Rolling back Rick Scott’s lousy environmental record

Rick Scott’s last attempt to do a favor for Florida’s sugar industry has failed.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Federico Moreno rejected the attempt by the

South Florida Water Management District to vacate the court order that maintains federal oversight of the Everglades cleanup. Moreno’s ruling amounted to a complete victory for the environmental groups that argued against the district.

The former governor, now Florida’s junior senator, wasn’t in the courtroom. Scott’s name wasn’t on any of the court papers. But his hands were all over the case.

Sugar growers have been among Scott’s biggest political patrons. For years, they have wanted relief from the settlement of the 1988 federal lawsuit demanding that Florida stop polluting federal lands — namely Everglades National Park. Through a consent decree, a federal judge ensures that the state is complying with the 1994 Everglades Forever Act.

On Nov. 8, the water management district’s governing board voted 6-3 to free the state from that federal oversight. The board’s vote to extend a lease of land for a new reservoir that will handle discharges from Lake Okeechobee got more attention, but the vote on the consent decree posed much greater risk to the environment.

Simply put, the settlement requires water flowing into the Everglades to be clean enough that it doesn’t harm wildlife. The chief pollutant is phosphorous from fertilizer, which is carried in runoff from sugar farms south of Lake Okeechobee.

Scientists have determined that, to be safe, water must contain no more than 10 parts per billion of phosphorus. The Everglades Forever Act commits Florida to meeting that standard. Though runoff has become much cleaner over the last quarter-century, it isn’t clean enough.

At the urging of sugar growers, the Legislature also twice has extended the deadline for meeting that standard and weakened requirements on growers to pay for their share. The first favor happened under Jeb Bush. The second happened under Scott.

None of Scott’s appointees to the water management district board had any background in conservation. In running for the Senate, however, Scott had cast himself as a friend of the environment. So the vote on the consent decree didn’t come until two days after the election — with almost no public notice.

Fortunately, a coalition of environmental groups mobilized in opposition. A lawyer for EarthJustice, which has had other successes in Florida courts, argued against the district, which claimed that the consent decree actually made it harder to help the Everglades.

Scott Zucker is a vice president with Audubon Everglades, one of the plaintiffs. He said the district wanted to focus on water quantity when the issue is water quality. “If the water going to the Everglades isn’t clean,” Zucker said, “damage still happens.”

Though Moreno allowed the district to refile the case, Zucker is “optimistic” that it won’t happen. Gov. Ron DeSantis will have appointed eight of the nine board members after the next few weeks. His first two picks reflect his pledge to protect the Everglades.

The consent decree and lease extension votes weren’t the only bad decisions by Scott’s appointees. They have supported a wasteful plan to store water underground. That idea also came from the sugar industry, which wants to avoid losing land to conservation.

DeSantis takes over amid general pushback against Florida’s anti-environment politics. The Florida Wildlife Federation has challenged the lease extension, which went to an entity of West Palm Beachbased Florida Crystals. The federation alleges that the action was illegal because of the law in 2017 authorizing the land for a reservoir.

Meanwhile, the state continues to defy the 2014 constitutional amendment ordering the Legislature to purchase environmentally sensitive land. Plaintiffs, again with EarthJustice legal representation, went to court. They claim that legislators have diverted the designated money from real estate transaction fees to other expenses.

Last June, a Tallahassee judge ruled for the plaintiffs. Naturally, the Legislature — which has resisted every amendment it didn’t support — appealed, predictably calling it an “abuse of judicial authority.” The plaintiffs will file their response to the appeal this week.

Environmental groups hope that the state will reach a political tipping point, with the public understanding that Florida’s economic future depends on a healthy environment.