Environmentalists concerned about Huckabee

Tahlequah Daily Press ^ | December 17, 2007 | TEDDYE SNELL

[Tlaloc]

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is gaining ground in the national polls, but many area residents are concerned about the former Arkansas governor's environmental track record and how it could affect his decisions in the White House.

In 2002, Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating signed water pollution standards that Arkansas officials claimed would harm development in their state. In a letter to Huckabee, Keating said the rules were needed because voluntary restrictions had not worked. But Huckabee argued the rules would restrict economic growth in booming Northwest Arkansas, which had many poultry farms, and added that said Keating's decision was "driven more by environmental politics than by sound science."

Keating, incidentally, was a fellow Republican. According to a 2002 report by the Associated Press, the rules restricted the level of phosphorus in the six rivers to 0.037 parts per million. The average phosphorus level of the Illinois River at Watts -- near where the river crosses from Arkansas to Oklahoma -- was 0.25 parts per million, or about seven times the new standard.

In 2005, following more than three years of unsuccessful negotiations with the poultry industry, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson sued 14 Arkansas poultry companies -- including three run by Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer. In the ongoing suit, the AG accuses the companies of tainting Oklahoma waters with the waste from millions of chickens and turkeys.

In early 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Arkansas' attempt to sue Oklahoma over the dispute. Arkansas officials claimed the federal lawsuit would hurt the state's $2 billion poultry industry. In October that year, Gov. Huckabee blasted Edmondson for "playing politics" by demonizing the poultry industry and setting "unrealistic goals" to reduce pollution levels in his state's rivers.