U.S. cracks down on python sales

By CURTIS MORGAN

MIAMI -- The federal government branded the Burmese python, infamous for swallowing a smorgasbord of Everglades critters from rabbits to gators, a serpent non grata on Tuesday.

The action, which will ban the import and interstate sale of the python and three other giant exotic constrictors, was hailed by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson as a milestone for Everglades protection.

"It does us no good to put in these billions of dollars in investments in the Everglades only to have these giant snakes come and undo all the good we are doing," said Salazar, who announced the decision during a news conference along Tamiami Trial near an on-going $80 million bridge project that is key to restoring natural water flow in the Everglades.

After five years of debate and hearings in Washington, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce the Burmese python will soon be illegal to import.

With a 17-foot skin from a python killed in the Everglades, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson urges a Senate panel to help ban the import of Burmese python into the U.S.

U.S. Senate Staff

• Photo

By CURTIS MORGAN

Cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

The United States is poised to formally and finally ban that slithering scourge of the Everglades, the Burmese python.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has championed the ban, is expected to make the announcement Tuesday morning during a press conference at a flood control pumping station off Tamiami Trail in the Everglades — a spot that is pretty much ground zero for a giant exotic constrictor that has become one of the nation’s most notorious invasive species.

 By Rob Hotakainen

McClatchy News Service

WASHINGTON -- As one of Congress’ top experts on spending issues, Washington state Rep. Norm Dicks keeps an eye on the public purse, and he says that Burmese pythons just cost taxpayers way too much money.

As the snakes multiply and spread, Dicks says, the federal government must spend millions of dollars each year to try to control them. Moreover, he says, the giant, fast-growing snakes jeopardize public safety and threaten the government’s huge investment in restoring Florida’s Everglades.

 

Judge offers qualified praise for state Glades efforts

Though encouraged by a new pollution clean-up plan touted by Gov. Rick Scott, a Miami federal judge presses state and federal agencies to commit to paying for work that could cost $1 billion or more.

 

By CURTIS MORGAN

Cmorgan@Miamiherald.com

 

A Miami federal judge on Thursday commended Gov. Rick Scott for stepping in with a proposal to bust open a legal logjam that for two decades has hampered efforts to stem the flow of pollution into the Everglades.

 

But the praise from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold was delivered in a cautious tone and included a message that might be summed up by that familiar line from Jerry Maguire: Show me the money.

 

Gold, who has issued a series of rulings blasting the “glacial delay’’ in the federally mandated clean-up, urged state and federal environmental managers negotiating a new Everglades clean-up strategy to come back with a firm plan for both protecting the marsh and — just as important — paying for projects that could easily approach $1 billion or more.

 

While he said he was encouraged by ongoing talks to resolve two long-running federal lawsuits over farm, ranch and yard pollution poisoning the River of Grass, he cautioned that without a firm financial commitment from water managers and the state, “what we’re doing is going around in circles, again.’’

 

 

 

 

Col. Alfred A. Pantano, Jr., the district commander of the Corps of Engineers, received the Bill Sadowski Award from 1000 Friends of Florida at the 27th Annual Everglades Coalition Conference in Stuart.

The Jan. 7 award was one of several special recognitions and honorable mentions Pantano received during his last Everglades conference as the district commander before changing command in June.

The award was presented to Patano by Nathaniel Reed, chairman emeritus, founder of 1000 Friends and a Sadowski recipient himself. The award is a framed original watercolor by Quincy artist Dawn McMillan depicting wetland grasses fringed by cypress trees, a symbolic ibis in the foreground. The award is reserved for a public servant at the regional or state level whose work exemplifies the high level of commitment to growth management and the philosophy of negotiation for which Sadowski, former Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, was known.

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Chantell and Michael Sackett’s case against the Environmental Protection Agency before the Supreme Court on Monday might appear to be David versus Goliath. But those supporting the Sacketts with friend-of-the-court briefs are corporate Goliaths like General Electric and real estate developers eager to weaken the E.P.A.’s ability to protect wetlands and waterways under the federal Clean Water Act.

The Sacketts owned a small lot about 500 feet from Idaho’s pristine Priest Lake. They filled part of it with dirt and rock in preparing to build a house. The E.P.A. determined that the lot is federally protected wetland so the Sacketts needed a permit to do the work, which they did not seek. The agency ordered the couple to remove the fill because pollutants were being discharged.

