Giving directions to Laurie Miller’s home just got easier, courtesy of the city of Miami Beach.

“Make a right on 29th Street, go for one block, and I’m the house with a fire hydrant in the middle of the lawn,” she told a reporter.

On Feb. 23, Miller, 70, received a present from the city: a bright yellow fire hydrant smack dab in her well-manicured lawn between pruned, flowering bushes and palm trees.

She said she came outside about 8 p.m. and found a crew installing new water pipes and improving storm drainage in her Central Bayshore neighborhood had also plopped a hydrant about 14 feet into her roughly 40-by-60-foot yard.

The crew was working in the dark — running late, they said — but that wasn’t the problem.

When she asked what possessed the city to place the hydrant there, Miller, who lives in her home of 42 years with her husband, says she was told that it was what the city’s plans called for — even if planners now agree common sense called for it to go somewhere else.

Engineering documents provided by the city’s Capital Improvement Projects office show that Miller’s yard is only about half her property because the public right-of-way stretches deep into her lawn. As a result, the hydrant is technically on public land.

But while dogs in the neighborhood might be excited about Miller’s new lawn ornament, she just wants it removed, or at least moved to the edge of the lot.

“It’s a joke,” she said.

Miller may laugh about it soon.

City spokeswoman Maria Palacios said Miller won’t have to throw a Marlins cap and T-shirt on her hydrant to pass it off as a grandson. Due to Miller’s repeated complaints, the city plans to move the hydrant as close to the road as possible on Friday.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Miller said Thursday.

As for why the hydrant wasn’t placed further out in the first place, Palacios said: “That’s something we will pose to our contractors.”

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.

Age, decay and human error are behind a string of water and sewer failures.

On Christmas Eve, utility workers try to fix a water main break in Oakland Park that left that city, Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors without running water. R.C. White / For The Miami Herald

 

By Michael Vasquez and Carli Teproff

mrvasquez@MiamiHerald.com

The hectic nature of Christmas Eve — last-minute presents to buy, family to entertain, meals to cook — can be a mountain of stress. Now try keeping it together after all the faucets stop running.

That was the challenge presented to more than 200,000 Broward County homes and businesses this holiday season, after a ruptured water line left families high and, quite literally, dry. On Christmas Day, though the water was again flowing, it had to be boiled before families could be assured it was safe.

The National Park Service at Biscayne National Park recently released a draft General Management Plan (GMP) that proposes to close more than 20 percent of public waters to recreational boating and fishing. As local boating and sport fishing businesses that are opposed to this broad public access closure, we think there has to be a better way to balance conservation and preserve recreation.

The Park Service’s proposals include establishment of between a 10,000- and 21,000-acre marine reserve within Biscayne National Park’s boundaries. This vast marine reserve would entirely prohibit recreational fishing. Additionally, the park’s plans establish several no-combustion-engine zones that act as a de facto closure of even more of the park’s waters to boating. Engine powered boats will find it almost impossible to launch from shore and other prohibited areas within the park. Although Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation says that less-restrictive measures should be implemented, these appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

Recreational boating and fishing are important contributors to the Florida economy. Biscayne National Park is the largest marine park in the national park system and one of the country’s largest urban recreational fishing areas. It supports approximately 10 million angler trips a year. Recreational boating in Florida has an overall economic impact of over $3.4 billion in retail sales. Fishing and angling activity alone contributes $7.5 billion to our economy.

The Biscayne General Management Plan proposes closures to both boating and fishing, that if implemented will close public access, limit visitor experiences and directly affect the thousands of recreational boating and fishing jobs and retail sales that service Biscayne National Park.

We urge the National Park Service to eliminate the concept of marine reserves and the massive no-combustion-engine zones that are proposed in the draft GMP and instead work collaboratively with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, boaters and fishermen to develop a management plan that will preserve the park’s valuable natural resources while maintaining public access.

Scott Deal, president, Maverick Boat Company Inc., Fort Pierce

Joe Neber, president, Contender Boats Inc., Homestead

Carl Liederman, American Sportfishing Association, Miami

10 years of drawing inspiration from the Everglades

By Tom Austin
The Miami Herald

Artists long have looked at the Everglades with wonder. Over time, realistic portrayals of its spectacular landscapes — including the photography of local Clyde Butcher — have given way to contemporary abstraction and performance art inspired by the River of Grass and the modern pressures facing it and, metaphorically, the world beyond.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/18/2549737/10-years-of-drawing-inspiration...

The South Florida Water Management District owns about 1.4 million acres across South Florida, including this land in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Preserve in Palm Beach County. Environmental groups are raising concerns about district plans to sell about 3,000 acres of public land scattered across South Florida. (By Andy Reid)

By Andy Reid
7:40 p.m. EST, December 14, 2011

Environmentalists are sounding the alarm over the South Florida Water Management District potentially shrinking its vast real estate holdings.
Audubon of Florida and the Sierra Club are among the environmental groups raising concerns that budget cuts have the district selling off too much public land once slated for restoration or conservation.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/blogs/green-south-florida/sfl-selling-conser...

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - Governor Rick Scott has proposed restoring some spending for environmentally sensitive land.

The proposal would put $40 million into Everglades restoration.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard said this amount "will allow Florida to keep the momentum going in the state-federal partnership to restore one of Florida's most valuable natural treasures."