Leon Abood and Mark Perry.....ROCK!! Judge’s ruling ‘a moral victory’ Perry: Not much back-pumped Lake O water discharged to lagoon By Tyler Treadway tyler.treadway@scripps 772-221-4219 A federal judge’s ruling to ban pumping water from agricultural land into Lake Okeechobee might not have a big effect on future discharges into the St. Lucie River estuary and Indian River Lagoon, but ... “Every victory is a big victory,” said Leon Abood, chairman of the Rivers Coalition. “It’s a moral victory at the very least.” On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas in the Southern District of New York ruled in a multistate case that pumping water from farmlands into public water supplies is in violation of the Clean Water Act. The case includes Lake O and the Everglades Agricultural Area to its south because: Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, “bundled” it with lawsuits from California, New Hampshire and Colorado. Lake O is a backup drinking water supply for many South Florida municipalities, including West Palm Beach and Fort Myers. Nearly 8 billion gallons of water from the Everglades Agricultural Area was pumped into Lake O from June 6 to 12. That amount represents not quite 6 percent of the 136.1 billion gallons of water discharged from the lake into the St. Lucie River estuary from May 8 See RULING, 9A Article Continued Below See RULING on Page A09 RULING from 1A to Oct. 21. Theres no way of knowing how much of the water pumped into the lake from the fields below it ended up the estuary. The back-pumped water isnt a significant portion of the water that gets discharged to us, but it still contributes, said Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart. And more than that, its an artificial contribution. Lake O should be treated like a lake, not a depository for dirty stormwater. Water from Lake O should be sent south, and this is sending it in the opposite direction. Under a permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued in June 2007, the district can send water from the agricultural fields into Lake O when canals in the fields south of the lake reach an elevation of 12.5 feet; but the practice shall be minimized. The permit expired in June 2012, and the district was operating under an administrative extension while in the permit renewal process last year. The water management district was named in the lawsuit as the agency responsible for violating the federal law. District spokesman Randy Smith said in a statement Friday that the agency would evaluate the complex court ruling. No dry seasoN pumpiNg According to a statement from Smith on Monday, Back pumping is very rare and it is used primarily for health and human safety issues during flood control operations. In August 2007, the water districts Board of Governors voted to end the practice of pumping excess water from agricultural fields into Lake O for supply purposes during drought. At the districts governing board meeting March 13, Assistant Executive Director Tommy Strowd discussed a proposed project to improve capacity in the Bolles and Cross canals in the Everglades Agricultural Area as a way to alleviate the need for pumping from the fields to Lake O. Representatives of U.S. Sugar Corp. and Florida Crystals, which own and grow sugar cane on large portions of the Everglades Agricultural Area, did not reply to emailed requests for comment. I think the folks in the (Everglades Agricultural Area) are starting to feel a lot of pressure, Abood said. Everybody - politicians, the Army Corps (of Engineers), the Rivers Coalition, the Everglades Foundation and now a federal judge - is saying the water has to go south. The only ones saying it doesnt is the EAA. Perry said the district and agricultural interests can claim the water in the lake is already polluted with phosphorus and nitrogen, and it is. But that doesnt mean you can put more dirty water into it. Back pumping isnt healthy for the lake, it isnt healthy for the estuary and it sure isnt healthy for the communities that get drinking water from the lake. The Rivers Coalition unsuccessfully sued the Corps to stop the Lake O discharges, arguing under constitutional law that the polluted water took away riparian rights of waterfront property owners. This new ruling does give us hope, Abood said. In the event that were able to put together another case - and were always looking for a way to bring another lawsuit - this will help. Its another arrow in the quiver. Abood noted that when the Rivers Coalition filed its lawsuit in 2006, Earthjustice advised us not to pursue it under the Clean Water Act. If the situation arose now, maybe theyd be more inclined to do something like this suit that just got a good ruling.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:13:39 +0000
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