Some of you may not have heard or read about the dismissal of the Florida toxic rules case. We are reprinting the following statement from Linda Young of the Florida Clean Water Network to share the good news with you.
Appellate Court Sends Toxics Rule Back to DOAH For A Hearing. A Victory For Florida’s Waters.
Thank you to the Seminole Tribe and the City of Miami for Fighting for Our Waters!
Dear Friends of Florida’s Waters –
I have great news this morning. I just received the notice that the 3rd District Court of Appeals (DCA) reversed and remanded the DOAH judge’s dismissal of the Human Health Toxics Criteria case (Rick Scott’s cancer lottery rule that was written for DEP by the Florida Pulp and Paper Association and other big politically powerful polluters). You will remember that last year in late July DEP rushed the rule through the ERC (with only 5 of 7 seats filled). Martin County, the City of Miami, the Seminole Tribe and the Florida Pulp and Paper Association all challenged the rule at the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH). The DOAH judge dismissed all of the petitions fairly quickly (he has now retired thankfully) and all of the parties except Martin County filed appeals.
The Pulp and Paper Association filed their appeal with the 1st DCA and their case was reversed and remanded back to DOAH a couple of months ago. Of course they are not on the side of clean water, they challenged the rule because they purportedly thought it should allow even more carcinogens and toxic chemicals in their hundreds of millions of gallons of industrial waste that they dump every day into Florida’s rivers and estuaries.
The City of Miami and the Seminole Tribe appealed at the 3rd DCA and the opinion was release a short time ago this morning. They adopted the same order that came from the 1st DCA.
HURRAY!!!!
I haven’t spoken to anyone at the City of Miami or with the Seminole Tribe but I’m assuming that they will now take the case to a full administrative hearing.
Please let them know that you appreciate their efforts to protect Florida’s waters, our people, our health, our wildlife, our cultures and our future from dangerous, carcinogenic and/or toxic chemicals that industries such as the Florida Pulp and Paper companies are dumping into our waters everyday – free of charge. We are talking about some of the wealthiest companies in the world: Koch Industries/Georgia-Pacific, International Paper, Rainier plus large agricultural companies, phosphate industries, chemical companies, electric power companies and many more.
Thank you to everyone who has worked on this issue and who will continue to work on it with us. We will not give up, ever.
For all of Florida’s Waters,
Linda Young
Opinion filed. Document: https://www.doah.state.fl.us/eALJ/eNotice.aspx… Third DCA Opinion.pdf
