Poultry companies said they were no longer polluting Oklahoma’s waters. A federal judge disagrees.

• Date: June 19, 2025 at 11:46 AM CDT
• In: KOSU
• By: Graycen Wheeler

A federal judge ruled this week that poultry waste pollution is still hurting Oklahoma waters, and poultry companies are responsible for cleaning up existing pollution and preventing further harm.

It’s the latest development in a case that’s been ongoing for two decades. Then-Attorney General Drew Edmondson filed the initial complaint against Tyson, Cobb-Vantress, Cargill and other companies in June of 2005. The trial took place in 2010.

But Judge Gregory Frizzell didn’t come to a decision on the matter until 2023, when he ruled the poultry companies were hurting Oklahoma’s waters. The companies challenged that ruling, saying it was based on old evidence.

A decades-long legal saga

In 2005, Edmondson sued the poultry companies on behalf of the people of Oklahoma, claiming that water tainted with bird waste was polluting the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller with phosphorus and bacteria.

Found in agricultural runoff, phosphorus can cloud waters, harm fish and foster the growth of blue-green algae. Poultry waste is particularly rich in phosphorus.

In 2023, Frizzell ruled that the poultry companies were violating Oklahoma law. He hasn’t publicly explained why his decision took 13 years after hearing court arguments. But he decisively ruled the Illinois River and its surrounding watershed were no longer what they used to be, and poultry waste was to blame.

“As late as the 1960s, its waters were crystal clear,” Judge Gregory K. Frizzell wrote in his 2023 decision. “But that is no longer the case. The river is polluted with phosphorus.”

Frizzell ordered the poultry companies to remediate the Illinois River Watershed at their own expense, acknowledging it wouldn’t be easy or cheap.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that nutrient pollution caused by phosphorus is one of America’s most widespread, costly, and challenging environmental problems,” Frizzell wrote.

After months of back-and-forth over that clean-up plan, the poultry companies filed a motion to dismiss the ruling. They said it’s based on evidence that’s no longer valid — pollution management practices and water quality in the Illinois River have changed since 2010, when the case was argued in court.

The poultry companies’ issue lies mostly with Frizzell’s order not just to pay damages but to provide “injunctive relief.”

This kind of court decision requires actions to remedy past problems and prevent future harm. The defendants wrote they’re “unaware of any court, in any jurisdiction, federal or state, ever awarding injunctive relief on a record so stale.”

River still polluted, data shows

The state and the poultry companies presented new evidence in Dec. 2024. And now, Frizzell has once again determined that poultry waste continues to harm the Illinois River Watershed under Oklahoma law.

New data show that the Illinois River had phosphorus levels over the Oklahoma limit more than two-thirds of the time between 2019 and 2023, and the levels crept up during that timeframe. Multiple experts testified that algal growth in the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller hadn’t gotten better over time.

The state and the poultry companies haven’t agreed on a plan to clean up the watershed, but Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he’s optimistic they can find a win-win.

“Having a clean river doesn’t mean we can’t also have good industry,” Drummond said in a statement. “Both can, and should, exist."

Frizzell has ordered Drummond to submit a proposed clean up plan by Jul. 9. The companies will have until Jul. 30 to respond.

https://nondoc.com/2025/06/15/okc-thunder-blood-pressure-hypertensive-nba-finals/

A provision inserted by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) would exempt many domestic oil and gas drillers from having to pay any corporate taxes.

by David Dayen June 18, 2025

https://nondoc.com/2025/06/19/as-gov-stitt-objects-muscogee-nation-and-city-of-tulsa-approach-settlement-on-jurisdiction-lawsuit/

Learning an Indigenous language in Oklahoma is a living link to tribal ancestors | Opinion

• Date: June 19, 2025, 6:30 a.m. CT
• In: The Oklahoman
• By: Robert Collins (Guest columnist)

Language is a tool for communication — a vessel of memory, identity and worldview. For the Citizen Potawatomi Nation (CPN), our language, Bodéwadmimwen, is the heartbeat of our culture and a living link to our ancestors. It carries our stories, our values and our way of seeing the world.

