Nonprofits launch litigation over Lake O releases, say Feds must stop using Florida rivers 'like a toilet'

Amy Bennett Williams
The News-Press

Three environmental groups are challenging the Feds over polluted Lake Okeechobee discharges that harm threatened species like sawfish, manatees and sea turtles.

For the legal action, announced Wednesday, Calusa Waterkeeper, Center for Biological Diversity, and Waterkeeper Alliance are joining forces against three federal agencies: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Some residents living in the towns around Lake Okeechobee believe they are getting a bad rap for water quality and algae issues that are affecting both coasts of Florida. They say that the negative media attention is affecting tourism and keeping fisherman away. Images from Moore Haven, Clewiston and the east side of Lake Okeechobee.

The agencies have ignored the harm Lake Okeechobee discharges down the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers have done to wildlife while planning to continue to the toxic flows through 2025, the notice alleges. Groups need to file a notice of intent to sue that allows time for governmental agencies to respond.

The discharges set off a disastrous chain of events on the rivers and their estuaries in 2018, coating waterways with toxic blue-green algae and exacerbating a lingering red tide that decimated wildlife and devastated local economies.

Turning the Toxic Tide:Florida needs new approach to environmental regulation

More:Lake Okeechobee algae bloom captured in NOAA satellite image Thursday

“Even as the red tide wreaks havoc, the Corps keeps treating Florida’s rivers like a toilet,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director for the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and the lead attorney on the suit. “Year after year our waterways are polluted and the health and livelihoods of Floridians are threatened. Florida’s residents, from fisherman to manatee, deserve better.”

The nonprofits oppose the Corps' plan to continue discharging toxic lakewater into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers for seven more years, as part of what's called the Lake Okeechobee Release Schedule.

A decade ago, the Corps revamped its lake management plan to prioritize the integrity of its aging Herbert Hoover Dike. But instead of revising the plan within three years, as was required, the feds plan to continue the 2008 management plan without addressing the ongoing damage to water quality and wildlife.

"The corps has said this particular (regulation) schedule could be in effect until 2025, and that’s just too long to wait," said Calusa Waterkeeper John Cassani. 

This is the first litigation the Fort Myers-based nonprofit has undertaken, and Cassani said he's heartened to be joined by the international waterkeeper group, based in New York, and by the Center for Biological Diversity, which has a “spectacular legal record,” Cassani said. “They’ve already sued the Trump administration 102 times.”

Veteran environmental attorney David Guest, who has long experience with suing governments on behalf of natural systems, said cleaning up the lake and protecting at-risk species will likely take more than a lawsuit.

“You can make marginal headway these days, but you don’t make too much headway,” Guest said. “I think it’s going to take congressional or state action, (though) making the Corps aware of the impact on endangered species is important.”

Today’s notice gives the agencies 60 days to respond to the claims submitted by the nonprofits.

Cassani said he’s been encouraged by the initial response from the public.

“We didn’t even solicit donations but we’re already getting them. People who don’t even have two nickels to rub together are sending 50 bucks."