HomeNRNS Stories Florida Governor Charlie Crist's Everglades Promise More Media Hype Than Reality
Florida Governor Charlie Crist's Everglades Promise More Media Hype Than Reality
Written by James Robert Daniels
Monday, 18 August 2008 00:00
Court Orders EPA to Do Its Duty: Protect Everglades From State of Florida
July 29, 2008 - In the latest round of litigation that began in 1988, United States District Judge Alan S. Gold rules in favor of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and Friends of The Everglades.The court finds that the state's 2003 Long-Term Plan changed Federal Clean Water Act-regulated water quality standards and ". . . violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades, by extending the December 31, 2006 compliance deadline for meeting the phosphorus criterion for at least ten more years.Turning a blind eye, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that there was no change in water quality standards.The EPA is patently wrong and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in reaching its conclusion."
Judge Gold calls the EPA review "nothing more than a repeated imprimatur, i.e. acceptance without independent analysis."He says the plaintiffs are correct, in that EPA has "once again" failed to protect the Everglades.The court orders EPA to comply with its duty under the Clean Water Act and to make the State of Florida meet the requirements of that Act and federal regulations.The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is not to grant any permits for discharges in, or within, the Everglades Protection Area.
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida - Governor Charlie Crist, joined by Florida's top elected leaders, the United States Sugar Corporation and environmental advocates, unveiled one of the largest environmental land acquisitions in the nation's history, providing the "missing link" to restore one of America's greatest natural treasures - the Everglades.
This announcement by the Governor and potential Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, just a week after his policy reversal along with Senator McCain in advocating offshore oil drilling, catches many by surprise. Stuart Applebaum, Everglades restoration project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says that not even federal officials knew that negotiations had been underway. The deal to buy out the U.S. Sugar company is "hailed as the answer to jump-starting the stalled $10-billion Everglades restoration projects" in the St. Petersburg Times.
CBS News and Associated Press quotes David Guest, a lawyer for Earthjustice, gloating, "Today, we're eating U.S. Sugar." The Washington Times called this a "historic conservation deal." Time reports the reactions of Kirk Fordham, Executive Director of the Everglades Foundation—"It's mind-blowing"—and of Everglades activist Alan Farago, "This could be a game changer." In a related interview with Time, Governor Crist suggests "breathtaking changes." The Wall Street Journal wonders about a "Deal to Help Crist Become McCain's VP?" noting that the sugar company was already under pressure from cheaper imports from Latin America, the latest farm bill and Central American Free Trade Agreement provisions: "Now to see if the deal pays dividends for Gov. Crist in the fall."
The New York Times reports that the purchase "left environmentalists and state officials giddy" and quotes Margaret McPherson, Vice President of the Everglades Foundation: "It's so exciting. I'm going to do cartwheels." And, "Lance deHaven-Smith, political scientist at Florida State University, said U.S. Sugar's potential departure will empower environmentalists across the state," reports the Tampa Tribune. This comes from Michael Grunwald, author of The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, writing for The Guardian in the United Kingdom: "If there were cards for Everglades cynics, I'd carry one. I've spilled countless gallons of ink trashing the design and execution of the 8-year-old, [twelve-billion-dollar] effort to resuscitate the Florida wetlands, even though it's the most ambitious ecosystem restoration project in the history of the planet. I wrote a book chronicling the history of human tinkering with the River of Grass, and it didn't have a happy ending. So in the spirit of skepticism, let me say that Governor Charlie Crist's plan for the state of Florida to buy the US Sugar Corporation and use its farmland for restoration is not as great as everyone is saying. It's even greater."
How can our national news media get it so wrong?
