The Solicitor General of the United States, today recommended that the U.S. Supreme Court NOT hear a challenge by the South Florida Water Management District (District) to the Clean Water Act case that it lost to Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. Friends and the Tribe won at both the US District and Appeals court levels.

The case involves the pumping of polluted water into the Everglades by the South Florida Water Management District. The S-9 is a pump station which back pumps polluted water from the C-11 canal basin in Broward County into the Everglades. The discharge has caused severe damage in the Everglades especially in Water Conservation Area 3A - home to the small Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. The Federal District Court held that a federal pollution discharge permit is required. Such a permit would set strict limits on how much pollution the District can discharge.

In its 20 page Brief to the United States Supreme Court, the Federal Government suggested that the District and Appellate Court's decisions will not unduly burden the District's water management activities. Such has been the opinion of Friends of the Everglades from the beginning of this litigation. That the district should even consider their obligations to South Florida's environment a burden has been perplexing. That they have funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to attempt to squirm around their responsibilities through unconscionable legal battles is reprehensible

The US Solicitor General, Theodore B. Olsen, didn't accept one single legal theory put forth by the District's top legal advisors perhaps affording cover to the Governing Board as misled by bad legal advise. All too often it is the unwitting taxpayers and small under funded environmental organizations who must pay the bill for fighting or defending such bad advise. Perhaps now they will reconsider the wisdom of denying the problems and start working on the solutions.

This opinion comes at a time when the State has been flexing its political muscle to delay Everglades clean-up and restoration - amending the Everglades Forever Act to allow at least a decade of further pollution. Those organizations that believe the state cannot be trusted to plan past the next election cycle when it come to the environment welcome the federal scrutiny Clean Water Act compliance will require.

The Supreme Court may still review the case but this opinion from the Solicitor General significantly decreases that likelihood.