Farm Animal Transparency (FAT)’s weekly Environmental Watch — a digest of environmental permits, litigation, and settlements involving companies in the meat, poultry, and seafood supply chains. Full details, classifications, and sources for every matter live on the Environmental Watch tracker.

Two items this week: new detail on last week’s Cooke Aquaculture (Maine salmon farms) ruling, including a dispute between the parties over how much of the case survived; and confirmation of the procedural posture of the Oklahoma poultry-litter joint motion to vacate, which is still awaiting a ruling. Every other tracked matter is unchanged.

Cooke Aquaculture (Maine salmon net pens): more detail on the motion-to-dismiss ruling

FAT reported last week that the Conservation Law Foundation’s Clean Water Act citizen suit against Cooke Aquaculture’s Maine salmon farms had survived a motion to dismiss. An October 6, 2026 SeafoodSource report adds that U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Wolf found CLF has standing and that its six Clean Water Act claims are sufficient to proceed. The accounts differ on scope: Cooke says the court “dismissed part of CLF’s lead claim regarding permit violations,” while the SeafoodSource report describes all six claims as proceeding (last week’s Undercurrent News headline described the case as narrowed to five). FAT has not read the opinion, so the exact surviving claims remain unconfirmed. Cooke “vehemently denies” the allegations, says the court made no findings of fact and heard no evidence, and says it has more than 1,200 pages of compliance evidence it looks forward to presenting — these are Cooke’s own statements, not independent findings. Surviving a motion to dismiss means claims may proceed; it is not a finding of any violation. No trial date was reported. Classification: Litigation pending (allegations only). Digest-only; no tracker page pending Dirk’s decision. SeafoodSource (Oct. 6, 2026) · Undercurrent News (Oct. 2, 2026)

Oklahoma poultry-litter settlement: joint motion to vacate still pending

Reporting dated October 1, 2026 (Feedstuffs) and September 25 (University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture) confirms that all parties filed a joint motion on September 22, 2026 asking U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell (N.D. Okla.) to vacate his December 19, 2025 judgment so the July settlement can take effect, and asked for an expedited ruling. Neither report gives a hearing date or ruling deadline, and neither reports objections from non-parties. FAT has found no ruling. The settlement remains Settlement — not final: it becomes effective only on vacatur plus dismissal with prejudice, and the six-month window closes on or about January 10, 2027. Full tracker page → · Feedstuffs (Oct. 1, 2026) · UA Division of Agriculture (Sept. 25, 2026)

No change this week

FAT located no new developments on: the Oakridge Dairy digestate-storage permit in Somers, Connecticut; REACH v. EPA (D.C. Cir. No. 25-5354 — no oral-argument scheduling located; tracker); United States v. Ganaderos Borges, Inc. (Puerto Rico); Waterkeeper Alliance v. EPA (tracker); Pacific Seafood’s citizen suits and Oregon DEQ penalty (under appeal as previously reported; outcome unconfirmed); the JBS Greeley air-permit suit; Texas v. Darling Ingredients (temporary injunction in place; final-injunction hearing July 2027); the Perdue AgriBusiness PFAS litigation in Salisbury, Maryland; the EPA proposed NPDES exemption for offshore seafood processors (comments close October 19); or the EPA enforcement log. All remain as previously reported — allegations only unless labeled otherwise.

FAT also reviewed its North Carolina swine-CAFO regulatory cluster. No confirmed movement on any of the six threads: DEQ’s Environmental Management Commission proposed-rules page, rechecked this week, lists no animal-waste, phosphorus, or floodplain-groundwater rulemaking; no Supreme Court disposition of the Randolph Cnty. v. Stein petition, Title VI resolution, general-permit renewal action, or Align RNG permitting action was located.

Also on FAT’s watch list: Shenandoah Valley Organic (the “Farmer Focus” chicken brand) in Harrisonburg, Virginia — repeated pretreatment-permit notices of violation reported June 2026. No escalation located. Not yet a tracker matter.

Dates to watch

• Coming weeks — the N.D. Okla. district court’s ruling on the parties’ joint motion to vacate the December 2025 Oklahoma judgment.
• October 19, 2026 — public comment period closes on EPA’s proposed NPDES exemption for offshore seafood processors.
• November 9, 2026 — MDE public-comment period closes on Perdue AgriBusiness’s Salisbury wastewater-permit expansion request.
• On or about January 10, 2027 — the Oklahoma settlement’s six-month vacatur window closes; without vacatur and dismissal, the settlement becomes unenforceable.
• July 2027 — final-injunction hearing in Texas v. Darling Ingredients.

FAT keeps the most recent six months of weekly Environmental Watch reports published. Older reports are archived and available upon request — email dirkadams@farmanimaltransparency.com. See all tracked matters at the Environmental Watch index.