Judge to rule in Perdue chicken farm pollution case by year's end

Eastern Shore farmer Alan Hudson told a packed courtroom last week in Baltimore that the pollution case against his Berlin family-owned farm and Perdue Farms Inc. has been "extremely hard on me and my wife, but it's been even harder on my children," the Maryland Daily Record reported.

The case was brought by Waterkeeper Alliance Inc., charging that Hudson and Perdue have been and continue to pollute a Chesapeake Bay tributary. Senior U.S. District Judge William N. Nickerson, who is presiding over…