CLEWISTON, Fla. — The U.S Army Corps of Engineers and numerous environmental nongovernmental organizations won a major lawsuit in their fight for Everglades restoration on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta.
This case revolves around a 2021 lawsuit filed by the sugar industry in which it claimed the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir, the keystone restoration project to store and treat water before sending it south to the Everglades, would deprive them of water that they felt it owned.
This claim stemmed from how water savings clause relates to water loss from reasons outside the scope of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). In this case, the water loss came from a necessary lowering of the Lake Okeechobee due to safety concerns from the previously ailing Herbet Hoover Dike. That dike has since been repaired and improved.
The sugar industry believed that the water savings clause serves as an insurance policy for water users against any unidentified future harm.
The law states this savings clause only applies to water diverted by projects in CERP and does not draw a connection between the water that was removed under the former Lake Okeechobee manual (LORS08 – not a CERP Project) and the EAA Reservoir (a CERP project).
Co-founder of Captains for Clean Water Daniel Andrews spoke on their court win on Wednesday.
"It gives us a sense of hope that these estuaries that are still suffering what happened in 2018 can begin to recover,” said Capt. Andrews. “And not have to worries about this 3,4-billion-dollar tax funded project being highjacked for irrigation supply.”
The EAA Reservoir is currently under construction, and once fully online will reduce the number of damaging discharges to the Caloosahatchee estuary and increase the amount water sent south. It will also build more resilience into the greater Everglades system.
