February 1, 2010
Eve Samples: Judge's decision fails to protect us and our
waterways
By Eve Samples
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/feb/01/eve-samples-judges-decision-fails-to-protect-us/?partner=yahoo_feeds
MARTIN COUNTY — True: Freshwater discharges from Lake
Okeechobee have been damaging the St. Lucie River for decades.
False: The extent of that damage was foreseeable long ago.
Yet a federal judge hinged her opinion on the notion that
both statements were true when she ruled Friday to dismiss most claims from a
group of property owners against the Army Corps of Engineers.
Using that logic, Judge Lynn J. Bush of the U.S. Court of
Federal Claims said the statute of limitations had elapsed on the allegations
of 22 residents who believe the discharges stripped them of their rights to
enjoy the water they live on.
But how could we foresee the damage that the 399 billion
gallons of dirty lake water would do when released into the St. Lucie River in
2005?
Who could know that neon green algae would bloom en masse
and the health department would warn us away from the water?
John Mildenberger didn’t foresee any of that.
The Sewall’s Point resident — who happens to be the lead
plaintiff in the Rivers Coalition’s lawsuit — moved to Martin County eight
years ago in search of clean water.
He and his family had lived near Baltimore on the Chesapeake
Bay, so they knew what it was like to watch a body of water die.
When they moved to Stuart in 2002, they did so because its
waters were alive.
Then the drenching tropical seasons of 2004 and 2005
arrived, and the unrelenting Lake O discharges followed.
“Living right here on the water, we saw dead fish, we saw
fish with lesions sickly swimming by. We saw dead sea turtles,” Mildenberger
said.
What property rights have they lost since then?
“My kids want to go swimming off the dock here and I say,
‘No way,’” Mildenberger told me. “I won’t let my kids touch the bottom because
I’m fearful of them getting infected by one of these organisms. It’s a very
real threat.”
Mildenberger’s professional life is devoted to cleaning up
industrial sites, including Superfund sites. He knows a thing or two about
pollution.
And he does not foresee a good future for the St. Lucie
River.
“If it continues the way it has been, it’s going to get
worse,” he said. “I lived through this before up north.”
Stuart resident Kevin Henderson, another plaintiff in the
suit, agrees the St. Lucie River reached a tipping point after the 2004 and
2005 storm seasons.
“The river isn’t what it was like in even 2000, 2001, not
even close,” Henderson said.
Yet the judge didn’t see the tipping point as an important
factor.
When Bush issued her opinion Friday, she cited a passage
from an earlier U.S. Court of Claims ruling:
“Much as we may regret the destruction of unspoiled natural
game and fishing areas in navigable waters, the remedy lies in the hands of
Congress, not the courts.”
Sounds like passing the buck to me.
Congress isn’t offering any immediate help. Everglades
restoration plans are moving ever so slowly, and all it would take is another
drenching rainy season for Lake Okeechobee to rise and the threat of massive
discharges to return.
The goal of the coalition suit was to stop the discharges.
It intends to appeal Bush’s ruling, filing its notice of intent as early as
this week.
As the coalition’s Karl Wickstrom put it:
“It’s scary when citizens fail to get protection from their
own government when the government coddles private interests by allowing this
senseless pollution for decades.”
Eve Samples is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. This column reflects her opinion. For more on Martin County topics, follow her blog at TCPalm.com/samples. Contact her at (772) 221-4217 or eve.samples@scripps.com