To: The Oklahoma State House, The Oklahoma State Senate, and Governor Kevin Stitt
Stop Chicken Construction - Study the Water
We ask for a complete stoppage of construction of new mega chicken houses in Delaware, Mayes and Adair Counties until the Roubidoux Aquifer and our air quality is studied. Our county roads are choked with big trucks as they build 172 houses for 19.6 million birds in Delaware County alone. Include: 1. Capacity assessment of the aquifers being tapped for chicken house wells, 2. Air quality standard and monitoring for homes surrounding the chicken houses, 3. Assurance chicken manure stays out of surface and groundwater within the watersheds which contain pristine waters. No new permits; review all recent permits; stop all construction.
Why is this important?
We have lived with chicken farms but this massive explosion of houses concentrated in a few areas is dangerous to our health and water sources. Most of us live on water wells, which are showing contamination and some drying up. Families can't cook outside on their porch or have birthday parties when the pool has debris and feathers and the "farmer" burns dead chicken carcasses on the fence line. They are building too many, too close to each other and neighbors fence lines. Many of us do not have access to county water systems. What will we do without water? Please fund the USGS study, stop construction until there are scientific facts to support the foreign corporation from depleting our water. Simmons Foods does not have science to come in and colonize the land and waters of the Cherokee Nation citizens and neighbors. Shame on Simmons family.