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Judge's ouster reveals muscle of Big Sugar
The strong hand of Big
Sugar tightened its grip around the throat of the Everglades this week.
Responding to a motion
filed by sugar companies, the chief of the U.S. District Court circuit
removed Judge William Hoeveler from the Everglades pollution case he had
overseen since its inception in 1988.
Judge Hoeveler was the
man on the bench when Dexter Lehtinen, then the U.S. Attorney for South
Florida, went to court to prove that the emperor had no clothes. It was
an ugly truth that no one had wanted to acknowledge for decades: The
state of Florida was using its public waterway system to poison the
Everglades.
Gov. Lawton Chiles
came to the courtroom one day to defend the state's conduct, heard what
was really going on and in a dramatic moment surrendered his sword to
Judge Hoeveler. The court case was resolved in a consent decree. In
1994, the state Legislature made its part in the consent decree part of
Florida law as the Everglades Forever Act, pledging to meet new
pollution clean-up standards by 2006.
The state's promise to
deliver clean water to the Everglades was a key component of the larger
federal-state partnership approved by Congress in 2000, the
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. That unprecedented $8 billion
plan is the most ambitious environmental restoration effort ever
attempted.
But earlier this year,
Big Sugar flexed its big muscles in Tallahassee, where they are
particularly strong. They wanted more time to meet the pollution
standards and they wanted new methods of measuring the pollution to give
them more wiggle room. Halfway through the legislative session, a suite
of amendments to the Everglades Forever Act was suddenly unveiled,
backed by a battalion of Sugar-funded lobbyists. Environmentalists,
blindsided by the amendments, howled.
Members of Congress,
Republicans and Democrats alike, warned this could endanger national
support for the larger Everglades restoration plan. Newspapers across
Florida condemned the amendments.
It didn't matter. With
Sugar's muscle behind it, the amendments to the Everglades Forever Act
sailed through the Legislature and were signed into law by Gov. Jeb
Bush. The one consolation for the losers in this fight was that the
consent decree still held in federal court, overseen by Judge Hoeveler.
The judge himself was so concerned about the Legislature's actions that
he called a special hearing in the case.
Around that time,
Judge Hoeveler spoke to several newspaper reporters. He did not tell
them anything much different from the language that appeared in his
eventual legal ruling on the state's action (in which he called the new
state law "clearly defective," vowed it would not change the original
deadlines set in the consent decree and called for a special master to
oversee the case more closely). But Big Sugar was incensed. The U.S.
Sugar Corporation called for his dismissal from the case and last week
they prevailed.
It is worth noting
that no other party to the federal lawsuit -- and there are many --
called for Hoeveler's dismissal. Not the state Department of
Environmental Protection nor the South Florida Water Management
District.
Not the Miccosukee
Tribe. It is also worth noting that Judge Hoeveler is regularly ranked
by attorneys who practice in South Florida's federal courts as the best
judge, a poll he won again just two weeks ago.
The citizens of South
Florida can take solace that Sugar's victory here does not remove the
federal court's oversight. There is no reason to think that Judge
Federico Moreno, assigned to replace Hoeveler, will not be tough, fair
and follow the law.
That's what Judge
Hoeveler did for 15 years and we thank him for his distinguished service
to the people of Florida and America's Everglades on this case. His
experience and knowledge with the case and its players may be lost but
his legacy will live on in the sawgrass prairies and alligator trails of
the Everglades, in the chance for future roseate spoonbill colonies and
clean water for Florida Bay.
Meanwhile, the
citizens of Florida should remember Big Sugar's actions -- and the
complicity of state officials -- and think about who is really running
the state of Florida.
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