FILE - A Tyson food product is seen in Montpelier, Vt., Nov. 18, 2011. The world’s largest poultry producer and other poultry companies are asking a federal judge to dismiss his ruling that they polluted an Oklahoma watershed. Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, Minnesota-based Cargill Inc. and the others say in a motion filed Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, that the case is “constitutionally moot” because the evidence is now more than 13 years old.
“This case is constitutionally moot because the Court can no longer grant any effectual relief,” the companies argued in a filing with U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell in Tulsa. that the companies were responsible for pollution of the Illinois River Watershed by disposing of chicken litter, or manure, that leached into the river.
“The Court’s findings and conclusions rest upon a record compiled in 2005–2009,” the poultry companies’ motion stated. “When this Court issued its findings and conclusions ... much of the record dated from the 1990s and early 2000s.”