Two #AudubonOfFlorida Legal Success Stories..."Agreement ends decade-long fight to preserve north Collier wetlands" in @naplesnews

By ERIC STAATS  


Wednesday, August 22, 2012  


http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/aug/22/Mirasol-develop-wetlands-north-collier-agreement/  


NORTH NAPLES — A longstanding fight between developers and environmental groups over saving key wetlands in a northern Collier County slough has come to an end. 

 

The final piece of the preservation puzzle fell into place when a coalition of five environmental groups reached a deal with landowner IM Collier Joint Venture over plans for Mirasol at the northwest corner of Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard, the groups announced Tuesday. 

 

Mirasol came to epitomize a decade-long push to stop new subdivisions that developers proposed putting in the middle of a flowway the groups wanted to protect for the sake of nearby Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and foraging habitat for endangered wood storks that nest there. 

 

Since 2006, the groups filed a string of lawsuits and administrative challenges over Mirasol and two other projects, Parklands and Saturnia Falls, that together would have taken a 1,200-acre bite out of wetlands in the Cocohatchee Slough. 

 

The groups came to a truce with G.L. Homes in 2010 over Parklands and Saturnia Falls after the developer agreed to cut back its development footprint and boost its wetlands preservation plans. The deal over Mirasol found similar common ground. 

 

"I think this is a good ecological outcome for the region," said Brad Cornell, policy advocate for the Collier County Audubon Society, one of the groups in the coalition.

Other groups involved were the National Wildlife Federation, Audubon of Florida, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Florida Wildlife Federation.

The groups were preparing to go back to court over Mirasol's new federal wetlands permit, issued in 2011 after a judge revoked an earlier version of the permit in 2009.

The deal averts another lawsuit and paves the way for IM Collier Joint Venture to sell the land for Mirasol to another partnership led by development company Taylor Morrison. Development is expected to start in 2013.

"We felt we could solve these issues if we put our heads together in a positive way and in the end we came up with a solution that was acceptable to everyone," said Dennis Gilkey, who has a minority interest in the new partnership and spearheaded negotiations with the groups.

Landowners are petitioning Collier County to amend its approvals for Mirasol to reflect the deal; state and federal permit modifications also are pending.

Mirasol, which will be renamed, is adding 80 acres to its 1,800-acre project, dropping one of two planned golf courses and building 1,121 units instead of the original 799 units, Gilkey said.

The new project still will destroy more than 550 acres of wetlands, but the project will preserve some 1,100 acres of wetlands.

The deal calls for a net increase of 170 acres of wetlands to be preserved on site and funds restoration of another 1,000 acres of off-site farm fields to the kind of shallow wetlands that are important for providing food to trigger wood stork nesting at Corkscrew. A decline in those wetlands has been blamed for wood storks not nesting at the sanctuary for five of the past six years.

In all, the settlements with G.L. Homes and IM Collier will protect 3,500 acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat in the Cocohatchee Slough, according to the groups' figures.

 

Case #2 -
 

Earlier this year, in Friedman/Starkman v. SFWMD, Audubon Florida supported the Defendant SFWMD through a brief amicus curiae.   In this case, Plaintiff landowners had filed suit against the SFWMD, claiming that they had lost nearly all value of their land and should be compensated for the value of their property.  The arguments in support of this claim were, among others, that their properties had been identified on maps showing potential future restoration projects and other property nearby had been purchased by the SFWMD from willing sellers.  There was also an attempt to set a new precedent in Florida for compensating landowners under a theory of “precondemnation blight.”  We felt strongly that establishing this cause of action in Florida would impact the ability or willingness for agencies and local governments to participate in proactive land use planning and made the decision to support the SFWMD. More information about the facts of the case can be found in the attached memo.

 

Recently, the 5th District Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court and ruled in favor of SFWMD.  The good news is that after some additional motions by the landowners, their motion for rehearing was denied and a mandate was issued effectively dismissing the appeal. 

 

Thank you for your support, that enables us to participate in this important matter and help make sure this case didn’t open a new door of “precondemnation blight” litigation in Florida that would have severely hindered the ability to proactively plan for future land conservation and ecosystem restoration projects.

