a spokesman for Edmondson, said that an environmental consulting firm placed the monitors in Arkansas and were not supposed to do so without notifying local authorities. Washington County, Ark., Judge Jerry Hunton, who also is a poultry farmer, said Edmondson confirmed his role only after the county spent days trying to trace the barrels. "It took a little while before they fessed up," he said. "At that point we were getting frustrated. We told them we were going to collect all the barrels. We told them we were opposed to it being done by stealth." Arkansas since has agreed to leave the monitoring devices in the streams, provided that Oklahoma share all information collected from them. The devices are located inside 55-gallon drums. Additionally, Edmondson and representatives from the poultry farms are scheduled to meet this summer. The Oklahoma attorney general has said that he will sue if a mutually agreeable solution to reducing polluted runoff cannot be found.
|
