By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — In a case that started after a dramatic increase in manatee deaths, a federal judge has rejected a lawsuit aimed at requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take another look at water-quality standards in the Indian River Lagoon.
U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza last week issued a 23-page decision that sided with the EPA in a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the Save the Manatee Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife.
The lawsuit came after a record 1,100 manatees died in 2021 in Florida, many because a lack of seagrass — a key food source — led to starvation. The most deaths, 358, were in Brevard County, which includes a large part of the Indian River Lagoon.
The environmental groups, represented by the Earthjustice legal organization, sought to require the EPA to undertake what is known as “consultation” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service about water-quality standards in the lagoon. That would include looking again at standards approved in 2013.
Florida developed the standards, which needed approval from the EPA under the federal Clean Water Act, Mendoza wrote.
In 2021, the environmental groups notified the EPA that they intended to sue because the standards did not adequately protect manatees, which are classified by the federal government as a threatened species.The groups said the EPA needed to start a consultation process with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Later, the groups also called for consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service because of concerns about threatened or endangered species such as green turtles, loggerhead turtles and smalltooth sawfish, according to Mendoza’s ruling.
The EPA, however, did not move forward with consultation. That resulted in the lawsuit, which alleged violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.
“Manatees and other ESA-protected species in the Indian River Lagoon are suffering and will continue to suffer until water quality in the lagoon improves,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiffs therefore ask this court to compel EPA to reinitiate consultation with the (Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries) services to protect ESA-listed species that depend on the lagoon’s fragile habitat, as the Endangered Species Act requires.”
But Mendoza wrote last week that the EPA argued the problems stemmed from Florida’s enforcement of the water-quality standards — not the standards themselves. Siding with the EPA, Mendoza said he needed to look at whether “new information reveals effects” of the 2013 standards that are different than what had previously been considered.
“Plaintiffs have not shown that the Indian River Lagoon’s current impairment constitutes new information on the effects of the water quality standards because the parties agree that the 2013 water quality standards have not been achieved by Florida,” the Orlando-based judge wrote.
Also, he wrote that the environmental groups did not show that the EPA’s actions “were arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
The ruling came after Mendoza last month refused to dismiss a separate lawsuit alleging that Florida has violated the Endangered Species Act because of sewage discharges into the Indian River Lagoon that have helped lead to manatee deaths.
Also last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed expanding designations of “critical habitat” for Florida manatees in various parts of the state.
After the record number of deaths in 2021, Florida had 800 manatee deaths in 2022, before the number dropped to 555 in 2023, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. The state had 462 manatee deaths this year as of Sept. 20.
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