"A way to protect Florida’s treasures" in @miamiherald

OUR OPINION: A proposed constitutional amendment would keep environmental dollars where they should be

By The Miami Herald Editorial

HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com

Tough economic times and a penchant in Tallahassee for “easy solutions” to close budget gaps have left the state’s environmental treasures and wildlife programs in the dumps. What these recreation and conservation lands need is a stable, dedicated source of funding.

Enter the Florida Water and Land Legacy Campaign, a coalition that includes the Trust for Public Land, Audubon Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, 1000 Friends of Florida, Defenders of Wildlife and other groups that want to preserve Florida’s natural beauty — and its clean water — for generations to come.

The campaign will be gathering signatures of registered voters — it will need at minimum 676,811 certified signatures — to put the issue on the ballot in 2014. If voters agree, and there are many reasons they should, the program would raise about $10 billion over 20 years — without any new tax or a tax increase.

It would simply require the Florida Legislature to keep its paws out of the trust funds meant for environmental and parks programs — guaranteeing at the very least that one-third of the revenues from the existing excise tax on documents during the sale of property goes toward designated environmental programs. That tax is now collected, but it’s not being used for its intended purpose.

Once approved by voters, the amendment would take effect July 1, 2015, and the money would be dedicated to the Land Acquisition Trust Fund until 2035 to clean up Florida’s River of Grass, the Everglades, and to protect drinking water sources, support fish and wildlife programs and revive the state’s commitment to buying and protecting ecologically fragile land and habitats through the Florida Forever program.

Florida desperately needs a stable program to protect its most precious resources.

In the past three years, the Legislature earmarked only $23 million for Florida Forever — the state used to spend 10 times as much on land preservation. This year, legislators approved only $8.5 million for water protection and land conservation in a $60-billion budget.

As this new coalition points out, that pittance is less than two-hundredths of one cent that will go toward conservation from every dollar spent in the state budget — less than $1 for each Floridian.

“When it comes to dedicating funding to protect Florida’s environment, the Great Recession has led to a complete depression. State funding to protect our most precious natural resources has slowed to a trickle,” Manley Fuller, president of the Florida Wildlife Federation, said in a press release Tuesday announcing the grassroots amendment effort. “This amendment is not a tax increase. It is the dedication of an existing funding source back to its historic purpose. Passing this amendment will ensure Florida’s long-term traditional conservation values are secure and protected from short-term political pressures.”

For sure, this amendment is not a tree-hugging exercise in futility. It would protect the land and water that Florida needs for its economy to grow. And Florida has a long, nonpartisan tradition in environmental protection. No one wants to go to a beach, river or lake where the water is toxic, and protecting the Everglades will be critical to the state’s ability to ensure safe and clean drinking water for South Florida.

If you’re interested in helping with this campaign, sign up at FloridaWaterLandLegacy.org, or call 850-629-4656.

It’s past time to protect Florida from the political winds.

Environmentalists battle DEP, industries on two fronts

Bruce Ritchie, 05/24/2012 - 05:38 PM

Environmentalists said Thursday they will ask the Florida Supreme Court to require the governor and Cabinet to decide on a plan for a pollution pipeline into the St. Johns River approved by the state.

Also Thursday, the Earthjustice law firm and the Florida Wildlife Federation, which are fighting proposed state pollution rules, said an algae bloom on the Santa Fe River demonstrates the need for tougher federal rules instead of the state rules.

The actions represent separate fights between environmental groups and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection along with industry groups over water quality.

The Clean Water Network of Florida and its allies continue to fight DEP and the pulp and paper industry over its proposals to build pollution pipelines. DEP in 1994 issued an order toGeorgia-Pacific to make water quality improvements and to construct a four-mile pipeline to move the discharge at its Palatka plant from Rice Creek to the St. Johns River. 

A draft petition states that by allowing "mixing zones" for pollution from the pipeline, DEP is allowing for the "private use" of submerged state lands without approval by the Cabinet, which has responsibility in the state Constitution to approve those uses and require compensation. 

Georgia-Pacific spokeswoman Trish Bowles said the company had received a submerged lands lease easement from the governor and Cabinet in 2003 for the pipeline and that a separate mixing zone easement is not required. She said the company has spent $200 million on water quality improvements at the plant since 2002.

A DEP spokeswoman said the department is still reviewing the petition but she pointed out that mixing zones are a part of state water quality standards and are kept to the smallest size possible while maintaining designated waterway uses.

