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CRAIG PITTMANIt agrees to the study, with results to be posted on the Internet, to settle an environmental lawsuit.
To settle a lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to study how its wetlands permits have damaged the environment across Florida.
The settlement, finalized Wednesday, calls for the corps to study the cumulative impact of thousands of permits it has issued for dredging and filling small wetlands throughout the state, then post the results on the Internet.
Lesley Blackner, the Palm Beach attorney who represented the environmental groups, said Thursday she hopes the Internet site will make it easier for everyone to gauge the impact of, and perhaps oppose, future wetlands permits.
"I don't think it's going to reform the corps, but I think it levels the playing field and helps provide more accountability," she said.
The settlement requires the Corps of Engineers to launch two pilot studies in two of the state's watersheds that would be completed by next year, then do similar studies for the rest of the state by 2007.
The corps also must pay Blackner $20,000 to cover the cost of the case. In return, Blackner's clients, which include Pasco County activist Clay Colson, agreed to drop their lawsuit.
"Both sides are satisfied with the resolution of the case," said Andrew Doyle, the Department of Justice lawyer who represented the corps.
The corps issues several kinds of federal permits for dredging or filling wetlands. The lawsuit concerns one kind, nationwide permits, which are issued for projects that will affect less than 3 acres of wetlands.
In their suit, Blackner's clients say the Jacksonville office of the corps issues an average of 2,000 nationwide permits a year in Florida, but they contend those permits get very little scrutiny because they are presumed to have little impact on the environment.
For instance, the Corps of Engineers approved a nationwide permit for Wal-Mart to build a new superstore in New Smyrna Beach because its application said the project would destroy less than an acre of wetlands on the 29-acre site. But later, state water management officials discovered 10 acres of wetlands would be wiped out.
Instead of rescinding the nationwide permit, the corps' Jacksonville district office required Wal-Mart to seek a second kind of permit that would allow destruction of another 8 acres of wetlands.
That decision by the Corps of Engineers "was the tipping point" in pushing Wetlands Alert Inc. and Floridians for Environmental Accountability and Reform to sue the corps in May 2002, Blackner said.
In April the corps rejected the second Wal-Mart permit application, noting that if the store were to be built there, "the private benefit to be derived would not outweigh the direct and indirect effect to the aquatic environment."
A corps official said the lawsuit did not affect the agency's decision to deny Wal-Mart's application.