Earlier this month, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Assateague Coastal Trust filed a lawsuit against Perdue Farms and a couple who own a chicken farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, alleging that runoff from the farm was polluting the nearby Pocomoke River.

The lawsuit may not seem all that surprising to folks on the Eastern Shore, where chicken waste is a significant source of pollution in  the Chesapeake Bay, but it has stirred heated debate in the state Senate.

Some Maryland lawmakers were  irked upon learning  that the state-supported environmental law clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law had done legal work for the plaintiffs. Following lively discussion, the state Senate approved language requiring the legal clinic to submit a report on its clients and expenditures to the General Assembly–or risk having $250,000 in state funds withheld from its budget.  The House of Delegates voted to withhold even more–$500,000– from the clinic’s budget if the report is not filed by August, according to a report in the Washington Post.

Eastern Shore senators had complained that the clinic had unfairly targeted Eastern Shore businesses for water pollution, particularly those involved with chicken farming. The lawmakers expressed concern about the impact the legal action could have on Jim Perdue of Perdue Farms, who previously had suggested he could move his  chicken manufacturing operation to North Carolina.

Perdue said in a recent interview with Capital News Service that the lawsuit was “one of the largest threats to the family farm in the last 50 years.”

Photo courtesy of UMCES.