Millions of Tax $ Spent to Fill Lake Okeechobee Tributary
Posted October 3, 2012 09:20 am
By
Stephanie Carroll Carson
TALLAHASSEE, FL - About $3 million of Florida taxpayers' money will be spent to fill Fisheating Creek in Glades County, a major tributary of Lake Okeechobee.
The state is using sand for the job provided by Lykes Brothers, an agribusiness upstream on the creek. A lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Florida Department of Environmental Protection challenges the agency's approval of Lykes Brothers' request to have the channel blocked to navigation.
Rhonda Roff is a board member for Save Our Creeks, which is a plaintiff in the case.
Swimming hole along Fisheating Creek
"It is a slap in the face that the public is having to spend this amount of money, in the name of restoration, which is going to prevent people from using that very resource."
Lykes Brothers has been trying to block Fisheating
Creek since 1989, when the company placed fallen cypress
trees across the navigation channel and posted "no
trespassing" signs. A jury later ruled the creek was
navigable, and said Lykes could not prevent public
access to the water. The state restored the channel in
2010 to reopen it for boaters and wildlife.
David Guest, an attorney for
Earthjustice who is representing the plaintiffs in
the lawsuit, points out that now, two years later,
the state is using tax dollars to undo the restoration
project and keep boaters out.
"It's obviously got Lykes' fingerprints all over it. The
state builds roads across the marsh so that they can
transport sand from Lykes Brothers' property to fill the
channel and stop people from using it."
Environmental groups such as Save Our Creeks also
question the impact that blocking the navigation channel
would have on water quality and wildlife.
Links and Photos added by the Observer
Fishing Hole at Fisheating Creek: B A Bowen Photography