What does this say about the advocates safeguarding our environment at a time when Earth itself is in unprecedented peril? Are even that institution of British integrity, The Guardian, and the man who wrote the book on the Everglades swallowing this story? Don't they know that Charlie Crist is a Republican who would be Vice President; that this diversion elicits comments like, "Offshore drilling is a mouse, the Everglades is an elephant," from Earthjustice? Is it coincidental that two of the most influential lobbyists in Tallahassee (Mac Stipanovich and Brian Ballard) had just told the Governor that if U.S. Sugar couldn't keep dumping farm runoff into Lake Okeechobee, the company would be ruined; that Earthjustice and the Florida Wildlife Federation had just won a federal case under the Clean Water Act against the company—because that pollution triggered massive algae blooms, endangering the drinking water for small towns in South Florida; that the company had already shut down its other sugar mill, blaming foreign competition (in spite of federal price subsidies)? Reuters News Service has noted that the writing was on the wall for the company before this. But, underlying politics and secret deals aside, there is a fatal flaw in the media coverage of this good news event: it won't jump-start the Everglades restoration because that's stalled for other serious reasons. CBS News reports what the State contends, "The state and federal governments are supposed to share the costs 50-50." The federal government disagrees. The project is supposed to save the Everglades by restoring the flow of water as it was 200 years ago. The Corps of Engineers determined ten years ago that this is technically not feasible. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, who consider the Everglades their ancestral homeland, have expressed worry the land deal could hinder other projects already under way, and that it might have been done hastily. This deal to provide the "missing link" doesn't include the sugar-plantation land in the middle that's owned by a family both rich and powerful in Florida, having donated generously to Democrats and Republicans since they arrived from Cuba. Governor Charlie Crist has made the news. It may be good news. It does not mean he has saved the Everglades.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist has an ambitious plan: to build a flowway that would restore the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades, a "momentous strategy to save America's Everglades" and preserve a "national treasure." But first, the state has to get, not only the sugar plantation that it's now trying to buy, but more land that's in the hands of a second major company. And that flow of water would, of course, cross farmland that's been polluted by agribusiness chemicals through the years. Then, too, Lake Okeechobee and the water going into and out of it are all polluted. Water treatment is needed all over the system, and the federal government says that's the State's responsibility. When a state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) scientist told officials about questionable lab and field operations in the polluted waters of South Florida, he was fired. The Army Corps of Engineers says a flowway—marsh used to direct water from the lake into the Everglades—is not feasible anyway, and could harm the area's ecology more than it will help. State DEP funding has been cut. Meanwhile, harmful algae blooms, blamed on pollution and blamed for illness and even deaths, are infesting the waters of South and Central Florida.
The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) plans to buy 187,000 acres from U.S. Sugar for $1.75 billion and put that company out of business. Governor Crist says of the deal, “We have an opportunity to provide the critical missing link in our restoration activities." However, that deal is not the only link. "They obviously can't build the flowway without [our land], because we have 35,000 acres right in the middle of it," says Gaston Cantens, Vice President for Corporate Relations at Florida Crystals. That sugar business is owned by the Fanjul family, one of the most powerful families that came to Florida from pre-Castro Cuba. "They are tough negotiators. They are hard negotiators," Bill Malone, a retired SFWMD land negotiator, told the TCPalm newspaper in a July 7th report. But the water district's current Director of Land Acquisition and Development, Ruth Clements, responds, "I favor myself as a tough negotiator, too. We will see."
Florida Crystals got control over half the land it now holds in the proposed flowway route when the state bought out Talisman Sugar, at $133.5 million for 52,000 acres, and made a deal for the extra land there, in order to build facilities projects on some Florida Crystal land. State negotiator Clements says, "Unfortunately, we did not have a crystal ball ten years ago." Or did they? Ten years ago, the Corps of Engineers conducted analysis and hydrological modeling on a flowway. The COE study found it technically infeasible, saying it would not help and could harm Everglades restoration. The results are reported in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). Restoration of more natural water levels and flows to South Florida's Water Control Areas (WCA) is a main objective of the CERP. According to that plan document, intensive agriculture has lowered the land twenty feet, so water won't flow South from the lake. The flowway would lose a tremendous amount of water to both seepage and evaporation. Many road, bridge and railroad relocations would be required. Because "nutrient-laden soil would be flooded for the flowway, the vegetation most likely to dominate would be cattails and not desirable Everglades habitat." And, "Perhaps the most crucial element, water flowing from the lake to the WCAs, is not present in dry or even normal years!" [Emphasis in the published CERP] The only years where water could flow for long durations are wet periods and in those years, additional flow from flowways would be damaging, not beneficial, the analysis concludes.
