Judge offers qualified praise for state Glades efforts

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.''

The public, he said, deserves "clear answers to these hard questions.... We ought to be about to state clearly what we can and cannot do.''

Christopher Kise, a Tallahassee attorney representing the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, tried to reassure the judge, saying that over the past six months there had been "exceptional'' progress in negotiating a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies.

"There is good reason for all of us to be encouraged,'' Kise said. "Are we there today? No. Can we get there in short order? Yes.''

 Thursday's hearing was a status conference on progress toward implementing an EPA-designed clean-up plan that Gold approved last April in a lawsuit originally brought in 2005 by the Miccosukee Tribe and the environmental groups Friends of the Everglades.

 The EPA plan calls for a massive, $1.5 billion expansion of the network of artificial marshes the state uses to scrub phosphorus, a nutrient that is a prime ingredient in fertilizer, from water flowing into the Everglades. In October, Scott went to Washington to unveil a counter-proposal the state argues can be done quicker and cheaper but will still meet the super-clean water quality standards needed to protect native plants in the Everglades.

 Four federal agencies, in a November letter, raised concerns that the state's plan fell short and that it called for "significantly smaller" pollution treatment marshes and pushed back the cleanup deadline to 2022 - two years later than the EPA plan.

 But negotiations have heated up over the past few months. Though details have been sketchy, Kise and water managers said the initial plan has significantly changed, with land swaps on the table to expand treatment marshes and discussions to impose additional fertilizer restrictions on farmers.

 Gold also pressed the state and EPA to nail down a realistic payment plan, citing a financial report issued Wednesday by Fitch Ratings. The rating agency downgraded the credit standing of the South Florida Water Management District, which bankrolls most Everglades restoration projects, largely because Scott and the Florida Legislature last ordered the state's water districts to reduce their property tax rates by nearly a third.

 Kise and Melissa Meeker, the district's executive director, said the governor was committed to finding a way to pay for work that would end the decades of litigation and "get on with the business of restoring the Everglades.''

 Paul Schwiep, an attorney for the Friends of the Everglades, said he was skeptical about the state plan, saying it might amount to just another delay tactic - offered only at "the point of a sword'' when the judge threatened to strip authority over Everglades cleanup and hand it to the EPA.

 Gold echoed those concerns, saying he was also "uneasy'' about EPA's progress in implementing its plan. The federal agency, he noted, has not scheduled a required public hearing on its plans until after he had scheduled a status hearing - timing that he said seemed "more than coincidence.''

The judge also warned that his "patience was pretty worn'' for legal maneuvers intended to delay cleanup and that he, and the public, would be watching the negotiations closely.

 Ethan Shenkman, a deputy assistant attorney general representing the EPA, said he believed the state was negotiating in good faith to resolve the clean-up litigation.

 "EPA is not interested in just an empty exercise that will have no other result than delay,'' Shenkman said.

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