Albany – A number of organizations, including two specifically interested in keeping the Delaware River and its tributaries clean has filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Albany seeking to force a state agency to provide them with more information about water pollution permits.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network of Bristol, PA, The Human Society of the United States, the Delaware Riverkeeper and American Littoral Society seeks to have the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation release the terms of those permits issued to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.

In particular, the groups are targeting one so-called factory farm that raises predominantly ducks and is in the Delaware River Watershed on the Middle Mongaup River, said Delaware Riverkeeper Network spokeswoman Tracy Carluccio.

“One of those facilities, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, has been in violation of its discharge permit many, many times over the last five years,” she said. “We need more information about how the manure is handled on this particular facility and try to find that information out through the freedom of information law in New York, and we were denied access to the data that we need in order to carefully examine the Nutrient Management Plan for that farm.”

Factory farms have “huge impacts” on animal welfare and the environmental, which should not be kept secret from the public, said Sarah, a staff attorney with the Animal Protection Litigation of The Human Society.