Not only is Florida in a hard spot for land negotiations for a project that may not work, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the state is disqualified from federal assistance for water treatment on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), Lake Okeechobee Watershed and lake water projects, because Florida continues to violate minimum national water quality standards. Major General Don Riley, the Corps' Director of Civil Works, wrote to Army Assistant Secretary J.P. Woodley on May 25, 2007 that the state "is not likely to come into compliance for several decades." General Riley cites the Water Resources Development Act of 1996, saying that "Before there can be a Federal interest to cost share a [water quality] improvement feature, the State must be in compliance with [water quality] standards for the current use of the water to be affected and the work proposed must be deemed essential to the Everglades restoration effort." General Riley does not mention in his letter to the Pentagon that, as part of the Central and South Florida Project in the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a network of canals, levees, control structures and pumps to control flooding and provide water supply to the agricultural area south of the lake, which is the largest single source of phosphorus to the Everglades. This project resulted in the back pumping of nutrient and sediment-rich water into Lake Okeechobee, exacerbating water quality problems in the lake.
This year, Congress overrode President Bush’s veto of the current Water Resources Development Act and has authorized substantial funding for CERP. But since flowways were not included in the CERP (because the COE said they wouldn't work), Governor Crist's plan still requires Congressional approval for federal funding, aside from the question of cleaning up the water pollution, and the question of who pays for that clean-up.
Thomas R. White was a Chemist III and Lab Manager, as well as the Quality Assurance Officer at the Florida DEP Laboratory in Port St. Lucie, until he was fired last year by Acting District Director Timothy Rach. His firing was, at first, allegedly for data fraud. DEP later changed the basis for termination to falsification of state documents, but has not identified any document that was altered or said how it was altered. White filed a whistleblower complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations in March, 2007. As the Commission didn't act within 90 days, as required by law, it is now a defendant in the lawsuit that White filed on January 28, 2008 in the Florida Circuit Court for Leon County. That suit charges seven individuals, including DEP Inspector General Pinky Hall and top officials of the DEP Southeast District in West Palm Beach, Florida, in addition to state agencies. White's lawsuit comprises seven counts of negligent supervision on the part of senior DEP staff, illegal destruction of records, misuse of office and denial of due process. It charges that DEP's failure to address the deficiencies that White reported has compromised thousands of water quality samples and "delayed by years the cleanup of polluted waters in South Florida."
Warnings posted at lakes and swimming beaches by the Department of Public Health in July 2008 advise that waters over 85 degrees F. from Central to South Florida are infested with a lethal algae growth. Despite a growing scientific consensus that harmful algae blooms are triggered by pollution, state agencies deny any connection, blaming hurricanes and weather cycles, rather than rising nutrient levels, according to an October, 2006 report by Public Employees for Environmental Protection (PEER). Jerry Phillips, a former water enforcement attorney with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and now the Florida PEER Director says, “The regular and rising diversion of Lake Okeechobee’s filthy waters into our estuaries is a giant algal bloom factory operating full tilt in the heart of the state.”
Florida DEP Water Resource Management documents state that "Information regarding toxins from blue-green algae and risks to humans, fish and wildlife is very limited. Also, little is known about the environmental conditions that trigger toxin production. . . Currently, there are no state water quality guidelines for recreational waters related to blue-green algae. However, it is recommended that people do not swim in areas experiencing intense blooms. . . There are no short-term solutions to correcting the situation; this is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has occurred throughout history. However, Florida monitors blue-green algae closely because nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) pollution appears to intensify blue-green algae outbreaks. The state is taking measures that in the long term will reduce nutrient loading and improve water quality." Apparently, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Water Resource Management Division is aware of a connection between pollution and toxic algae. The Florida Department of Health's Aquatic Toxins Program website exhibits the deadliness of it, citing reports from the news media, such as these headlines: "Coroner cites algae in teen's death;" "Florida lax on algae risk, experts say;" "40 people reported getting sick after being exposed to the toxic algae;" and, "Woman knows deadly danger of algae toxin."
