From the Arkansas Advocate:
A federal judge fining Tyson Foods and other large poultry companies for polluting the Illinois River is part of a decades-long legal fight that prompted the Springdale-based company to deem the watershed “no longer a hospitable place to do business.”
The declaration was surprising for a company whose history is deeply entrenched in the region. Tyson is Springdale’s largest single employer, and its fingerprints are everywhere. Employees can shop for discounted meats and ready-to-eat frozen meals at the company store. A vintage neon sign depicting a chick hatching from an egg adorns the brick facade of Tyson’s original headquarters. Signs featuring Tyson’s red and yellow logo are inescapable throughout its hometown.
The city recently handed Tyson a 50% tax break for its $127 million plan to revive a shuttered Springdale poultry plant. At the same time, Tyson threatened to stop contracting with local poultry farmers because of the looming threat of legal fines.
The tax write-off and Tyson’s simultaneous decision to withdraw from local contracts shows the balancing act the nation’s largest processed chicken manufacturer is performing as it fights a costly environmental lawsuit. And it explains why locals are wary of directly blaming the company for its stance.
In Arkansas, Tyson dominates the market through contracts with broiler farmers who raise chickens to process at its facilities. Without Tyson, many growers in the watershed, which includes northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, could face immediate bankruptcy, a scenario that played out recently in Missouri and central Arkansas when Tyson abruptly closed processing plants there, leaving farmers without a buyer.
Tyson’s decision to step back from contracts in the region came roughly three weeks prior to a Dec. 19 ruling, which ordered the poultry giant to clean up decades of phosphorus pollution that has damaged the Illinois River watershed as a result of chicken litter being applied in large quantities to broiler farms.
About two weeks before the ruling, the Arkansas Farm Bureau held an emergency meeting with over 100 poultry growers and state lawmakers from Arkansas and Oklahoma in response to Tyson’s comments. In a statement, Bureau President Dan Wright warned the loss of contracts could threaten the livelihoods of poultry farmers throughout the watershed.
Jerry Moyer, owner of PLR Farms in Lincoln, said he will be left with $200,000 in debt if Tyson does not renew his contracts when they expire in 2028.
“There’s growers that will have $4-6 million worth of debt to be paid and that’s devastating to their families,” Moyer said in a Dec. 3 video. “The growers that are left with large debt, they’re going to file bankruptcy and walk away.”
The bureau, however, isn’t blaming Tyson over the loss of contracts. The blame is being laid squarely on Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, thanks to the 20-year-old lawsuit he has aggressively pursued an end to over the past three years.
Two decades, one lawsuit
The Oklahoma v. Tyson Foods litigation began in 2005 when the state sued large poultry companies for disposing tons of phosphorus-rich chicken litter on lands that drained into the Illinois River watershed.
Drummond oversaw settlement talks after Oklahoma U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell ruled in favor of the state in 2023, determining the poultry companies were responsible for polluting the river basin and causing widespread algae blooms that have not improved. The companies, including Tyson, Cargill, George’s, Simmons Foods and Cal-Maine, challenged that ruling, but lost again when Frizzell reaffirmed the court’s initial findings but did not issue a final remedy.
Following failed settlement talks, Frizzell issued a final judgement Dec. 19. The ruling mandates a comprehensive cleanup plan lasting at least 30 years, overseen by a court-appointed “special master” and funded entirely by the poultry companies with a starting balance of $10 million. Tyson was ordered to pay the largest share of $420,000 in fines levied for past violations, and the decision places new limits on waste per acre.
The judgment is less severe than what Drummond — who is running for governor in 2026 — proposed in July, when he asked for more than $100 million in penalties. Drummond’s proposal was met with intense backlash, and the Oklahoma and Arkansas Farm Bureaus urged Drummond to soften his demands in light of Tyson’s threats to pull grower contracts.
“The livelihoods of Arkansas and Oklahoma poultry farmers within the Illinois River Watershed are being threatened by an extreme overreach by the Oklahoma attorney general,” Wright said in a statement. Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Stacy Simunek urged Drummond to “go back to the drawing board to reach a reasonable settlement.”
Drummond has faced escalating pressure from Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who ahead of the ruling urged the AG to settle and accused Drummond of “prioritizing the interests of out-of-state trial lawyers” over Oklahoma farmers.
Tyson said in late November it would halt new contracts in the watershed, blaming Drummond for creating a legal environment that made the region inhospitable to business. The poultry giant said it would honor existing contracts, but not extend them beyond their current terms.
Drummond called Tyson’s threats a “coordinated misinformation campaign” designed to avoid taking responsibility for decades of pollution.
“Not one single farmer has been sued by the state, but these corporations continue to hide behind a false narrative, using hardworking farm families as human shields to avoid accountability,” Drummond said in a news release.
Tyson’s shiny new investment
Just 24 hours before declaring the region too risky for business, Tyson secured a massive deal to expand its operations in Springdale with the acquisition of a turkey processing plant.
