Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson filed an appeal Monday seeking to overturn a federal judge's decision not to impose an injunction to stop 13 Arkansas poultry companies from disposing of bird waste in the Illinois River watershed, the Associated Press reported.

In September, U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell determined that Oklahoma has "not yet met its burden of proving that bacteria in the waters of the IRW are caused by the application of poultry litter rather than by other sources," and denied an injunction request Edmondson had filed last November. 

The judge's ruling marked the first major decision made in the favor of the poultry industry throughout the three-and-a-half year case.

Edmondson filed a 61-page appeal to the decision at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Monday in Denver.

"The district court simply bypassed the expansive and liberal citizen suit liability standard altogether in favor of his own narrow, restrictive and irrelevant standard of whether poultry waste has historically been the 'sole cause' of bacterial levels in the waters of the IRW," Edmondson wrote.

Companies named in the original 2005 complaint lodged by Edmondson include Tyson Foods Inc., Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cal-Maine Foods Inc., Cargill, Inc., Cargill Turkey Production LLC and Perdue Farms Inc.