In a widely watched case on the Eastern Shore, federal judge William Nickerson ruled Thursday that Alan and Kristin Hudson’s Berlin farm was not in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. The plaintiffs, the Waterkeeper Alliance led by controversial environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had hoped to establish that big food processors, in this case Perdue Inc., could be held liable for the alleged pollution sins of “contract growers” like the Hudson family. But the Waterkeeper group fell flat on its face — while rousing ill will among some former allies in the process.
Environmental plaintiffs like to present themselves as David going after Goliath, but the Hudson lawsuit came off rather differently. It pitted an out-of-state activist group, flush with foundation grants and the largesse of Hollywood fundraisers, against a family farm ill-placed to withstand prolonged litigation. In practice, the group expected that rather than let one of its contract farmers be rolled over by brute force of this kind, Perdue would step up and offer to cover the Hudsons’ legal fees — which it did.
From early on, the case had embarrassing weaknesses. To begin with, its factual basis was shaky: a suspected pile of chicken manure spotted on the Hudsons’ property, and offered as a central allegation of poor waste management, turned out not to be chicken manure at all.
It soon developed that Waterkeeper’s local representative had gone looking for a test case but didn’t back off even after the case turned out weaker than it may at first have looked.
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