May 30, 2003
US SOLICITOR'S OFFICE SAYS SFWMD SUPREME COURT PETITION SHOULD BE DENIED
Recommends Supreme Court Deny District's Challenge in the S-9 Case
Friends of the Everglades Press Release
The Solicitor General of the United
States, today recommended that the U.S.
Supreme Court NOT hear a challenge by the South Florida Water
Management
District (District) to the Clean Water Act case that it lost to
Friends of
the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. Friends and
the Tribe
won at both the US District and Appeals court levels.
The case involves the pumping of
polluted water into the Everglades by the
South Florida Water Management District. The S-9 is a pump
station which
back pumps polluted water from the C-11 canal basin in Broward
County into
the Everglades. The discharge has caused severe damage in the
Everglades
especially in Water Conservation Area 3A - home to the Miccosukee
Tribe of
Indians. The Federal District Court held that a federal pollution
discharge
permit is required. Such a permit would set strict limits on how
much
pollution the District can discharge.
In its 20 page Brief to the United States Supreme Court, the
Federal
Government suggested that the District and Appellate Court's
decisions will
not unduly burden the District's water management activities.
Such has been
the opinion of Friends of the Everglades from the beginning of
this
litigation. That the district should even consider their
obligations to
South Florida's environment a burden has been perplexing. That
they have
funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to attempt to
squirm
around their responsibilities through unconscionable legal
battles is
reprehensible.
The US Solicitor General, Theodore B. Olsen, didn't accept one
single legal
theory put forth by the District's top legal advisors perhaps
affording
cover to the Governing Board as misled by bad legal advise. All
too often it
is the unwitting taxpayers and small under funded environmental
organizations who must pay the bill for fighting or defending
such bad
advise. Perhaps now they will reconsider the wisdom of denying
the problems
and start working on the solutions.
This opinion comes at a time when the State has been flexing
its political
muscle to delay Everglades clean-up and restoration - amending
the
Everglades Forever Act to allow at least a decade of further
pollution.
Those organizations that believe the state cannot be trusted to
plan past
the next election cycle when it come to the environment welcome
the federal
scrutiny Clean Water Act compliance will require.
The Supreme Court may still review the case but this opinion
from the
Solicitor General significantly decreases that likelihood.
David P. Reiner
Friends of the Everglades
www.everglades.org
7800 Red Road, Suite 215-K
Miami, Florida 33146
(305) 803-3892