Earth Day 2014

written by Sr. Patricia Siemen

Happy Earth Day 2014!

We at the Center for Earth Jurisprudence are celebrating Earth Day in a variety of forums this year. Two weeks ago (to avoid scheduling conflicts at the Barry Law School), CEJ participated in hosting Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, who spoke to the law school community on the concept of “Creation Care.”  CEJ also has a presence at the Barry University main campus Earth Day activities on Tuesday, April 22.

I will also be speaking at a Winter Park Earth Day event, and then joining, via internet, the international community in celebrating International Mother Earth Day as the United Nations General Assembly presents its third Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President John Ashe will preside. Linda Sheehan from the Earth Law Center will be moderating the panel, which will discuss the implementation of the rights of nature and other strategies consistent with CEJ’s approaches to achieve Earth-centered public policies—and the cultural changes which support these governance changes. We invite you to check out these international initiatives.

Lots of fun and educational Earth Day events occurred this weekend. In keeping with CEJ’s commitment to the rights of Florida’s springs to be healthy, we continue to monitor and educate on the Springs Protection Bill wending its way through the Florida Senate—but with zero traction in the House. The outcome looks very dire as the proposed legislation continues to be gutted of any significant mandate to insist that the water has a right to be freed of waste and pollution. Nor does the current legislations insist upon a water budget to allocate sufficient water to the springs and rivers so they can be healthy—and so we learn to live responsibly within nature’s limits.

Continuing that theme, we are pleased to promote Equinox Documentaries’ forthcoming film, Hidden Secrets of Florida’s Springs, which will be released and made available on PBS stations soon.

Wherever you live, make sure to take time on Earth Day to recognize Earth’s gifts, and our humble place in the web of life. Earth is an unending source of wonder, awe and resiliency. However you say thank you, take the time to savor nature’s abundance and commit to acting responsibly for the sake of the common good. Now go, and get outside!

Suwannee Cypresses (photo by Jane Goddard)

A Heart for Earth

Heart Pods (photo by D. Sharon Pruitt)

written by Sr. Patricia Siemen

Valentine’s Day in the United States is a time to celebrate what we love—and is usually focused on rekindling our relationships with our romantic partners. This year I invite us to stretch our love to include Earth herself. The single, comprehensive Earth community provides us our life’s sustenance, our very home, and is the context for all the relationships that are essential for our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Clearly Earth deserves heart-felt protection!

My own heart was opened more deeply when I attended the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature Summit in Quito and Otavalo, Ecuador, last month. Ecuador is the only country in the world that has constitutionally protected Nature’s rights to exist, persist, maintain, regenerate, and flourish. For five days I met with over 60 Earth jurisprudence leaders, international environmental activists, and indigenous leaders who spoke about the devastation happening to their lands, their people, and their cultures.  Their stories were stories of resistance and hope, stories highlighting how the law has failed to protect their communities.

The Summit concluded in Quito, with over 400 participants attending the world’s first Tribunal on the Rights of Nature, chaired by the internationally renowned Dr. Vandana Shiva of India. Eight international cases of violations of the Rights of Nature were presented to the Tribunal in an evidentiary hearing forum. After a day-long hearing, the Tribunal determined that each of the cases (which can be found at therightsofnature.org) would advance to the next World Tribunal on the Rights of Nature to be held in Lima, Peru, in December 2014.

Then I returned home and my heart expanded as I experienced the power, beauty, and solidarity of folks like the Silver Springs Alliance, dedicated to protecting the health of the Silver River, and the Preserve Brevard members. But soon my heart clinched again as this week the St. Johns Water Management District approved the Niagara Bottling permit allowing Niagara to double its pumping from the Floridan Aquifer to nearly a million gallons a day–in direct contrast to already low flows of the Wekiva River Basin and neighboring springsheds.  This approval was granted over an incredible amount of citizen resistance and registered public comments opposing the permit.

Our work to love and protect the natural systems that are our home areas expands daily. I used to live in Southwest Florida. Now an oil boom and hydro-fracking threat is taking place in that corner of the state. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently approved a proposed oil well located approximately three-quarters of a mile west of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently nearly 115,000 acres of mineral rights have been leased by a Texas company from Collier Resources.  This lease, which runs for five years and can be extended, includes large portions of the Florida Panther Wildlife Refuge, Picayune Strand State Forest, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW Lands), and even the famous Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary with some of the last old-growth cypress in our state.

The onslaught feels endless and my heart wavers at times. But as I learned from the tribal peoples in Ecuador, our role is to defend with our lives the land that sustains the community’s wellbeing. Let our hearts burn in defense of our home areas. And may we take the time to savor the natural beauty and resiliency that the land community provides us. Be still my heart, and listen. Adelante!