The deal relies on Act 9 industrial development bonds, where the city takes technical ownership of the plant and leases it back to Tyson through a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreement. This arrangement allows the company to pay discounted “rent” on its $127 million investment rather than full property taxes for 10 years, after which time Tyson will take ownership of the plant. Based on Washington County property tax rates, a 50% reduction and the project’s $127 million valuation, the Advocate estimates the deal will save Tyson more than $6.5 million over the next decade.
Springdale could not verify these projected savings. Springdale Deputy Chief of Staff Anna McKinney declined to comment when asked if the city had independently calculated Tyson’s expected tax savings, or what the city’s expected property tax revenue would be before approving the deal. Instead, she referred the questions to the company.
Tyson accounting executive Jan Nash told McKinney in a Dec. 10 email that the company’s communications team “prefer that we do not comment on the estimated savings.” Nash also noted “that Tyson has closed on the property, which is our initial investment.”
Tyson did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
City officials were content to move forward with the deal based solely on verbal assurances from Tyson. In response to a public records request, the only document the city could produce besides the public agreement documents was a letter to Springdale’s mayor and city council from Springdale Public Schools Superintendent Jared Cleveland, expressing support for the bond deal. While acknowledging that tax exemptions “must be used judiciously,” Cleveland said Tyson’s leadership had assured him the arrangement would “meet or exceed” existing property tax revenues for the school district.
He described Springdale’s relationship to Tyson as “symbiotic.”
“The history of Springdale is written in tandem with the history of Tyson Foods,” Cleveland wrote. “We understand a fundamental truth: A strong Tyson Foods means a strong Springdale, and a strong Springdale creates a thriving School District.”
That relationship runs so deep that city officials again deferred to the company when asked to explain their confidence in the deal, given that it lacks any provisions which would protect the city’s tax base if Tyson were to suddenly jump ship or not create the jobs it promised.
Tyson would “be better equipped to answer” these questions, McKinney said in a Dec. 29 email. Tyson has not responded to the questions forwarded by the city.
The plant Tyson bought was formerly owned by Cargill, but the company shuttered it in August. The 350,000-square-foot facility, located on 45 acres in Springdale’s industrial corridor, had operated for over 50 years and employed about 1,000 people, Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said. In a Dec 5. interview, he described the closure as a “punch in the gut” and said he was relieved when Tyson said it was interested in buying the facility through a tax-free bond.
“Nothing’s really a no-brainer, but I thought this was as close to a no-brainer from a city’s perspective because the city is not on the hook for any of these bonds,” Sprouse said. “This will all be on Tyson.”
Tyson officials proposed renovating the Cargill plant and retrofitting it into a chicken packaging facility. Nathan McKay, Tyson’s president of poultry, said the company plans major capital investments over the next three years to upgrade equipment. They would hire about 200 employees in the first few years of operation, and gradually add more.
The Springdale City Council approved the bond, and Drummond cited the acquisition as evidence Tyson was bluffing about withdrawing from contracts in the watershed.
“Oklahomans deserve better than corporate intimidation tactics from a company that has repeatedly shown it prioritizes profits over people and environmental responsibility,” Drummond said.
Sprouse said he had not spoken with Tyson about the company’s threats to pull back from local contracts before or after the city council approved the tax incentives.
“I know well enough to know that’s not something they want to do,” Sprouse said. At the same time, he pleaded ignorance about other aspects of Tyson’s business strategy, stating he “would have no clue” about Drummond’s claims Tyson was bluffing.
Sprouse said he hopes local growers can still operate and indicated he trusted Tyson’s decision-making process.
“I don’t know what all’s going into those decisions, and I’ll trust those in charge to decide what they need to do,” he said.
The path forward
Drummond left open the door to negotiations that could offer “more flexibility and certainty” than the judge’s plan. He cautioned against appealing the ruling noting it would only prolong the decades-long legal proceedings.
“A robust poultry industry and clean water can and must coexist,” Drummond said in a press release. “I remain committed to working with the poultry companies toward a resolution.”
Attorneys for Tyson and the other poultry firms have asked the judge to stay his ruling as they appeal it.
Arkansas Farm Bureau’s president lambasted the judge’s decision, arguing the farming standards imposed by his ruling represent an “arbitrary benchmark” that will force large poultry companies to withdraw from the watershed.
“Ultimately, this ruling is a gross overreach and seeks to provide a solution to a problem that no longer exists,” Wright stated.
Arkansas and Oklahoma lawmakers, including Stitt, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and legislators representing Benton and Washington counties, also criticized Frizzell’s judgement. Sanders said the case has created “unnecessary harm” to poultry growers.
Save The Illinois River, an environmental stewardship group that was among the minority who praised the final judgment, said the poultry companies should be held responsible for polluting the watershed.
“It’s time to quit playing politics and economically threatening our farmers, our communities, and the future of our children,” president Paul Rowsey said in a statement. “The time is now to act responsibly and remediate past transgressions and to mitigate future ones.”
