News - October 2005
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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
17-October-05
S. Fla. farmers turn to niche markets
© Miami Herald
BY JANE BUSSEY
© Miami Herald
Under the din of ''zssst...plunk..whoosh,'' the mechanical tomato transplanter lumbers along the rich loam of a Homestead field.
As one arm of the green metal machine sears a hole in the plastic ground roll, a chute drops a seedling, then a spout sprays water, over and over.
The machine makes short work of the planting, while field workers -- some shrouded in floppy hats or scarves -- feed seedlings into the cylinders or walk behind it to straighten tilted plants. Sixteen people toiled under the sun last week, handling a workload that once took scores of laborers.
''It's more efficient,'' says Jim Husk, who manages the farm operations at DiMare Florida in Homestead. ``We are going to plant 20 acres today.''
In three months, if the weather, the bugs and the market cooperate, the tomatoes will be ready to ship.
Read more
Related Links
MAAPP -
Making American Agriculture Productive
and Profitable
Reports from the
American Farm Bureau MAAPP team (Making American Agriculture
Productive and Profitable) on various issues important to
agriculture
http://www.txfb.org/MAAPP.asp
Twist of fate
transforms lime baron into employee
(10-17-05)
By Jane Bussey
jbussey@herald.com
One-time lime baron
Herbert Yamamura may not be the face of the rise and fall of
Miami-Dade farming -- but he is certainly emblematic of the
industry's hopes and disillusions.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12906927.htm
Scientists brace for snake invasion
©
SKIP
SNOW/EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK
BATTLE IN THE WILD: An alligator chomps on a Burmese python,
above, in
Taylor Slough, just inside the main gate to Everglades National Park.
Below, the nearly lifeless snake has lost the battle,
which was observed by park scientists on June 7.
© LORI
OBERHOFER/EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK
|
GATOR FOOD: An alligator gets the better of a
Burmese python in
Taylor Slough in their June 7 encounter.
|
|
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
The giant snakes suddenly seem hungry, gulping a gator, a turkey and poor Frances the cat. As the body count creeps up, so does python paranoia.
Such uneasiness may not be totally irrational.
Back home in Burma and Thailand, pythons live comfortably amid civilization, slithering in sewers and crushing rodents and other prey. Left unchecked, warns Kenneth Krysko, a herpetologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History, there is little to stop them from cruising canals to crisscross South Florida.
''Certainly, they can now get into anywhere people live,'' Krysko said. ``What will happen then, we don't know for sure. We do know they can eat people's pets. So, kids, get out of the water.''
For now, the notion of snakes as long as SUVs invading the suburbs remains an uncertain fear. But in the Everglades, Burmese pythons have boomed so fast that scientists say it's time to change the focus from studying to killing.
''Everything tells me that this particular species is quite the generalist, quite adaptable,'' said Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist who has tracked the spread of a species first dumped as discarded pets. ``Nothing suggests this snake is going anywhere without some assistance from us.''
Read more
15-October-05
Editorial:
The Clean Water Act
Editorial
© New York Times
The Clean Water Act of 1972, one of the most successful and popular of the environmental laws enacted under Richard Nixon, will turn 33 next week. But what should be a celebratory moment is tinged by concern arising from the Supreme Court's decision this week to accept two cases that challenge the law's reach and constitutionality.
The cases could be an early test of the thinking of Chief Justice John Roberts on the scope of the clause regulating interstate commerce, the constitutional basis for Congress's actions empowering federal agencies to protect the nation's waters. Chief Justice Roberts has no track record on the act itself, but the court he now heads has taken an increasingly narrow view of what the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to do. There is nothing in Chief Justice Roberts's history to suggest a more expansive view.
The better-known of the two cases involves John Rapanos, a Michigan landowner who faces steep criminal and civil charges for filling in protected wetlands on three sites in defiance of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Read more
14-October-05
Florida Citrus Growers Facing New Trial
© New York Times
Citrus greening
was first seen in Florida in Homestead
By WARREN E. LEARY and TERRY AGUAYO
© New York Times
After battling intense hurricane seasons and plant-destroying citrus canker, Florida citrus growers now have another threat to deal with.
A plant condition from China known as yellow dragon disease or citrus greening has been found in southeast Florida and appears to be spreading, agricultural authorities say.
The bacterium causing the disease, also known by its Chinese name huanglongbing, is spread by a small, winged insect called the Asian citrus psyllid. The bug was first seen in the state in 1998, but the disease was not seen until August, when it was found in Homestead, south of Miami.
Although the disease poses no direct health threat to humans, it can be devastating to citrus trees and the industry, the authorities said. An infected tree produces discolored fruit with a bitter, medicinal taste, Richard Miranda, a spokesman for the state's Department of Agriculture, said yesterday.