Nutrient pollution appears to intensify algae outbreaks, putting people at risk throughout half of Florida. Pollution is rampant in South Florida, infecting Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Is pollution from development and agriculture raising the nutrient levels in Florida water? Can the water running into Lake Okeechobee be cleaned; can the lake be cleaned; can the water going out be cleaned, and can flowways be built that will help the Everglades recover? If we build it, will it all work? Or is Florida wasting more time and money doing more harm than good? These are important and related questions in a bold and questionable plan.
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What does this say about the advocates safeguarding our environment at a time when Earth itself is in unprecedented peril? Are even that institution of British integrity, The Guardian, and the man who wrote the book on the Everglades swallowing this story? Don't they know that Charlie Crist is a Republican who would be Vice President; that this diversion elicits comments like, "Offshore drilling is a mouse, the Everglades is an elephant," from Earthjustice? Is it coincidental that two of the most influential lobbyists in Tallahassee (Mac Stipanovich and Brian Ballard) had just told the Governor that if U.S. Sugar couldn't keep dumping farm runoff into Lake Okeechobee, the company would be ruined; that Earthjustice and the Florida Wildlife Federation had just won a federal case under the Clean Water Act against the company—because that pollution triggered massive algae blooms, endangering the drinking water for small towns in South Florida; that the company had already shut down its other sugar mill, blaming foreign competition (in spite of federal price subsidies)? Reuters News Service has noted that the writing was on the wall for the company before this. But, underlying politics and secret deals aside, there is a fatal flaw in the media coverage of this good news event: it won't jump-start the Everglades restoration because that's stalled for other serious reasons. CBS News reports what the State contends, "The state and federal governments are supposed to share the costs 50-50." The federal government disagrees. The project is supposed to save the Everglades by restoring the flow of water as it was 200 years ago. The Corps of Engineers determined ten years ago that this is technically not feasible. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, who consider the Everglades their ancestral homeland, have expressed worry the land deal could hinder other projects already under way, and that it might have been done hastily. This deal to provide the "missing link" doesn't include the sugar-plantation land in the middle that's owned by a family both rich and powerful in Florida, having donated generously to Democrats and Republicans since they arrived from Cuba. Governor Charlie Crist has made the news. It may be good news. It does not mean he has saved the Everglades.
Not only is Florida in a hard spot for land negotiations for a project that may not work, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the state is disqualified from federal assistance for water treatment on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), Lake Okeechobee Watershed and lake water projects, because Florida continues to violate minimum national water quality standards. Major General Don Riley, the Corps' Director of Civil Works, wrote to Army Assistant Secretary J.P. Woodley on May 25, 2007 that the state "is not likely to come into compliance for several decades." General Riley cites the Water Resources Development Act of 1996, saying that "Before there can be a Federal interest to cost share a [water quality] improvement feature, the State must be in compliance with [water quality] standards for the current use of the water to be affected and the work proposed must be deemed essential to the Everglades restoration effort." General Riley does not mention in his letter to the Pentagon that, as part of the Central and South Florida Project in the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a network of canals, levees, control structures and pumps to control flooding and provide water supply to the agricultural area south of the lake, which is the largest single source of phosphorus to the Everglades. This project resulted in the back pumping of nutrient and sediment-rich water into Lake Okeechobee, exacerbating water quality problems in the lake.
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It can't be a matter of effeminacy; they're meant to be unisex. Those who first favoured the wool-lined sheepskin boot were not only men, but men of a macho stripe befitting footwear seemingly named after the main ugg boots for sale conversational gambit of the caveman: first world war aviators and sheep-shearers in rural Australia.