String Of EPA Legal Losses On Everglades No Fluke

Latest Stinging Court Ruling Cites EPA Regional Office Clean Water Abdication

Washington, DC — A long series of federal court rulings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been derelict in protecting the water quality of the Everglades is prompting calls for a probe of the agency’s regional operations. The most recent federal court decision takes EPA to task for repeatedly violating the very Clean Water Act that it is supposed to administer.

On July 29, 2008, Miami U.S. District Judge Alan Gold excoriated EPA, finding that the agency had shirked its duty to enforce basic water quality standards and, in so doing, “violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades” and “acted arbitrarily and capriciously.” This is only the latest in a long series of cases stretching back more than a decade that have all gone against EPA.