TULSA, Okla. – Instead of explaining why the Illinois River watershed is polluted with bacteria, 12 Arkansas poultry companies are instead resorting to critiquing Oklahoma’s expert witnesses, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson claims in a new court filing.

The war of words spilled out in a document filed Monday in Tulsa federal court, where Edmondson claims Oklahoma would be denied due process if a judge were to throw out affidavits from 10 expert witnesses in the state’s 2005 environmental lawsuit, as the poultry companies have requested.

Edmondson claims in the motion that the companies’ allegations are “ironic,” because their experts “are almost all attack experts, (and) their expert reports are almost exclusively rebuttal reports.”

In a previous filing, the poultry companies accused Oklahoma of “enlisting attack experts to launch a surprise attack” on their experts.

“Rather than offer an alternative theory or explanation concerning the cause of phosphorous and bacteria pollution in the Illinois River watershed ... defendants’ expert opinions serve almost exclusively as a critique of the state’s experts,” Edmondson’s motion contends.

Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for Tyson Foods Inc., one of the companies named in the lawsuit, said Tuesday that Oklahoma’s contention is “absurd.”

“If our experts undercut the reliability of the state’s claims against us, this is no way improper,” Mickelson said in a statement. “For example, our experts have already shown that the water quality in the Illinois River watershed is comparable to waters in the rest of the state of Oklahoma, including areas where poultry is not grown.”

Charlie Price, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the companies have not challenged the experts’ reliability in the motion. “Their characterization of these scientists as ’attack experts’ is nothing more than empty rhetoric,” Price said in a statement.

Edmondson sued 13 poultry companies in 2005, claiming that bacteria from the over-application of poultry litter in the 1-million-acre watershed leeches into the groundwater, springs and wells.

A trial is set for September, but the poultry companies have asked for a delay, which Oklahoma opposes.

One of the companies, Springfield, Mo.-based Willow Brook Foods Inc., recently proposed to pay $120,000 to settle its portion of the case. The company operated only eight of the 1,800 poultry houses estimated to be in the watershed, and no longer is in the poultry business in Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma-Arkansas region supplies roughly 6 percent of the nation’s poultry.

The other companies named in the lawsuit include Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cal-Maine Foods Inc., Cargill Inc., Cargill Turkey Production L.L.C., George’s Inc., George’s Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc., Simmons Foods Inc. and Cal-Maine Farms Inc.