The E.P.A. can issue compliance orders directing violators to get a permit and remedy any damage they caused. But to enforce an order, the agency has to sue in federal court; it does not have power to take action against a violator on its own. The Sacketts in their brief say they had no reason to believe their lot was covered by the Clean Water Act, though there is evidence to the contrary. They argue that lack of judicial review of the compliance order violated their due process rights, though they could have challenged the order through the agency’s administrative process — and could have gotten a permit after the E.P.A. told them they needed one.

Almost every federal court that has considered the issue found that the law does not allow “judicial review of compliance orders until the E.P.A. brings an enforcement action,” as the Ninth Circuit appeals court said in ruling against the Sacketts. The court explained that this process allows the agency “to act to address environmental problems quickly and without becoming immediately entangled in litigation.” Allowing challenges to E.P.A. orders before they are enforced would give landowners the ability to delay in correcting the harm they caused. Compliance orders are useful because they allow the agency to press landowners to negotiate about mitigating harms.

This case goes far beyond the Sacketts’ right to fill in their lot without a permit. If the Supreme Court allows them to seek pre-enforcement review, it will be handing a big victory to corporations and developers who want to evade the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

01/05/2012

 

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignited a controversy in 2009 when it agreed to adopt numeric nutrient criteria for Florida waterways. EPA said the specific limits were needed to replace Florida's narrative standards that environmental groups said have failed to prevent algal blooms they say are choking waterways. However, utilities along with industry and agriculture groups generated a firestorm of opposition, saying the rules will be difficult and expensive to meet.

In December, the state Environmental Regulation Commission OK'd its own water quality rules that are intended to replace federal standards. The next stop for the state rules is the Legislature, which in 2010 passed a bill requiring any state rules costing more than $1 million to receive legislative ratification. If it OKs the new water rules, they will be sent to the EPA to consider.

By The Miami Herald Editorial

HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com

As the Florida Legislature prepares to grapple with another tight budget year, and leaders vow to continue to build an appealing pro-business environment that reduces costs for businesses to generate more jobs, there’s one jobs creator being virtually ignored that stretches from Kissimmee near Walt Disney World to the Florida Keys: the Everglades.

Cleaning up Florida’s fabled River of Grass after decades of abuse from polluted rainwater runoff draining from area farms, homes and businesses into the ’Glades ecosystem is not only necessary but economically desirable. The 27th annual Everglades Coalition conference underway this week appropriately titled its meeting: “Everglades Restoration: Worth Every Penny.”

The numbers tell why.

Just in the past three years, in the midst of a recession, Everglades restoration projects — whether they redirect canals or elevate roadways or make other needed environmental fixes — have generated 10,500 jobs. Add to that the spin-off of tourism, recreational fishing and other ventures and as many as 442,000 jobs will materialize in the next decades, according to the coalition.

Building the bridge on the Tamiami Trail, which will help restore water flows to the river, is putting 1,212 people to work.

Even as Florida struggles to balance its budget for the coming year, Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature have to see why the Everglades is not only a water source for agriculture and drinking water for one in three Floridians — the major water source, in fact, for South Florida residents — but also a boon for business.

This is, after all, an international treasure, a rare river that’s more grass than water to the eye, 100 miles long and 60 miles wide, where tourists near and far come to watch flocking birds and gator brawls.

The Everglades ecosystem isn’t some isolated sore spot. It runs from central Florida’s Kissimmee Chain of Lakes into Lake Okeechobee (our water supply) and through the River of Grass, out to Florida Bay and the Keys. Hundreds of thousands of jobs already depend on it.

Visitors to Everglades National Park spend about $165 million a year. And the jobs created by restoration projects pay well, too. Hydrologists, engineers, geologists, surveyors — those are the kinds of jobs Florida should want to keep.

HUTCHINSON ISLAND — Gov. Rick Scott didn't exactly win environmentalists over in his first year in office, as he gutted growth management laws, waged a legal battle against federally imposed water quality standards and expressed general disdain for "job-killing" regulations.

But Thursday evening, the governor stood before an audience of some of his harshest critics at a meeting here of the Everglades Coalition and pledged — like every governor who has spoken before him — that he was committed to restoring the struggling River of Grass.