News - May 2004
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•
S-9 permit case before Supreme Court:
SFWMD v. Miccosukee,
No.
02-626
• Hon.
William Hoeveler
• Hon.
Federico Moreno
•
Special Master John M. Barkett
News
20 May 2004
State asks U.S. to muzzle tribe's Glades complaints
The state questioned whether the complaints of the most vocal critic of Everglades cleanup, the Miccosukee Tribe, matter -- at least in a court of law. It's up to a judge to decide.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
State water managers asked a federal judge Wednesday to put a legal muzzle on the Miccosukee Tribe, the most dogged and litigious critic of the Everglades cleanup.
U.S. District Judge Frederico Moreno made no decision on the request by the South Florida Water Management District to limit the tribe's power to challenge state efforts but ordered a new hearing in September.
Miccosukee attorney Dexter Lehtinen dismissed the move as a ploy to delay addressing tribe allegations that the state is violating its 12-year-old agreement with the federal government to reduce pollution in Everglades.
Lehtinen said the tribe's legal standing had been established since a landmark 1992 settlement overseen by Judge William Hoeveler. Hoeveler was disqualified last year over pointed comments about a controversial state overhaul of water pollution standards.
Read more
Read more case
88-1886 information
here.
19
May 04
SOUTH FLORIDA ECONOMIC SUMMIT 2004: "The Power of Regionalism"
19-May-04
© The Beacon Council
(MIAMI, FL) May 19, 2004 --– When Governor Bush lunches with representatives from tri-county economic development groups, local politicians, and more than 1000 business and community leaders on June 3, South Florida’s transformation from a county-focused area to a region will take another step forward. Bush will be the keynote speaker at the “South Florida Economic Summit 2004 – The Power of Regionalism,” marking the first time the principal economic development groups from Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties will meet to discuss the regional economy and shared initiatives for South Florida. The event will take place at Hollywood’s Westin Diplomat Convention Center (Great Hall, 11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.).
Presented by The Beacon Council (www.beaconcouncil.com), The Broward Alliance (www.browardalliance.org), and The Business Development Board of Palm Beach County (www.bdb.org), the luncheon and program will discuss the current state of South Florida’s economy, where it is headed, and how to position the region as it competes with other areas for the business dollars that fuel growth. The event will also feature comments from Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, and Karen T. Marcus, chair of the Palm Beach Board of County Commissioners, as well as James Tarlton, Frank Nero, and Larry Pelton, the CEO’s of each counties economic development organizations.
Read more
Related Links:
South Florida Economic Summit
https://www.browardalliance.org/pdf/SFEcoSummitPDF.pdf
18
May 04
FEDERAL
EVERGLADES CASE HEATS UP: STATUS CONFERENCE MAY 19
Judge Moreno Schedules a Status Conference May 19th and a July 7th
Evidentiary Hearing on the Miccosukee Tribe Motions to Enforce the
Settlement Agreement
Media Advisory
Joette Lorion (305) 281-0429
Today the Miccosukee Tribe of
Indians, whose members live in the Florida Everglades, announced that the
honorable Judge Federico A. Moreno will hold a status conference in the
federal Everglades case on May 19th beginning at 9 AM at the United States
Courthouse, Courtroom IV, Tenth Floor, Federal Justice Building, 99 NE 4th
Street in Miami, Florida. The Judge has instructed Counsel to be prepared
to address all pending matters that have not been referred to a magistrate
at tomorrow's status conference. In the same
Order setting the May 19th status conference, Judge Moreno also set an
evidentiary hearing, for July 7th in the same courtroom, again
beginning at 9 A.M. The July 7th hearing is being held to present evidence
relevant to the issues raised by the Miccosukee Tribe in two recent
Motions: 1) The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians' Motion Seeking a Declaration
of Violations in Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge; and 2) the
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians' Motion Seeking a Declaration of Breach by the
SFWMD concerning STA 3/4 deadlines. Read
more
Read more case
88-1886 information here.
Scripps puts county in a jam
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
Jonathan Barnett, an author and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, described an interesting experiment last week to an audience at Florida Atlantic University in Jupiter. He took population projections for the United States in 2050, spread them across a map and saw a pattern of cities insatiably devouring land. Some numbers: 433 million people, up from 290 million today; 210 million urbanized acres, up from 46 million.
Driving all that sprawling American growth: gasoline. His students calculated a daily demand in America for 60 million barrels of petroleum in 2050. World production today, he said, is 77 million barrels. "And the rest of the world wants gasoline, too."
Cut to Palm Beach County.
Here's a place that has been resisting sprawl -- at least in the big picture -- for more than 10 years. The county went to the trouble of drawing a boundary beyond which suburban-style development would not be tolerated. The approach brought the county a prestigious planning award.
Read more
Study: South Florida at planning crossroads
By William M. Hartnett
© Palm Beach Post
FORT LAUDERDALE -- Rapid population growth, seismic demographic shifts and decades of inadequate and uncoordinated planning have led South Florida to a critical crossroads, according to a Florida Atlantic University study presented Monday.
With 5.84 million residents as of 2003 and millions more expected in the next 25 years, the seven-county region from Key West to Sebastian faces gridlocked traffic, a housing market distantly out of touch with local wages and an economy with a high number of low-wage service jobs.
"We're no longer the South Florida of our grandparents or parents," said Lenore Alpert, senior research associate at FAU's Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions, which produced the report.
For one thing, according to the factors measured in the study, South Florida is a far larger region than thought, spanning not just Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, but Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River as well.
Read more
Related Links:
• FAU's Center for
Urban and Environmental Solutions
http://www.catanese.org/index.asp
• Study/Conference:
Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition
http://www.soflo.org/
South Florida Regional Report Card Shows Gains and Losses Since 2001
By Christopher Dudley
© Florida Atlantic University
South Florida has grown to seven interdependent counties from Key West to Vero Beach, and the region is getting mixed marks on its latest report card released May 17 by the Catanese Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions (CUES) at Florida Atlantic University.