On Thursday, Earthjustice and the Florida Wildlife Federation highlighted Gainesville Suncoverage of the Santa Fe River, where health officials have advised people not to swim, consume fish or drink water near an algae bloom although it hasn't been classified as toxic.

“This is heartbreaking for people and for wildlife,” Florida Wildlife Federation President Manley Fuller said in a news release. “It’s a full-blown crisis like we’ve never seen before on the beautiful Santa Fe River.”

Earthjustice represents the federation and other groups that filed a legal challenge to block proposed state water quality rules, called numeric nutrient criteria. The state rules are proposed to replace federal water quality rules that are being rewritten after a federal judge earlier this year found them to be "arbitrary and capricious."

Industry groups favor the proposed state rules that DEP says are more flexible and will cost less for industries and utilities to comply with while protecting water quality. Environmental groups say the proposed state rules are weak and will result in continued increases in nitrogen that feeds the algae choking springs and other waterways.

Ryan Banfill, a spokesman for a coalition of industry groups, cities and counties that have opposed the federal rules, said it's hard to understand how the environmentalists who are opposing the state rules are complaining about foot-dragging on pollution.

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

"DEP moving into new areas of possible water quality controversy" in The Florida Current

Bruce Ritchie, 05/02/2012 - 04:04 PM

DEP is responsible for protecting the quality of Florida’s drinking water as well as its rivers, lakes, wetlands and springs. The Federal Clean Water Act requires states to publicly review and update their water quality standards in what is called a "triennial review." 

The department has scheduled hearings for later this month in West Palm Beach, Orlando and Tallahassee to consider its "human health criteria" involving exposure to chemicals through fish consumption.

DEP was conducting a similar review in 2008 before some environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state's lack of numeric limits for nitrogen and phosphorus. That lawsuit led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set limits for nitrogen and phosphorus in Florida waterways, which prompted DEP to adopt replacement rules.

"That just became all-consuming," said Drew Bartlett, director of DEP's Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration. "Now that we put that to rest, we can shift those resources consumed by the numeric nutrient criteria back onto this issue. We decided to pick it straight right back up."

The Legislature waived approval of those rules in February and the state sent them to the EPA for review. Environmental groups including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club have a legal challenge pending at the Division of Administrative Hearings.

In 2009, the Clean Water Network petitioned the federal EPA to set human health criteria for fish consumption. Other environmental groups had sued in 1995, arguing that previous human health criteria were based on low fish consumption rates by Floridians.

DEP has conducted studies and determined that Floridians do eat more fish than those in other states, so proposed new human health criteria will have to reflect that, Bartlett said.

"It is going to become more stringent than it is currently on the books for all of those (pollution) parameters," he said.

Although Bartlett said DEP is moving forward as planned, Clean Water Network's Linda Young said her group has warned it will sue if DEP delays action again.

"(The federal) EPA has to make sure the criteria adopted are protective of human health when those fish are consumed," said Young, the group's director.

After the hearings from May 15-17, DEP hopes to adopt updated rules by the end of the year, Bartlett said.

The department also is proposing limits for nitrogen and phosphorus in estuaries along the Florida Panhandle. And the department will consider setting new requirements for dissolved oxygen, which affects the amount of pollution that can be discharged into waterways.

Florida's dissolved oxygen criteria were based on national criteria from studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, Bartlett said.

He said in more recent years, DEP has invested in a "huge" monitoring system in Florida to determine what dissolved oxygen conditions exist naturally in Florida. That science also will be presented at the workshops.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is tracking the dissolved oxygen issue and has raised serious concerns with DEP, said Jennifer Hecker, the group's director of natural resource policy.

"Sometimes by changing the goal and standard you can create compliance," Hecker said. "It doesn't necessarily make anything better -- that is the concern. We want to see things truly improve. I think that is what Floridians want as well."

Young warned that industry groups are seeking to allow pollution to continue by reducing dissolved oxygen -- along with setting weak nitrogen and phosphorus limits and creating new designated uses for waterways with their own pollution limits.

Bartlett responded the science behind dissolved oxygen standard needs to be updated based on new science, just like with the nitrogen and phosphorus limits. And he said DEP will looking for feedback from the public at its upcoming workshops.

"We can't really do anything at DEP that is not truly and soundly rooted in the science," Bartlett said. "There is no other way to do it really."

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

via thefloridacurrent.com