CEJ Attorneys Write to SJRWMD

Double & Nothing: SJRWMD Grants Niagara's Permit, Ignores the Wekiva River and Springs

CEJ Director Patricia Siemen and CEJ staff attorney Rob Williams were among numerous citizens and organizations submitting comments to the St. Johns River Water Management District, raising serious concerns about Niagara Bottling’s request to nearly double its water withdrawals from 484,000 gallons per day to 910,000 gallons per day and shift its target from the Upper Floridan Aquifer to the Lower Floridan Aquifer.

Williams and Siemen’s February 10, 2014, letter pointed out that the Wekiva River and its associated springs–which will be impacted by any increased water withdrawals–are already below the minimum flow levels established by the District itself, and the District’s own rules require that a consumptive use permit should not be issued if it will cause a surface water  course to fall  below the minimum flow.

Williams and Siemen’s letter also challenged the analysis Niagara submitted in support of its application for the increase, pointing out that the analysis itself is flawed and that it is also inconsistent with recent information from the Central Florida Water Initiative.  They cited the District’s own studies and reports to show that the Wekiva Basin springs and the Wekiva River are already suffering ecological harm as a result of lack of water, and called upon the District to follow its own rules to protect them from further damage.

On February 11, 2014, the District granted Niagara’s request to double the amount of water it  pumps from the aquifer.  

From the letter:

We believe that this permit application raises a question of profound importance to the current and future citizens of our state. Simply put, will the water management district act to protect the ecological integrity of the Wekiva Basin and the Wekiva River?

. . . .

The facts set out in this letter are already well known to you and the Board from our extensive prior correspondence. They have not been disputed and, since they largely are derived from the district’s own data, it seems difficult to see how they could be challenged. In response to our numerous letters, we received a response from Deputy Secretary Drew Bartlett, dated November 8, 2013. Although Mr. Bartlett acknowledged that Rock and Wekiwa Springs are projected to fall below the MFLs by 2015[, he states] that “district staff has made a reasonable case that the violation of MFLs for Wekiwa and Rock Springs may not occur by 2015 in the absence of increased withdrawals” (emphasis added). Now, three months later, the Board is on the brink of authorizing an increase in withdrawals.

We have repeatedly asked you to implement a recovery plan for the Wekiva basin as required by the statute. To date no such plan has been implemented. We have also asked that you declare a water shortage and implement conservation measures as provided under the district’s rule. We have been told by Mr. Bartlett that in response to our request to follow the law, the district intends to repeal the portion of the MFL rule requiring the phased water restrictions. Today we again ask that you protect the precious treasure of the Wekiva River, one of only two nationally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers in our state, by denying Niagara’s permit application as required by Chapter 40C-2.301(5)(a).

Read the full text of the letter here.

CEJ Attorneys Write to Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Wekiva River

On November 20, 2013, CEJ director Patricia Siemen and CEJ staff attorney Rob Williams responded to a letter from Deputy Secretary Drew Bartlett of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection concerning the ongoing degradation of the Wekiva River and its associated springs.

Their response challenged assertions in Bartlett’s letter dated November 8, 2013, claiming that the minimum flow levels (MFLs) for the Wekiva River and its springs were being met, with the exception of Palm Spring; that water restrictions were no longer necessary; and that significant reductions in annual nutrient loading would be achieved under the Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP).

Williams and Siemen’s letter points out that according to the St. Johns River Water Management District’s own data,  the springs and the Wekiva River have been and remain under the minimum levels required to avoid significant harm to the Wekiva Basin ecosystem, and the failure of the Department to implement water restrictions when called for by the scientific data.

Williams and Siemen also challenged the methodology and effectiveness of the BMAP, which reduces Total Nitrogen loading by only 2% when an overall reduction of 80% total nutrient loading is what is necessary to achieve pollution reduction goals.

From the text of the letter:

Both of these processes [minimum flow levels and pollution reduction goals] and the accompanying charade of public participation create the illusion of environmental protection and compliance with the law. However, Nature is not so easily fooled. The protection of groundwater recharge to Wekiwa Springs, Rock Springs, and the many other springs that feed the Wekiva River is crucial to the long-term health of the Wekiva Basin Ecosystem.  As the Wekiva Basin Area Task Force noted a decade ago, “simply put, if the necessary quantity and quality of recharge of groundwater to the aquifer does not occur, then the vegetative and wildlife resources of the Wekiva River Basin will not be sustained.” The “inconvenient truth” is that the River is not receiving the necessary quantity or quality of groundwater needed to sustain the Wekiva Basin Ecosystem.