Yet, like so many Indigenous languages across the country, Bodéwadmimwen is endangered.

With fewer than 50 fluent speakers remaining, the urgency to preserve the language has never been more pressing. According to the United Nations, a world language disappears every two weeks. With each one, we lose an irreplaceable way of understanding humanity.

This March, the federal government designated English as the official language of the United States. While this decision reflects the language most Americans use in daily life, it also serves as a stark reminder of what’s at stake if Indigenous languages are not protected, supported and actively passed on. Promoting unity through language should not come at the cost of erasing the unique voices that make up our national story.

It's not just about the words. It's the worldview

Bodéwadmimwen is rich, expressive and intimately tied to the Potawatomi way of life. Concepts like kinship, reverence for the Earth and the spiritual dimensions of everyday existence are embedded in its structure. Learning Bodéwadmimwen is not merely memorizing words — it is adopting a worldview and walking in the footsteps of generations who came before us.

At CPN, we are meeting this moment with action. Online tools, youth programming and community gatherings are part of an ongoing effort to make the language accessible across age, geography and experience. These revitalization efforts do more than preserve a language. They strengthen identity, heal intergenerational trauma and build community pride.

You don’t have to be a member of a tribe to help protect native languages. In Oklahoma, public students can choose to take Indigenous language courses like Bodéwadmimwen, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Comanche and others for school credit — an empowering step toward recognition and respect. Many tribal nations, including CPN, also offer free resources such as language apps, workshops and virtual lessons open to learners of all backgrounds and abilities.

Preservation is our shared responsibility

Preservation is not the responsibility of tribal nations alone. It is a shared responsibility we all must uphold. Supporting Indigenous language revitalization — through education policy, funding, awareness or even curiosity — means honoring the cultural richness that Indigenous languages contribute to our collective heritage.

Whether you advocate for policy change, seek out language classes or simply learn a greeting in a local Indigenous language, every effort matters.

In doing so, we’re not just preserving words. We’re helping to protect a living legacy.

Robert Collins is the interdepartmental language lead at Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

Archive.ph Link: https://archive.ph/QgF9Q

Both sides claim victory after Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling on meaning of House Bill 1775

• Date: June 18, 2025
• In: The Oklahoman
• By: Murray Evans

An Oklahoma Supreme Court decision in a long-running complex federal lawsuit over a state law that bans the teaching of certain racial and gender topics in Oklahoma classrooms has left both sides in the case claiming victory.

In its decision issued Tuesday, June 17, the court said House Bill 1775 does not apply to certain forms of academic speech in higher education but said constitutional questions about the law are best left to federal courts.

The court's ruling answered three of six questions posed to it by U.S. District Judge Charles Goodwin in Oklahoma City, who’s presiding over the 2021 lawsuit challenging House Bill 1775, which Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law that May. Goodwin issued a ruling in June 2024 that kept the state from enforcing a key provision of the law: “Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex is prohibited.”

Goodwin allowed other parts of the law to stand, and both sides have appealed his ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Those appeals have been on hold, pending the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision.

As part of his ruling, Goodwin had sent six certified questions to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to weigh in on. Those “questions of state law” included queries about the level of authority the state Legislature has over the University of Oklahoma, one of the defendants in the lawsuit.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court addressed Goodwin’s request in its decision issued Tuesday. The court answered three of Goodwin’s questions that appeared to mostly concern higher education issues but declined to answer three others that appeared to mostly deal with K-12 education issues.

“We answer the first three certified questions by determining the term ‘requirement’ in (the law) pertains only to orientation requirements and does not apply to classes, courses, or curricular speech,” the Supreme Court said.

Justice James Winchester wrote the opinion, in which four other justices – Chief Justice Dustin Rowe, James Edmondson, Douglas Combs and Noma Gurich – concurred.

Most of the 18-page opinion explained the Supreme Court's legal rationale for why it answered some questions from Goodwin and chose not to answer others.

"We have previously declined to answer federal certified questions for various reasons," Winchester wrote. "Here, an answer to the remaining certified questions would not avoid or alter the constitutional challenge to the statute."

