A coalition of four environmental groups notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday that they will sue over their objections to how Florida changed its list of polluted waterways.

Save Our Suwannee, Friends of the St. Sebastian River, Florida Public Interest Research Group and the Sierra Club filed the notice. They were joined by Linda Young of the Clean Water Network, who contends Florida leads the nation in undermining the federal Clean Water Act.

EPA officials initially criticized changes Florida proposed in its polluted waterways list. But after Gov. Jeb Bush complained to his brother, the president, the EPA backed down, according to the environmental groups.

If EPA does not reach a settlement with the groups in two months, they will sue to force it to toughen its stance against Florida.

Meanwhile, another environmental group filed a challenge to Florida's most recent list, which was approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection three weeks ago. The Cape Coral-based Responsible Growth Management Coalition said several waterways in Lee County were left out, including the Estero River.

College to let newspaper run column with profanity

SANFORD -- Seminole Community College decided Thursday to allow its student newspaper to print a column about unwanted pregnancies that uses profanity.

"It is not in the best interests of the college to generate a prolonged, controversial dispute over this student learning issue. Therefore, publication of this edition of the Scribe will move forward," the school said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Seminole administrators reviewed the column and held up publication of the Scribe. There was concern over standards of quality and responsible journalism, the school said.

Editor Margaret Acker had protested that editorial decisions should be the editor's, not the college administration's.

The column by Robin Mimna is a discourse on sexually active women who risk pregnancy by refusing to use birth control. After researching the topic, she was appalled, and wrote that way, she said.

Grand juror gets prison for tip on Simpson search

MIAMI -- A former federal grand juror who pleaded guilty to leaking information of an ecstasy drug ring investigation before agents searched O.J. Simpson's home was sentenced Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison.

John Acosta tipped a friend that the friend's girlfriend, Zenaida Galvez, had been charged last Nov. 27 under a sealed indictment, and that target locations in the sting included Simpson's home and the home of defendant Andrew Anderson. Prosecutors said Galvez then told someone else.

Days later, on Dec. 4, agents with warrants who searched Simpson's and Anderson's homes found little or no evidence.

An FBI agent testified at a co-defendant's trial that Anderson supplied the party drug to the retired football star. Simpson denied it and has not been charged.

Acosta pleaded guilty in April to obstruction of justice.

Elsewhere . . .

PRISON NOT KOSHER, INMATE SAYS: A Jewish man serving a life sentence for murder sued the state Thursday for refusing to provide him with kosher meals. Alan J. Cotton, 57, claims he has been unlawfully deprived of the right to live as a devout Jew. The Miami-based Greenberg Traurig firm and the Becket Fund, a public interest firm in Washington, took up his case, suing in Miami against Department of Corrections Secretary Michael W. Moore and Timothy Mingo, warden of the Everglades Correctional Institution where Cotton is serving his sentence for the 1966 murder.

SENATE FIGHTS RULING: The 1st District Court of Appeal refused again Thursday to ask the Florida Supreme Court to review a DCA ruling Wednesday that ordered off the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would give a panel of 12 lawmakers the power to eliminate sales tax exemptions. But the state Senate will ask Florida's highest court today to take over the case anyway, attorney Barry Richard said. The DCA said the ballot proposal's summary would mislead voters.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk