TALLAHASSEE - A coalition of environmental groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service on Tuesday, saying the agency has failed to protect certain sea turtles from longline fishing.
The suit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Florida Wildlife Federation in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee claims the fisheries service's failure to restrict such fishing has led to "needless injury and deaths of hundreds of threatened and endangered leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles" in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
Longline fishing is the practice of setting many hooks on lines that sometimes are miles long.
The fisheries service acknowledges that turtles can die on longlines and said it is working to reduce the hooking of turtles. But it disputes the coalition's assertion of how many deaths are caused by the technique.
The agency says federal observers have determined that the majority of hooked or entangled turtles - perhaps as many as 90 percent - are released alive, although their long-term survival rate isn't known.
The environmental groups cite an opinion put out by the agency itself in 2001 that said continued longline fishing jeopardized the survival of the two turtle species.
A spokeswoman for the NMFS, Susan Buchanan, said the agency has been working since 2001 to get fishermen to switch the type of bait and hooks they use. "The U.S. ... longline fleet is becoming more turtle-friendly," Buchanan said.
Suit cites health problems at 4 Miami-Dade schools
MIAMI - Miami-Dade's teachers union filed a lawsuit against the school district, claiming problems such as mold, rodents, and sewer gas seepage have made students and teachers sick at four schools.
The United Teachers of Dade's suit says the union will seek to close down the schools if they are not cleaned up by the time summer school ends.
The suit, filed Monday in Circuit Court, refers to North Miami Senior High, Hammocks Middle in West Kendall, and Lakeview Elementary and Norland Senior High in northwest Miami-Dade County.