Updating a 2001 study on the region's indicators of prosperity and prospects for the future, Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition shows real ties among seven east coast counties from Indian River County to the north to Monroe County in the Florida Keys. The region's environment, housing, transportation, and other physical features all register lower grades. The study says issues facing people or the economy show no change-neither improving nor declining.
"All 5.7 million people in South Florida should be concerned about this report," says James Murley, J.D., director of CUES at FAU and former secretary of community affairs for the State of Florida. "While some indicators show improvement, there are many more areas that need attention. This is a wake-up call to leaders from Key West to Vero Beach of what needs to be done."
Read more
Related Links:
• FAU's Center for
Urban and Environmental Solutions
http://www.catanese.org/index.asp
• Study/Conference:
Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition
http://www.soflo.org/
17 May 2004
S. Florida now encompasses 7 counties -- some reluctantly, FAU study finds
PRESS/For Immediate Release
© Sun-Sentinel
Think you know South Florida and all its familiar trappings? Check out these new findings by a group of university researchers out to change the way we look at the region and prepare for its future:
Vero Beach is now as much a part of South Florida as Fort Lauderdale. So is Key West.
Whites haven't been in the majority here since the 1990s, and Hispanics account for one-third of the population.
Driving around Miami-Dade County is still the worst in the region, accounting for more than half of all traffic crashes.
Those are among the findings in a regional report card of sorts to be released today by the Catanese Center for Urban & Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University. The report is not binding on any local governments, but is meant as a "wake-up call" for leaders to engage in better planning, said James Murley, director of the center.
Related Links:
• FAU's Center for
Urban and Environmental Solutions
http://www.catanese.org/index.asp
• Study/Conference:
Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition
http://www.soflo.org/
04
May 04
Coastal commitment
Editorial
© Times
Picayune, LA
Louisiana officials gave in
to Bush administration demands that the state take a shorter, cheaper
approach to coastal restoration, but the White House hasn't responded by
supporting Louisiana on this critical issue. That's
awfully discouraging. Louisiana had hoped its willingness to cooperate
would result in $800 million to $1.5 billion over the next 10 years.
That's considerably smaller than Louisiana's original $14 billion, 30-year
request. But when U.S. Sens. John Breaux and
Mary Landrieu and state officials asked White House officials to make a
financial commitment last week, they got nowhere. In
fact, administration officials warned that even the scaled-back plans
would have to compete for limited dollars with other coastal restoration
programs in California and the Great Lakes. Read
more
03
May 04
Plant menace is no shrinking violet
The fight is on as the Old World climbing fern creeps into Central
Florida.
By Linda Florea
© Orlando
Sentinel
Environmentalists in Central
Florida are gearing up for a new plant menace that smothers vegetation,
robs wildlife of valuable habitat and could be worse than that well-known
Southern scourge, kudzu. It's called the Old
World climbing fern, a weed that starts as shoots of
just 2 to 5 inches with several pairs of yellow-green leaves. But left to
its own devices, it can climb 90 feet high into tree canopies and create a
tangle of vines so thick that birds and animals have difficulty navigating
through it. "The alarm level is staggering
to those of us that have lived with it since first reports," said
Mike Bodle, senior scientist for the South Florida Water Management
District and chairman of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, who said
the plant's spores can be carried for miles by the wind. Read
more
Developers don't flinch at lake's slime
By Ramsey Campbell
© Orlando
Sentinel
One of the first big stories
I wrote -- way back in the late 1970s -- was when the Florida Legislature
quietly torpedoed a $20 million appropriation to draw down polluted Lake
Apopka. The move pretty much spelled the end of
any real hope the troubled lake had of being restored within anyone's
foreseeable future. Once a popular haven for
sport fisherman from all over the country, during the 1950s and 1960s Lake
Apopka got slimed from all sides. Municipalities
around the lake were discharging treated sewage, the adjoining muck farms
were dumping fertilizers and pesticides after producing their bounty of
vegetables, and a chemical company had inadvertently dribbled all sorts of
poisons, including DDT, into the
lake.
02
May 04
Everglades are in danger
By ALLISON
WYATT
© Miami Herald
This is the winning essay in
the Fairchild Challenge, sponsored by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden to
help students learn the value of respect for the environment. The
Florida Everglades are in trouble. Approximately 50 percent of the
original wetland has been destroyed, taking with it 90 percent of wading
birds. Preserving the Everglades must be a priority for all. If
development continues, it will only hurt future generations. We
must think about the long-term effects. Development threatens water
quality, destroys habitats, increases pollution and violates restoration
plans. Existing canal systems already shut off water flow before it can
get into Everglades National Park, or they are opened so wide that an
unnaturally large amount of built-up water disrupts the natural ecosystem.
More industry means more canals, meaning more damage. Read
more
Martin County's 'green' schools to
receive recognition
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart
News
Students at Crystal Lakes
Elementary School wrote to the governor, seeking his support for local
Everglades restoration efforts. Hidden Oaks
Middle School students made artificial reef balls to increase the oyster
habitat in the Indian River Lagoon. Felix A.
Williams Elementary School students released a bug that's a natural
predator of the exotic, invasive melaleuca trees overtaking native plants
around the school. The projects — organized on
a volunteer basis by classroom teachers at nearly every school in Martin
County —- are creative methods of teaching environmental science in a
hands-on way. "It's those kind of things
that help the community and the world, truthfully," said Sandy Pisano,
a fifth-grade teacher at Indiantown Middle School and a coordinator of the
Green School awards program. "We've
probably accomplished close to 1,000 projects."
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