The chicken house stories echoed, literally, with a familiar frustrated tone under the Dome at Kansas High School, but Oklahoma’s poultry house expansion issue did have a perhaps unexpected additional voice Friday morning.
U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin called the 9 a.m. meeting, which drew about 75 eastern Oklahoma residents. With representatives of the Oklahoma Department of Food, Forestry and Agriculture and the Cherokee Nation with him, he told the crowd he knows where they’re coming from and that he is with them.
While he is a congressman, his assurances to the Kansas, Oklahoma, crowd relied more on his status as a homeowner in the area and one with family ties in the area that date back prior to statehood, he said.
“Federally, as a congressman, I have no role in this, but I wanted to bring people together in a neutral place to talk about it and see what we can do,” he said. “It’s personal to me.”
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State and county and judicial matters are for those government entities, he reiterated, but he said he would become involved, be responsive to constituents and help get their questions answered through any red tape that needed cutting.
He said that he, too, is one who worries about his kids playing in the clear water creek outside his home, where he has a new poultry operation as a neighbor.
“We live in Westville, which is just 15 minutes from here,” he said. “(The chicken farm) is literally right on my property line, but it’s an Arkansas complex. And I get it, I’m not against the industry at all, but there should be offsets on property lines. When you’re literally building them on fence lines, that isn’t how all the states regulate this. There are better ways that we can do this to keep that from happening.”
The congressman said some landowners may have no choice but to pursue legal action against the poultry industry.
“I’m not about going to court, but that is what the court system is there for, too,” he said. “If there is not a statute that’s going to prevent this, you still can’t build something across my fence line and cause my property value to drop dramatically to where I don’t have a house to live in or even one I can sell.”
Talk of lawsuits, and what they might cost, have thundered through the Dome, which doubles as a storm shelter, before. Larger crowds than could attend a Friday morning meeting have been meeting in the area since June.
Pam Kingfisher, one of the organizers of the Spring Creek Guardians, expressed appreciation for Mullin’s efforts but was reserved in her praise Friday after the meeting.
“I applaud the fact that he would come out and talk to people and say he will do something, but he should also know that everything he says he will do, we will hold his feet to the fire,” she said.
She had hoped for some fresh ideas, she said.
“We heard nothing new. I debriefed with citizens who have been at all the meetings since we started and they agreed,” she said. “It was a little aggravating. It’s like we’ve had a loose tooth we’ve been pulling on for six months, and now, the cavalry is going to swoop in and ask all our questions for us. I’m glad he’s going to be contacting people and helping with communication, but he should also know we’re going to be calling right behind him.”
Kingfisher said the guardians group has a candidate’s forum scheduled for Oct. 13, tentatively set for the auditorium, and that she hopes Mullin will attend and address the issue, along with 2nd Congressional District Democratic challenger Jason Nichols, currently mayor of Tahlequah.
Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Jim Reese, Director of Environmental Management Services for the Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry Environmental Management Services Jeremy Seiger and Cherokee Nation Secretary of Environment Sara Hill joined Mullin at the head of the room Friday.
Hill and Reese will co-chair a new Coordinating Council on Poultry Growth, created last week by Gov. Mary Fallin and Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker.
Hill told the crowd the council is in the building stages and that she wanted the crowd to know that she has heard their pleas that “something needs to be done now.”
Mullin said he or a representative of his office would want to be part of the council as well.
He said correspondence about the issue has been coming to his office for some time, and as he traveled around, the problem became obvious and people’s anger is easily understood. He agrees all parties need to come together to hash out solutions.
“When I first started hearing it, I was surprised going out and looking around at more places and thinking, ‘Who in their right mind wouldn’t be upset about this?’” he said. “We expected a spirited meeting, and I think people who were able to make it had spirited points.”
