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Fighting an entire industry, Maryland's Environmental Law Clinic

By Carter Wood

Legislators from Maryland's Eastern Shore continue to be exercised about the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic's active support for a federal lawsuit against a chicken operation that could have major implications for the entire poultry industry in the state.

(Update: And nationally. It IS federal court, after all.)

The clinic has aided two groups, Assateague Coastkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance, which filed a Clean Water Act citizens complaint in March 2010 in U.S. District Court in Maryland against Hudson Farms and Perdue Farms, Inc. (Assateague news release). The dispute turned into a full-blown controversy when state Senator Lowell Stoltzfuss sought to withhold funds from the Law School in retaliation for its anti-business activities. Editorialists excoriated what they viewed as an attack on academic freedom, but why, after all, should taxpayer funds be used to drive the poultry industry out of business?  We discussed the issue at length in our April 12, 2010, post, 'Chicken suit.'

Judge William Nickerson dismissed Assateague Coastkeeper as a plaintiff last July while allowing Robert F. Kennedy's Waterkeepers Alliance to continue the suit. In its fall newsletter, the Environmental Law Center hailed Nickerson's ruling, 'Clinic Wins Key Ruling in Chesapeake Bay Pollution Lawsuit Against Poultry Industry':

On July 20, 2010, a federal judge gave the Environmental Law Clinic an important victory in its suit charging Perdue Farms Incorporated ('Perdue') with improper disposal of chicken waste. Judge William M. Nickerson denied Perdue's claim that it could not be held legally responsible for the waste and refused to dismiss the case. The Clinic's theory of liability against Perdue focuses on Perdue's control of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) or 'integrator' liability. This is the first case of integrator liability under the Clean Water Act brought in federal court against the poultry industry.

Full post as published by Point of Law on March 22, 2011 (boomark / email).