Corps loses two wetland cases in court
It's been a rough couple of weeks for the Corps of Engineers, as federal judges in two high-profile Florida cases ruled that the federal agency in charge of protecting wetlands had failed to do so. First came word that U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had tossed out the Corps permit ...
"Paving Paradise" wins award named for Florida icon Stetson Kennedy
Big news, folks. The Florida Historical Society has notified our publisher that "Paving Paradise" has been named the winner of its annual Stetson Kennedy Award. The award, which is for "books which cast light on historic Florida events in a manner which is supportive of human rights, traditional cultures, or ...
Oil spill reminds us of importance of wetlands
We named our book "Paving Paradise" after the lyrics from Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi," in which she observed, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." When people debate offshore drilling, the subject is usually the impact on the beaches. Wetlands seldom are mentioned. But now that ...
Earth Day at 40: Strong laws, spotty enforcement
You should expect to see a ton of stories this week about the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on Thursday. These days Earth Day seems like just a marketing campaign than an actual day for thinking about the environment. The first one, though, was far different. It had to be. ...
Restoring wetlands, restoring the Clean Water Act
The White House delighted environmental and civic groups in Louisiana and Mississippi last week with an announcement about a new plan for restoring coastal wetlands. The road map comes from a working group that combines the forces of most of the federal agencies that deal with environmental and wetland issues. ...
"Paving Paradise" coming out in paperback this spring
Mark your calendar, folks. The hardback edition of "Paving Paradise" has sold so well that the fine folks at the University Press of Florida have chosen to put it out in a paperback edition. Look for it to hit stores starting this spring, around the same time as the hardback ...
Appeals court agrees: Corps messed up on Everglades mining permits
This blog has mentioned before the long-running saga concerning permits for rock-mining in an area near Everglades National Park that's been dubbed "the Lake Belt." "The permits are required to extract limestone from the Lake Belt, home to four of Florida's largest mines, which supply about half of the state's ...
Another rave review for "Paving Paradise"
We learned of another rave review for "Paving Paradise" this week, this time in the pages of the "Florida Historical Quarterly." The reviewer, Robert Krause of the University of Mississippi, writes that our book is "a compelling, but deeply disturbing read" that "offers new insight into the blatant disregard of ...
Gulf County case shows importance of putting wetland protection rules in writing
A case out of the Florida Panhandle involving wetlands destruction shows how important it is to put in writing how swamps and marshes are going to be protected. A developer named Jay Rish bought land in Gulf County in 2005 and applied for dredge and fill permits from the Florida ...
Everglades, Kissimmee restorations show the high cost of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again
This week a cavalcade of Obama Administration officials will smile for photos as the first major federal project in the long-awaited Everglades restoration begins, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. State agencies have already ripped out hundreds of miles of roads and canals in the area once known as Southern Golden ...
When is wetland mitigation not really mitigation?
Three interesting cases have cropped up lately involving the convoluted concept known as wetland mitigation, the idea that you can make up for destroying a wetland by somehow replacing its functions and values. As we documented extensively in "Paving Paradise," there are plenty of problems with mitigation. But the past ...
Marshes, mangroves capture carbon better than forests, new study finds
On the eve of the big Copenhagen summit meeting, as world leaders -- including, briefly, President Obama -- work from Dec. 7 to Dec. 18 to hammer out a new agreement for combating climate change, it's worth noting a new report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, ...
Clean Water Act suits target state pollution limits
Three months ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency settled a lawsuit filed by environmental groups over water pollution limits for Florida's waterways. Under the settlement -- which was approved by a federal judge last week over objections from industry and agriculture -- the EPA agreed to set numeric limits on ...
Tale of the notorious Everglades jetport takes a new twist (or two)
In "Paving Paradise, we point to the story of the Miami-Dade Port Authority's notorious Everglades jetport as the point in American history where people first stood up for a swamp. "In 1968, the port authority bought a 39-square-mile site just north of Everglades National Park and quickly built a training ...
Clean Water Act: Still violated after all these years
Last month I moderated a panel at the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual conference called "The Clean Water Act: Still Violated After All These Years." The speakers for this lively discussion were Jeremy Korzenik of the U.S. Department of Justice, Dr. Joy Zedler of the University of Wisconsin and Michael ...
EPA inspector general finds agency is doing a poor job of enforcing wetland rules
This week the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general issued a report that should have surprised no one familiar with the state of the nation's wetlands. Although there have been a few big enforcement actions, generally speaking the report found that the EPA does a poor job of enforcing the Clean ...
Judge overturns Mirasol wetlands permit, says Corps and wildlife service failed to do job
One of the big development projects that we wrote about in "Paving Paradise" was Mirasol, a controversial golf course subdivision that would wipe out 650 acres of wetlands in the western Everglades. It was one of a series of developments destroying wetlands in an area near Bonita Springs where the ...
New airport gets an airline (and developers get to pave over preserve land)
There was big news in the Florida Panhandle this week as Southwest Airlines officials announced they had agreed to provide air service to the new Panama City airport -- the first airport built in the United States since 9/11. Readers of "Paving Paradise" may recall how we chronicled the birth ...
Could this become the 13th EPA veto of a wetlands permit in 37 years?
This is a showdown that's been months in the making. The EPA has been giving increased scrutiny to Corps of Engineers permits for blasting the tops off of Appalachian mountains to get at the coal underneath. But would the agency be willing to take the ultimate step: using the agency's ...
EPA announces stepped-up enforcement of Clean Water Act (now watch for the resistance movement)
In an interview two months ago, new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson promised her agency would be stepping up enforcement of the Clean Water Act. After all, as a recent study by the Government Accountability Office revealed, the EPA and the states have done a poor job of achieving the law's ...
