By Robert P. King, The Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Armed with a new federal court ruling, environmentalists sued this week to stop water managers' longtime practice of pumping sugar farm runoff into Lake Okeechobee.

The groups Friends of the Everglades and Fishermen Against Destruction of the Environment are demanding that the South Florida Water Management District stop polluting the lake with pumps near Belle Glade and South Bay.

The groups also want a judge to require federal pollution permits for the pumps, which could require strict deadlines for cleaning the runoff.

The groups filed the suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami.

The suit comes two months after a federal appellate court ruled that district pumps near Weston are violating the Clean Water Act by dumping pollution into the Everglades. The court rejected the district's arguments that its pumps don't cause pollution but merely move it around.

District board members are expected to decide today whether to appeal the February ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Water managers fear they could be required to get federal permits for all their myriad pumps and floodgates -- which they call a needless expense that would take money from cleanups.

The district won support Monday from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative group in California that called the Broward decision a threat to water boards nationwide.

"Local activities of this type were never intended to be regulated under the Clean Water Act," wrote Frank Shepherd, managing attorney of the foundation's Miami office.

bob_king@pbpost.com