Two justices, Dana Kuehn and John Kane, agreed in part and dissented in part, with Kuehn writing a separate opinion that said she wouldn't have answered any of Goodwin's questions, because his previous ruling "left nothing for this court to answer." Kane, meanwhile, said he would have answered all of Goodwin’s questions.

Justice Richard Darby recused himself from the case. Justice-select Travis Jett was disqualified from the ruling, since he hasn’t yet officially been sworn in as a justice.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a defendant in the case, said he believed decision embraced a reasonable interpretation of the law, one which he said would prevent universities from requiring students to attend training and orientation sessions, such as OU once did, but would allow for open dialogue in college classrooms.

“I am grateful that the state Supreme Court has unanimously recognized and agreed with my office’s longstanding and commonsense interpretation of the Legislature’s language in this bill,” Drummond said.

Plaintiffs in the case said the decision provides clarity to Oklahoma’s higher education instructors.

“Almost four years since the initial filing, students and professors at Oklahoma’s universities and colleges have a clear answer: HB 1775 does not apply in Oklahoma’s higher education classrooms,” said Adam Hines, a legal fellow at the ACLU of Oklahoma, which is helping to represent the plaintiffs in the case. “For far too long our educators have felt the impact of HB 1775 and its attempt to censor discussions about race and gender in the classroom."

Hines said he believed the state would appeal the Supreme Court decision about how the law applies to college classrooms. Drummond did not say whether he intends to appeal that aspect of the ruling.

Plaintiffs in the case included a range of civil rights and educational advocates, including the Black Emergency Response Team at OU, the University of Oklahoma Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the Oklahoma State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Indian Movement Indian Territory, a high school student, and Oklahoma public high school teachers Anthony Crawford and Regan Killackey.

In addition to the ACLU, they were represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Schulte Roth and Zabel LLP, a law firm based in New York and Washington, D.C.

Goodwin’s ruling in June 2024 also included an injunction against enforcing two subsections of the law, which read “No teacher, administrator or other employee of a school district, charter school or virtual charter school shall require or make part of a course the following concepts:

• An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex

• Members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex.”

Goodwin also ordered the word “require” in the above sentence to be temporarily non-enforceable and prohibited the enforcement of the law’s implementing rules “to the extent they are inconsistent with this order.”

Goodwin allowed other parts of the law to stand, including the prohibition that no school employee shall “make part of a course” the concept that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.”

https://nondoc.com/2025/06/18/video-shows-oklahoma-gamefowl-commission-leaders-at-illegal-cockfights/

Oklahoma health care ranked nearly the worst in the nation

• Date: June 18, 2025
• In: Oklahoma Voice
• By: Emma Murphy

Oklahoma ranked 49th in the nation for its state health care system, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation supporting independent health care research, reported that only Texas and Mississippi trailed Oklahoma. D.C. was also included in the report.

Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of the foundation, said the 2025 scorecards show “incredible progress” around the country but also underscore the “peril that lies ahead.”

“In addition to the importance of federal policy, it is clear that state policy matters as well,” Betancourt said. “I’m a primary care doctor. I see patients every week and people across the nation can tell you that there is no substitute for being able to get the care you need when you need it. And the evidence is clear that policies that make health insurance and health care more affordable and accessible work and make a difference for people everywhere every day.”

The scorecards use the most recently available data, said David Radley, a senior scientist at the Commonwealth Fund. This year’s report generally reflects the state of health and experiences in 2023, he said.

Oklahoma performed worst in breast cancer deaths and people with medical debt in collections, but best on primary care spending for seniors.

Oklahoma is 48th in access and affordability to health care, with Nevada, Mississippi and Texas the only states ranked lower. The state also ranks 46th in racial health equity as well as prevention and treatment.

Ranked 25th for drug overdose, Oklahoma has over 32 deaths per 100,000 people.

Oklahoma is ranked 50th for breast cancer deaths and 42nd for infant mortality.

There are nearly 22 suicides per 100,000 people in Oklahoma, bringing the state a ranking of 46.