We need a real plan designed to attain the target reduction of nitrate pollution to 0.35 mg/L within five years as the current law provides. We also need a recovery plan for the springs and the Wekiva River which will restore all the flow which has been lost as soon as is practicable, as required by Section 373.0421(2), Florida Statutes.

Read the full letter to Bartlett here.

Summer & Springs

Written by Sr. Patricia Siemen

“Where did the summer go?”

Are you saying that, too? Although we at CEJ are gearing up for the fall term and future programming, we brought our summer spirits together to celebrate the last of the season with a team paddle in the Thousand Islands (Banana River/Indian River Lagoon) on Labor Day evening. Thanks to Space Coast Kayaking for hosting us and knowing just where to direct us so we could experience incredible bioluminescence.

Tiny marine plankton called dinoflagellates produce light when disturbed by a paddle, a hand, or fish swimming, causing an amazing twinkling or neon-like light to appear.  It was awesome to see schools of fish flash by, and to see the twinkling go up and down one’s arm after dipping it into the warm water.

It was particularly poignant to realize we were kayaking in the northern end of the much endangered Indian River Lagoon. The southern end of the lagoon is under siege from huge amounts of pollutants flowing into it from stormwater discharge from Lake Okeechobee, septic tanks, and fertilizer runoff.

The entire lagoon – and the fish, manatees, pelicans, and other beings who live there – is struggling to survive pollution from stormwater discharge, septic tanks, and fertilizer runoff, but still generously produced its magic. Throughout the lagoon the fish, manatees, dolphins, and pelicans are dying in massive amounts. How lovely then to be greeted as we began our paddle by two gentle manatees, a rainbow dissolving, and the sky fading into dusk.

These are the experiences that renew one’s spirit to continue to fight to protect the beauty and essence of the natural world around us. We all have special and ordinary places of beauty and nourishment that sustain.

CEJ’s mission is to awaken people to nature’s inherent rights to exist and flourish, and to advance public policies that legally protect both human and nature’s rights to live and thrive in sustainable communities. Thus I found myself at the press conference with Governor Scott last week at Wekiwa Springs State Park.

Given the promo that he was going to make a major announcement about springs restoration funding, I went with interest, albeit more than a bit doubtful. I also went with a lengthy letter in hand to personally deliver to him, describing CEJ’s major concerns that nothing is actually happening–nor has anything been happening—to restore the historic flow of the Wekiva River nor to reduce the devastating nitrate pollution levels in the springs and springshed. (Read the letter here.)

Helene Spring (photo by Jane Goddard)

The press conference was mainly fluff: comments from elected leaders and directors of the Department of the Environmental Protection and several of the water management districts. I turned to someone next to me after the first several speakers and asked, “Did I miss something? What’s the news?” He shrugged and shook his head, as befuddled as I was by the lack of news.

I continued to wonder as we heard many people speak about springs restoration projects that were to begin, funded with the $10 million allocated by the Legislature, and augmented with funding from the water management districts and already strapped local governments. When it was over I asked Representative Elizabeth Porter, Lake City, what was the news? “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I didn’t hear anything new here.” She said the newsworthy item was that the allocated $10 million for springs’ recovery was being supplemented with additional funding from the Water Management Districts and local governments.

My conclusion is that this was a major public relations stunt–and the springs will still be suffering degradation except for a handful of isolated projects. What this clearly doesn’t mean is that the state agencies will actually begin to fulfill their statutory mandates to protect the springs, or that any significant shifts in springs friendly policies will be emerging.

As the Governor entered the room I had a moment to greet him.  I said I had a letter to give him about the DEP and the Water Management Districts’ lagging response to correcting the springs’ water quality and quantity. Instead of responding to my comment he looked at my name tag and saw that it said “Sister Patricia.” He began talking to me about sisters he had known while in the health care business. I responded that I was there to talk about the springs – and the moment was over.

We did deliver our letter, however, summarizing what needs to be done to restore Florida’s springs to their historic flows and radically reduce nitrate pollution. The larger transformation and remedy will be when we as a state adopt a constitutional amendment that recognizes the rights of nature—for humans and ecosystems—to exist and thrive as sustainable communities. The springs clearly are more than just “property” available for human use and consumption–or worse, as convenient waste receptacles.

And so, as we stay resilient in the struggle for ecological integrity, we wish you more days and nights paddling on the river, or fishing, or swimming, or whatever sustains your commitment to appreciate and protect the wonder and healing of nature that nourishes all of us.

Get outside and be amazed!