Sides Line Up in Florida State-Federal Water Dispute

Nine states and dozens of agencies and organizations filed legal briefs in December in support of the South Florida Water Management District, SFWMD, and U.S. government position in a federal court case involving state authority over state water resource management.

The case dates to 2002, when several groups filed suit to require federal discharge permits for moving water through three district pump stations on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee.

The groups - Friends of the Everglades, Florida Wildlife Federation, and Fishermen Against Destruction of the Environment, all represented by Earthjustice - contend that millions of gallons of polluted water coming off of half a million acres of sugar cane fields and cities are pumped into Lake Okeechobee by the South Florida Water Management District.

"The discharge contaminates drinking water supplies and fertilizes toxic blue-green algae blooms," says Earthjustice, which filed suit demanding the district obtain Clean Water Act permits for its discharges and comply with water quality standards in the lake.

Masses of vegetation at the S-3 pump station along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee. The brown water color indicates pollution. (Photo courtesy SFWMD)

On December 11, 2006, a federal district judge in Miami ruled that the district must comply with the Clean Water Act.

And on June 15, 2007, a federal court issued an injunction requiring the district to apply for pollution permits to engage in pumping dirty water into the lake.

The district complied with the injunction but filed an appeal to address the issue of federal-state jurisdiction.

The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, NPDES, permits are most commonly used "to regulate point-source discharges, such as from industrial activities or municipal waste operations," the district said.

State water quality programs are used to regulate all other discharges, including water transfers to provide for flood control, water supply, environmental restoration and other public needs.

"This NPDES case has implications that could impair water resources management across the nation," said SFWMD Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann. "We are heartened by the breadth of support for the district’s position that a state's water resources should continue to be managed by the individual states, as they have been since the Clean Water Act was written 35 years ago."

It is for the appeal that the nine states and federal agencies filed briefs in support of the district, written to emphasize to the court the case's serious and widespread impacts.

Representing a wide range of interests, the briefs came from the National League of Cities, the National Hydropower Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, 23 water resource organizations and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Briefs from the district and from the U.S. Department of Justice representing all federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Agriculture, were filed December 14, 2007.

More legal briefs will be prepared for the court over the next several months, and oral arguments will be heard by a panel of three federal judges. The decision is expected in late 2008.

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