Rivers Coalition - Save our River, Stop the Discharges - Dedicated to restoring and preserving our St. Lucie River!

Rivers Coalition Calendar

Editorial - The Stuart News

The new executive director of the South Florida Water Management District wants ‘patience'? Only results will satisfy South Florida residents jaded by decades of bureaucratic failures

July 2011

Memo to Melissa Meeker, the new executive director of the South Florida Water Management District: Treasure Coast residents served by the district — and others throughout the district's 16-county service area in South Florida — are all out of patience.

Speaking recently to members of the Rivers Coalition in Stuart, Meeker repeatedly enjoined the organization to be "patient" with the district's efforts to preserve the St. Lucie Estuary.

"We have two administrations (in Washington and Tallahassee) focused on what's best for the (Everglades) and a team at the district that knows what to do," Meeker said. "That can only benefit this region. I'm sorry that there won't be any immediate relief to the estuary, but we are headed in the right direction."

Setting aside the claim we have an administration in Tallahassee "focused on what's best for the Everglades" — ludicrous on its face — Meeker's apology and plea for patience falls squarely on deaf ears.

Patience? The public has been waiting decades for the water management district — and the state and federal governments — to restore the natural flow of the Everglades (south, not east and west) and stop the voluminous dumping of nutrient-laden fresh water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers.

Residents in Martin and St. Lucie counties have witnessed firsthand the disastrous effects of the district's failed water policies.

Twice in the past 13 years, discharges from Lake Okeechobee have created an ecological crisis in the St. Lucie. First it was the "lesion fish" in 1998, followed in 2005 by an algae bloom that suffocated oxygen from the water and turned the South Fork of the St. Lucie River bright green.

Our region has been spared this calamity this year. Residents on Florida's west coast — also served by the South Florida Water Management District — haven't been so lucky. A toxic algae bloom — similar to those we've experienced in the past — is fouling the Caloosahatchee River. To inform the public, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation has been running full-page ads in west coast newspapers. One ad states, in part, "The Caloosahatchee is shouldering the burden for years of mismanagement of our most precious resource — water."

Patience?

Hopes soared in 2000 when the state and federal governments launched the ambitious, $10 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. However, year after year, the federal government failed to provide adequate funding. Many projects that were funded went ... nowhere.

In February 2009, Earth magazine summarized a decade of CERP's failures. In the article, "Everglades restoration efforts make dismal progress," author Mary Caperton Morton noted: "According to the National Research Council, none of CERPs 50 projects have been completed and even relatively modest proposals, such as the Tamiami Trail bridge project, which would elevate a highway blocking marsh water flow, have been derailed by contentious politics, litigation and soaring costs."

Local residents don't have to look far for examples. Consider the Ten Mile Creek project near Fort Pierce: The $30 million reservoir — completed in 2006 and designed to draw in and clean water from Ten Mile Creek before it is released into the North Fork of the St. Lucie River — is not operational because of concerns about the integrity of the reservoir constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It may never be completed.

Patience?

We're tired of the seemingly endless promises made by governors, interior secretaries, congressmen and senators who've toured the Everglades and produced nothing more than expensive photo-ops. Their words ring hollow.

After billions of dollars have been spent and untold hours have been invested, there is still no southern flow-way from Lake Okeechobee, and voluminous discharges of toxic water continue to foul our estuaries.

Patience?

We're all out.

Only results will satisfy South Florida residents jaded by years of bureaucratic failures and false promises — and noxious requests for "patience."

From 2010

Rivers Coalition asking Three-Judge Panel

To Overthrow Trial Court Order Against Lawsuit

The Board of Directors of the Rivers Coalition Defense Fund has voted unanimously to appeal to a three-judge panel in an effort to reverse a first-round ruling against the river advocates’ riparian-rights federal lawsuit.

The “very strong” appeal is being pursued by attorneys for the Rivers Coalition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C.

Seeking to stop the polluting discharges from inland in wet years, the appellate panel is asked to reverse a Jan. 29 order in the Court of Federal Claims which found in favor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The trial court’s decision sparked an immediate reaction from the Rivers Coalition. “The citizens of our area should be outraged,” said Chair Leon Abood. ‘We should rest assured that with their support we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them and continue the fight for clean water.”

Abood was joined in the decision to appeal by Kevin Henderson, Mark Perry, Ted Guy and Karl Wickstrom. Guy expressed Defense Fund sentiments by saying: “This decision should shock the conscience of the community and make us more determined than ever.”

The federal “takings” lawsuit was filed in November 2006, alleging that the Corps violated riparian property rights of 22 waterfront residents by discharging hundreds of billions of gallons of polluted water into the St. Lucie estuary, citing damages in the years 2003-05. The intent of the lawsuit is to stop toxic discharges from inland, and plaintiffs themselves have waived any claim for personal compensation.

The trial court’s recent rejection of the claim was not unexpected, according to Defense Fund attorney Nancie Marzulla, who had predicted that the takings issue would eventually be settled at the appellate level. “We believe we have strong grounds for winning a reversal,” she said.

At the heart of the legal battle is the government’s position that the waterfront owners have no compensable property rights of this type. Claimants counter that riparian rights against pollution date back to a 1909 ruling and before.

In the 1909 case, Florida Supreme Court Justice C. J. Whitfield wrote for a unanimous court that common law gives riparian owners “…the right to have the water kept free from pollution.”

“The court in Washington failed to defer to Justice Whitfield’s opinion,” said Attorney Monica Reimer of the EarthJustice environmental law organization. “The authority on riparian rights under Florida law is Justice Whitfield, not a Court of Claims judge sitting in a courtroom in Washington, D.C.”

The Court of Claims also ruled that the six-year statute of limitations had run out before the cited discharges because of other discharges made over previous decades. Plaintiffs contend that newer discharges were different due to unprecedented toxicity and other factors, including health department warnings against citizens’ even touching water in the estuary.

Still another issue is the Corps’ position that a priority for “navigational servitude” trumps all other considerations, including transfers of polluted water. Plaintiffs, however, emphasize that discharges through floodgate structures have nothing whatever to do with navigation. The Corps declined comment on the case.

The new appeal is expected to run well into 2010. “It’s a long journey that must be taken because our own officials, using public funds, have let this pollution persist at the expense of one of the world’s most diverse and valuable treasures,” said Defense Fund Coordinator Wickstrom.