Florida´s Waters: Significant Cases in the Works

Originally published First Quarter, 2005

Environmental advocacy groups and citizens have been in a litigation frenzy of late over the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (FDEP) alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and related state law and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to call FDEP on the carpet about the alleged violations. One suit challenges the wastewater permitting program for animal feeding operations (AFOs) in state court (the CAFO case). Another has challenged the state’s Identification of Impaired Waters Rule (IWR) in federal court as a change to Florida’s water quality standards (WQS) (the IWR case). The third, using the prior two cases for support, has challenged Florida’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program delegation as a whole, seeking to force EPA to revoke delegation (the NPDES case). These plaintiffs’ groups have had at least initial success in the