TULSA, Okla. — A proposed settlement that would drop a smaller, 13th firm from Oklahoma's environmental lawsuit over bird-waste pollution in the Illinois River watershed is being challenged by the 12 other poultry companies involved in the lawsuit, according to The Associated Press. The processors stated in a motion filed on June 3 in Tulsa federal court that Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson improperly entered into a consent decree last month with Springfield, Mo.-based Willow Brook Foods Inc.

Originally one of the 13 companies named in Oklahoma's 2005 environmental lawsuit, Willow Brook recently proposed to pay $120,000 to settle. The company, which changed its name to Cold Zone Inc. last year, is no longer in the poultry business and only had 16 of the 2,800 poultry houses estimated to be in the watershed.