"Once the insect feeds on an infected tree, it will be a carrier of the disease for life," Mr. Miranda said. "It will spread to other trees. That's the real danger here."
Read more
12-October-05
Supreme Court Takes Up 2 Cases Challenging Powers of U.S. Regulators to Protect Wetlands
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
©
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - The Supreme Court accepted two cases on the federal regulation of wetlands on Tuesday, bringing the court's federalism revolution into the heartland of environmental policy.
The cases, both from Michigan, challenge regulators' definition of federally protected wetlands under both the Clean Water Act and the Constitution. The question is whether the federal government is properly asserting jurisdiction over wetlands that may be part of a drainage area or tributary system but do not actually abut the "navigable waters" to which the Clean Water Act refers.
If the government's view of its power under the statute is correct, the landowners bringing the appeals argue, then Congress has exceeded its authority and the Clean Water Act, in this application, is unconstitutional.
The answer to the statutory question has been in some dispute in courts around the country, especially after the Supreme Court's ruling in 2001 that the use of isolated ponds by migratory birds was not sufficient to give the federal government jurisdiction over those ponds under the Clean Water Act.
Read more
11-October-05
Ailing lake to get major boost
Lake Okeechobee got a boost from Gov. Jeb Bush, who said state and federal officials will speed up efforts to reduce pollution.
BY LESLEY CLARK AND CURTIS MORGAN
©
Miami Herald
LAKE OKEECHOBEE
- Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday vowed to speed up the recovery of
sick and swollen Lake Okeechobee, source of coast-to-coast environmental
and political stink. Calling the vast lake the
heart of the Everglades, Bush laid out a $200 million plan to begin
cutting farm and ranch pollution, lower the high water levels that are
drowning lake plants and reduce the dirty water that is fouling the St.
Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, coating the fragile estuaries in a
slime of green algae. ''Success is critical to
our state,'' Bush said, speaking from the north shore of the massive
lake. ``Our quality of life and the economy depend on a healthy lake.''
Environmentalists and political leaders, who sparred with
regional water managers as conditions sharply declined over the summer,
praised the plan as an encouraging step toward reviving both the ailing
lake and its main rivers.
Some proposals, they said, were obvious and
overdue, such as cracking down on the practice of allowing waste
companies to spread tons of sewage sludge over farms and pasture north
of the lake. ''If you take a list of things
that have needed to be done for a long time and haven't been done, the
governor's got a good list,'' said Kevin Henderson, executive director
of the St. Lucie River Initiative. ``Now, everything depends on
following through and real cooperation.''
Read more
Justices Take Case Disputing U.S. Power Over Private Wetlands
By: DAVID STOUT
©
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - The Supreme Court said today that it would review the case of John A. Rapanos, a son of Greek immigrants who made a fortune as a developer in Michigan but ran afoul of environmental regulations along the way.
The court announced that was taking the case of Mr. Rapanos and two other cases involving the government's authority to regulate wetlands, defined in part as tracts that are often inundated or saturated by surface or ground water and supporting vegetation characteristic of such terrain.
But far more than wetlands regulation is at stake.
To many people who have followed the ordeal of Mr. Rapanos, his case is about a real-life American dream clashing with a nightmare of government bureaucracy. Mr. Rapanos's detractors say the ordeal is of his own making.
In the late 1980's, Mr. Rapanos began clearing part of a 175-acre tract he had bought in the Midland, Mich., area in hopes of selling it to a mall developer and adding to the already substantial fortune he had built through years of hard work. In preparing the land for an eventual mall, he spread sand over part of it, even though state officials had warned him that some of his property consisted of protected wetlands.
Environmental officials say wetlands are vital for flood control and as habitat for fish and wildlife, and that they must be guarded to avoid polluting nearby waterways. But most of the 100 million acres or so of wetlands in the contiguous United States are on private property, a situation that has spawned bitter debates over environmental protection vs. property rights.
09-October-05
Editorial: An Endangered Law
©
New York Times
Although timber companies, developers and other interests have complained bitterly about the Endangered Species Act ever since Richard Nixon signed it in 1973, the public has broadly supported the law's protections for threatened plants and animals, as well as for the habitat these species need to survive. Attempts to weaken the law have always failed. But the House of Representatives' recent approval of a bill written by Richard Pombo of California has given critics fresh hope that their campaign may yet succeed.
Mr.
Pombo advertises his measure as a long-overdue balancing of the
interests of private property owners and those of nature. It is in fact
a dreadfully one-sided bill, cynical and fiscally irresponsible in the
bargain.
Read more
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