Transcript Everglades Litigation Collection

Introduction
Everglades Litigation Collection
 1994 - Donated by USAO to
University of Miami School of Law
 Physical location - Law Library
Special Collections and Archives
 Internet -
www.law.miami.edu/everglades
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Contents
 1 million pages of litigation
and scientific documents
 50 cases from federal and
state fora
 1 million frames of microfilm
 250 mb bibliographic database
 Hundreds of deposition and
hearing transcripts
 Voluminous productions of
scientific data and reports
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Legal overview
 Parties
Plaintiff
Defendant
 Pleadings, documents
Complaint
Answer
Deposition
Orders
Decision
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 Civil vs. Criminal
 Statutes
 Caselaw
 Jurisdiction
Federal
State
Administrative
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Legal overview
Trial Levels
 Trial level court
 Intermediate appellate level
 Higher appellate level
 Highest appellate level
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Legal overview
Anatomy of Pleadings
 Jurisdiction
 Case Number
 Style
Plaintiff
Defendant
 Type
Complaint
Answer
Motion Summary Judgment
Appeal
Order
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Background
 1821 - U.S. buys Florida from Spain
 1845 - Florida becomes a state
 1850 - Congress passes Swamp Lands
Act. Gives ownership of overflowed lands in the
Everglades to Florida on the condition that lands
might be drained and settled, or used for
agriculture. State sells vast tracts of land at low cost
to railroads. During Civil War railroads went
bankrupt.
 1905 - Napoleon Bonaparte Broward
elected governor
 Drain the Everglades!
 1906 - 1929 - Everglades Drainage
District.
 Went bankrupt
 1941 - Publication of The Everglades:
River of Grass
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Background
 1947 - Everglades National Park
created by Congress
 1947 - 2 hurricanes hit south Florida,
flooding
 1948 - C&S Florida Project for Flood
Control and Other Purposes
 CSFP - Prime Purpose - Flood Control
 USAO built 1,400 miles of levees and canals so
that flood waters pass around farms and cities,
carried swiftly into the Everglades or the sea
 Kissimmee River Channel
 Lake Okeechobee dike expansion
 Eastern perimeter leve
 State lands made into conservation areas
 CSFP - EAA
 700,000 acres drained, leeved.
 Irrigation pumps
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Background
 CSFP - Loxahatchee N.W.R.
 To make up for harm project would do to
wildlife habitat, northernmost WCA leased to
Department of Interior
 CSFP - completed on 1962
 Put an end to river of grass
 cut off the flow of water from the north
 water allowed to flow through canals and
structures only
 USACOE regulations determined timing and
quantity of water flow
 natural hydroperiod replaced by ACOE regime
 CSFP - Local sponsor - CSFFCD
 Florida passed legislation creating Central and
Southern Florida Flood Control District
 CSFFCD -
Assembled land, operated pumps and canals
under ACOE guidelines

Board of directors appointed by govenor
 Authority to levy small tax over many counties
in south Florida
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Background
Emergence of the Florida sugar industry
 1959 - Revolution in Cuba.
 U.S. embargo on Cuban sugar exports
 U.S. quotas on sugar imports from other countries
 Rapid expansion of farming in the EAA
 1960 - 1975 - Sugar acreage increased sixfold
 421,000 acres planted, sugar now primary crop in EAA
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Background
The Intensification of Environmentalism in Florida
 Roots in creation of ENP
 Some environmental values in CSFP
 Fight against jetport
 1960’S - changes to CSFP in response to concern about environment
 1967 - ACOE and CSFFCD built new canal to bring water arround levee on north
boundary and into center of park
 1972 - congress passed legislation guaranteeing min flows of water from project’s
canals and structures into ENP
 1978 - Florida proposed that Kissimmee River ditch filled, and old riverbed restored
 1972 - Flood Control District was given the responsibility for regulating water quality
and administering new state laws re wetland drainage
 1976 - Flood Control district rebaptized as SFWMD
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Background
Phosphorus problem
 Water quality became an issue in the 1970’s. focused on Lake Okeechobee algal
blooms
 SFWMD scientists believed the largest cause was nutrients from dairy farms along
Kissimmee
 Water entering the lake from EAA contributed 14% phosphorus
 30% of water pumped from EAA went into lake, the rest pumped south
 1979 - district, state, ACOE stop pumping into lake, but increased pumping south into
WCAs
 1974 - district scientists first warned about cattail infestation in WCAs as result of
phosphorus loading would eventually reach the park and alter natural
 Nothing was done due to powerful influence of sugar industry
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Background
 SWIM Act
 1987 - state legislature passes SWIM Act, requires water management districts to
prepare plans to avoid and reverse degradation of state’s waters.
 Set targets for how much phosphorus might enter Lake Okeechobee
 Required district to prepare a plan for the lake
 Set up technical advisory council to study effects of phosphorus in WCAs, and other
areas south of the lake
 Included a provision which addressed issue of phosphorus in the park
 “water management districts shall not divert waters to the park in such a way that
state water quality standards are violated or that the nutrient in such waters adversely
affect indigenous vegetative communities or wildlife.”
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