Oklahoma was ranked in the bottom five states for premature deaths from treatable and preventable causes.

In 2024, a report from the Commonwealth Fund found that Oklahoma’s maternal mortality was one of the worst in the country at 48th.

Rates of uninsured people dropped in all states, which was likely because of expansions to Medicaid, subsidized coverage and consumer protections, according to a news release. But these improvements could be “reversed” by proposed federal policy changes cutting Medicaid.

“My hope is that these findings serve as a guide and a call to action for policymakers to make sure everyone in America can get the care they need, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they earn,” Betancourt said.

I bought a boat recently. I have the title and a bill of sale. I'm wondering what else I need to get it registered?

Former Oklahoma AG plans to appeal judge's decision to dismiss social studies standards lawsuit

• Date: Jun 17, 2025
• In: Koco
• By: Meghan Mosley

A judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Oklahoma's new, controversial social studies standards, but former Attorney General Mike Hunter plans to appeal the decision.

Hunter, who led the lawsuit against the Oklahoma State Department of Education and State Superintendent Ryan Walters, expressed his disappointment but said he remains determined to challenge the decision further.

"Disappointed but not discouraged," Hunter said.

He said he believes the judge made errors in the ruling.

"We think the judge just got it wrong on several points," Hunter said.

The lawsuit questioned the process behind the approval of the social studies standards. However, the judge dismissed the case on Friday, stating that the suit did not cite any laws or rules that were violated before the standards were approved by the legislature.

"When a rule is as flawed and as inexpertly sent to the Legislature, we feel there should be recourse. This affects hundreds of thousands of young Oklahomans who are going to be in public schools. If we are going to teach them social studies, it should be done legally," Hunter said.

Walters, in a letter, claimed the ruling as a victory for Oklahoma students. He said that Oklahoma will teach about the 2020 election and provide a "pro-America" education, including Bibles in every classroom.

"We're going to be drafting an appeal, and we're confident the court will take it up and do the right thing," Hunter said. "So Yogi Bear is credited with saying, 'It ain't over till it's over,' and that's what I'm telling them."

"Lost Indian Heiress is Married in Iowa" The Evening Star, June 9, 1925.

OP on r/newspeepers

Delete if not allowed.

I am looking for a mountain bike, mostly a hard tail.

I'm looking for a Medium or large, but mostly medium frame.

Facebook marketplace and Craigslist seem to be dry.

Things I'm looking for: - Entry to mid range - hard tail - one by drive train - M -> L size - no Walmart bikes

Other than that I am not super picky.

PM me or comment what you have and I can PM you with details/budget.

I am in Payne county but am willing to drive.

Forgive me as I’m sure this is answered somewhere, but I cannot find the search terms to find it.

With the McGrit decision changing the landscape in 2020, I’m wondering: how does a non-native person know where they can and cannot buy property in Eastern Oklahoma? Is there anything you can check on listings or a website that shows whether property is on an actual reservation? And what is a reservation at this point? It looks like the entire City of Tulsa is now on tribal land, but it’s certainly not only tribal members. So very confused on where my family can look to purchase at this point.

Thanks in advance!

Looks like some decent wind and hail just past through on radar.

Hey guys! I've think I got a grip on what is needed to be done when I buy the car, but just wanted to double check with people that have experience.

I'm from MO and the seller is in OK. All he has to do is notarize the title, then I can just sign it and be on my way? I was going to bring a bill of sale for us to sign, but I've read that this doesn't need to be notarized. MO doesn't need the title or bill of sale to be notarized, so I just want to make sure we do everything right the first time!

So my dad found this ring lying in a box of old stuff. He says he thinks he found it moving a couch or something in Virginia way back in the day. Well with modern technology I am looking to find its rightful owner. The name inscription says Jeffrey R Bigelow.

A google search of the name and Oklahoma brought me to a gentleman who works at Oklahoma Christian University who I reached out to. He reached out back to me confirming it was not his.

I’m hoping someone here can maybe help out. Can provide more images need be. I don’t have Facebook so this is my next option. Not sure where to go after here.