October, 06 2008, 04:00pm EDT
Environmentalists Score Phosphate Mine Victory
Project that would have destroyed 480 acres of wetlands halted
BRADENTON, Fla.
Earthjustice scored a major win today when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a permit that gave Mosaic Phosphate the go-ahead to destroy 480 acres of high-quality wetlands within the Peace River watershed.
"This permit suspension is a victory for the people of Manatee County and everyone who lives in the Peace River basin" said Earthjustice attorney Monica Reimer. "This establishes that the permit should never have been granted. It didn't comply with the law."
Earthjustice's lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sierra Club, ManaSota-88, People for Protecting Peace River (3PR), the Gulf Restoration Network, and Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida contended that the Corps "arbitrarily and capriciously" failed to critically review Mosaic's spurious claim that a man-made landscape, re-created after strip mining, functions as well as, or better than, a natural landscape.
In its letter, the Corps said: "The Corps has determined that it is in the public interest to revisit the analysis in support of the permit decision."
On September 16, Manatee County commissioners debated whether to give Mosaic the land use approvals it needs before it begins mining. One of Mosaic's claims in support of its application was that the federal permit proved that the mining created no environmental risks.
"The Corps' permit suspension serves as a vindication for the Manatee County Commission, which acted properly in refusing to rubber stamp the Altman mine proposal," said Frank Jackalone of the Sierra Club.
Since the 1800's, strip-mining has devastated well over 200,000 acres in the Peace River watershed, which includes the destruction of over 35,000 acres of wetlands and 101.2 miles of streams. Of great concern is the fact that Mosaic is currently seeking permits to mine 34,551 more acres within that same watershed. Environmental groups contend that no permits should be issued until the Corps performs a regional environmental impacts study that takes a hard look at all the mining Mosaic intends to conduct in the future.
The Altman Tract has a mosaic of high-quality, interrelated wetlands and uplands, all with important native vegetation and only minor man-made impacts. It has deep marshes, shallow marshes, wet prairie, bay swamps, and mixed forested wetlands. Water quality on the tract is very good, and the tract is used by many threatened and rare species, including the Florida Scrub Jay, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snake, Florida sandhill crane, Florida mouse, and Southeastern American kestrel.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Princeton Experts Speak Out Against Trump Boat Strikes as 'Illegal' and Destabilizing 'Murders'
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Multiple scholars at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs on Wednesday spoke out against the Trump administration's campaign of bombing suspected drug boats, with one going so far as to call them acts of murder.
Eduardo Bhatia, a visiting professor and lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton, argued that it was "unequivocal" that the attacks on on purported drug boats are illegal.
"They violate established maritime law requiring interdiction and arrest before the use of lethal force, and they represent a grossly disproportionate response by the US," stressed Bhatia, the former president of the Senate of Puerto Rico. "Deploying an aircraft carrier and US Southern Command assets to destroy small yolas and wooden boats is not only unlawful, it is an absurd escalation that undermines regional security and diplomatic stability."
Deborah Pearlstein, director of the Program in Law and Public Policy at Princeton, said that she has been talking with "military operations lawyers, international law experts, national security legal scholars," and other experts, and so far has found none who believe the administration's boat attacks are legal.
Pearlstein added that the illegal strikes are "a symptom of the much deeper problem created by the purging of career lawyers on the front end, and the tacit promise of presidential pardons on the back end," the result of which is that "the rule of law loses its deterrent effect."
Visiting professor Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, argued that it was not right to describe the administration's actions as war crimes given that a war, by definition, "requires a level of sustained hostilities between two organized forces that is not present with the drug cartels."
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Some observers have noted similarities between the Trump administration's goal of keeping boat strike survivors out of US courtrooms and War on Terror policies and practices—first implemented during the George W. Bush administration—such as extraordinary rendition, the use of Central Intelligence Agency "black sites," and imprisonment of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba—designed to circumvent the law.
While the Trump administration previously sent migrants captured during its crackdown to Guantánamo, sending boat strike survivors to the lockup allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus, a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision.
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