A federal district judge has rejected a motion by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the agency’s failure to properly regulate sewage disposal is devastating the state’s manatee population.
Judge Carlos Mendoza issued the decision Sept. 18 in the Central District of Florida. The plaintiff group, Bear Warriors United, called the ruling a legal victory in the group’s quest to stem the loss of seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon area, which is a major food source for the state’s manatees
The Florida manatee was originally listed as an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973. But the protection was downgraded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017 as the marine mammal’s status was elevated from endangered to threatened. This occurred despite a loss of food and habitat due to development and pollution from septic tanks and municipal sewage systems, according to environmental groups.
“We are shocked and ecstatic that we won this round in our lawsuit against the state of Florida,” Katrina Shadix, executive director of Bear Warriors United said in a recent social media post. “This lawsuit and the death of thousands of manatees has everything to do with overdevelopment.”
Tallahassee attorney Lesley Blackner, a member of the plaintiff’s legal team, called the current state of Florida regulatory system a failure.
“There’s a huge amount of documentation that Florida’s handling of sewage has destroyed the northern Indian River Lagoon …” Blackner told the Florida Record. “The science is very clear now that nitrogen causes eutrophication and the Indian lagoon is … hyper-eutrophic”
The FDEP needs to accelerate efforts to phase out septic tanks in the region and upgrade wastewater treatment, she said.
“Our position is they need to retrofit and upgrade these sewage treatment plants along the northern Indian lagoon,” Blackner said, adding that sewage eutrophication is killing water bodies around the state..
Nitrogen from sewage discharges and other pollution has led to a die-off of seagrass in recent years, with an estimated 2,000 manatees dying from starvation in 2021 and 2022 combined, according to Miami Water Keeper.
The plaintiff’s federal lawsuit alleges that the regulatory conduct by the FDEP amounts to an unlawful “taking” under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The complaint calls on the court to compel the agency to stop authorizing the release of nitrogen from septic and wastewater plants into the northern section of Indian Lagoon.
The FDEP made several arguments to the district court about why the plaintiff’s lawsuit should be dismissed, including allegations that Bear Warriors United failed to show it suffered injuries linked to the agency’s conduct, that FDEP’s conduct cannot be the “proximate cause” of the alleged harm to the plaintiff and that the lawsuit flies in the face of the 11th Amendment.
In his ruling on the motion to dismiss, Judge Mendoza rejected the arguments and found that the plaintiff’s alleged injury can be redressed by the agency, meaning the litigation originally filed in 2022 can go forward.
In the wake of the plaintiff’s lawsuit, Florida approved a law that bars new sewage treatment and disposal systems along the northern section of Indian Lagoon when publicly owned or investor-owned sewage systems are available, according to the judge’s ruling. In areas where no such centralized systems are available, the law requires that sewage treatment systems achieve at least 65% reductions in nitrogen.
But Mendoza concluded that the law did not moot the Bear Warriors United arguments, since the new law only applied to new installations and not existing sewage disposal setups.