Alan Hudson, the farmer at the center of a environmental law case that could shake up the Eastern Shore chicken business, took the stand in federal court Wednesday to tell his side of the story.
Hudson testified that as a 19-year-old, he built the chicken houses at issue in the case, on the Berlin-area farm that has been in his family for at least a century.
"That was going to be my contribution to getting my foot in the door farming with them," the 37-year-old Hudson said, adding that the farm needed a new stream of revenue after its dairy closed down a few years before.
In 2010 Hudson and his wife, Kristin, were sued over allegations that pollution from those chicken houses had drained into a stream that ultimately flows to the Chesapeake Bay. The suit by the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group, also named Salisbury-based poultry firm Perdue, alleging that the company controlled the way Hudson raised the chickens as a contractor and should held liable for any waste they produce.
The trial is being watched closely. Farmers worry that a ruling in the Waterkeepers' favor would threaten their way of doing business, while environmentalists hope that it would let them hold large agricultural companies accountable for pollution.
The Waterkeepers, represented by the University of Maryland environmental law clinic, rested their case Tuesday.
5 comments:
This is nothing but a waste of our court's time and what a slap in the face that the Waterkeepers who are represented by UME law clinic , are using our taxpayer dollars to do this to a hard working farm family.
Be neato if there was some as-yet-unkown quirk in the law that, if successful, the Hudsons and Perdue could recoup the attorneys' fees from UM.
This case is part of O'Malley's plan to become president
omalley is not ever going to be president. he's a legend in his own mind. The dems in power are going to be behind Andrew Cuomo.
F the epa
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