Assateague Coastal Trust and Assateague Coastkeeper joined Waterkeeper Alliance to bring suit against Perdue Farms Inc and one of their contracted growers in March 2010 for polluted discharges of fecal coliform, e.coli, nitrogen and phosphorus coming off the poultry growing facility into waterways connecting to the Pocomoke River and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.

Both Perdue Farms Inc and Alan Hudson were named in the lawsuit because one controls the poultry operation and the other is the owner/operator of the facility. Coastkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance contend both should share responsibility for the polluted discharges.

On Thursday Nov. 17, both sides filed motions and supporting documents laying out their cases in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The case is scheduled for trial later in 2012. A judge denied summary jodgements in March 2012.  Read reaction to March ruling.

A Perdue controlled website, called "savefarmfamilies.org" has been disseminating misleading and inflammatory statements and information related to this Clean Water Act citizen lawsuit. With the filing of a Motion for Summary Judgment, the lawsuit is now at a point where the Plaintiffs and ACT can make a statement, with facts, to dispute the many misleading statements on Perdue’s "savefarmfamilies.org" website.

View Assateague Coasterkeeper's website for case updates and case documents.

Read this fact sheet debunking the myths on the "savefarmfamilies.org" website.

Read Food & Water Watch's fact sheet

Read the Balltimore Sun Op Ed on why Governor O'Malley's letter to the University of Maryland's environmental law clinic is wrong and shows poor judgement.

Waterkeepers Chesapeake Press Release on O'Malley's Letter to Law School

Read the Huffington Post's article on "Lets Kill all The Law Students"

Read Chesapeake Bay Action Plans article "O’Malley Piles On"

Read about Perdue's PR Campaign on Deceit

While this lawsuit is focused on the poultry industry on the Eastern shore of Maryland, the same issues apply to the poultry industry in the Shenandoah Valley and the Upper Potomac regions of our watershed. Poultry companies, known as "integrators," own everything in the production of poultry except the waste.