Judge: Mining permits in Glades show Corps failed to do its job protecting wetlands
For the second time in two years, a federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was wrong to issue permits allowing miners to dynamite 5,400 acres of wetlands at the edge of the Everglades.
Senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler ruled today that the Corps failed to establish that the mining was "water-dependent," as required by the regulations implementing the Clean Water Act -- especially since the Corps had found in another case that rock mining was not water-dependent.
If it's not water-dependent, then the rules say there should be some consideration of alternatives that won't damage wetlands. But the Corps simply accepted the industry conclusions and analysis as its own, Hoeveler said.
He also said the Corps had misled the public about how many acres of wetlands would be affected and failed to take into account the potential damage to the public water supply.
The judge issued a similar, but far stronger, ruling on the case in 2007. He ruled then that the Corps used "circuitous reasoning" to determine that the mining had to be in the wetlands "since the applicants had requested to mine in these specific wetlands." An appeals court overturned that ruling on technical grounds and sent it back -- so now Hoeveler (pronounced HOOV-ler) has ruled the same way twice.
The Lake Belt mining area has proven to be a minefield for the Corps, as we explain in a chapter of "Paving Paradise." In it, we explain how the twists and turns of a lawsuit over another permit there wound up affecting not only the issuance of these new mining permits, but also wetlands permits nationwide.
