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Thread: Your pond may sue you

  1. #1
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    Default Your pond may sue you

    Streams and lakes have rights, a US county decided. Now they’re suing Florida

    Isabella Kaminski
    Sat, May 1, 2021

    A network of streams, lakes and marshes in Florida is suing a developer and the state to try to stop a housing development from destroying them.

    The novel lawsuit was filed on Monday in Orange county on behalf of the waterways under a “rights of nature” law passed in November. It is the largest US municipality to adopt such a law to date.

    The listed plaintiffs are Wilde Cypress Branch, Boggy Branch, Crosby Island Marsh, Lake Hart and Lake Mary Jane.

    Laws protecting the rights of nature are growing throughout the world, from Ecuador to Uganda, and have been upheld in courts in India, Colombia and Bangladesh. But this is the first time anyone has tried to enforce them in the US.

    The Orange county law secures the rights of its waterways to exist, to flow, to be protected against pollution and to maintain a healthy ecosystem. It also recognizes the authority of citizens to file enforcement actions on their behalf.

    The suit, filed in the ninth judicial circuit court of Florida, claims a proposed 1,900-acre housing development by Beachline South Residential LLC would destroy more than 63 acres of wetlands and 33 acres of streams by filling and polluting them, as well as 18 acres of wetlands where stormwater detention ponds are being built.

    In addition to seeking to protect the waterways’ intrinsic rights, the suit claims the development would disrupt the area’s hydrology and violate the human right to clean water because of pollution runoff from new roads and buildings

    Chuck O’Neal, president of campaign group Speak Up Wekiva who will be representing the wetlands in court, told the Guardian he looks forward to giving them a voice. “Our waterways and the wildlife they support have been systematically destroyed by poorly planned suburban sprawl. They have suffered in silence and without representation, until now.”

    The housing development, known as the “Meridian Parks Remainder Project”, needs a development permit from the city of Orlando and a dredge-and-fill permit from the Florida department of environmental protection to proceed. The suit seeks to block these from being issued.

    Thomas Linzey, senior legal counsel at the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights who helped secure Orange county’s rights of nature law last year, said: “Given the rampant development that’s occurred in Florida over the past 30 years, and the power struggle between the state government and local government over these issues, there are multiple grounds for a court to hold that the development cannot proceed as proposed.”

    The center calculates that more than 9m acres of wetlands have been destroyed in Florida since it became a state in 1845. They say this has had profound impacts on water quality and species, as well as flood control.

    Since the success of Orange county’s charter amendment, which was approved overwhelmingly by voters, the Florida Rights of Nature Network has received requests for assistance from citizens in municipalities around the state.

    The case echoes global developments, such as a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Vilcabamba River in Ecuador, which pioneered the establishment of nature rights in that country’s constitution. The court ruled in favor of the river in 2011 and ordered damage caused to it by a road-widening project to be remediated.

    In 2017, an Indian court declared that the Ganges and Yamuna rivers as well as Himalayan glaciers, lakes and forests should be given legal personhood in an attempt to protect them from environmental damage.
    https://news.yahoo.com/streams-lakes...093001323.html

  2. #2
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    I wonder if Wateree will step up then and throw something at Charlotte.

  3. #3
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    Maybe the Delta will throw it upstream as well.

  4. #4
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    I was in the Palm Bay/Melbourne area of Florida back in December. Hadn’t seen this area in almost 10 years. Places I used to duck hunt there, are gone. Overgrown with invasive willows, housing developments, etc. The guy I used to duck hunt with, took me out on his airboat to show me how much has changed. It’s very sad really. How much developers are destroying Florida, in their developments, water diversion methods, invasive plant/tree species introductions.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    I wonder if Wateree will step up then and throw something at Charlotte.
    It's awful. Go take a ride on the reservoir where the Catawba dumps in and it will make you want to cry.
    Quote Originally Posted by walt4dun View Post
    Monsters... Be damned if I'd ever be taken alive by the likes of faggot musslims.
    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    I am an equal opportunity hater.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    I wonder if Wateree will step up then and throw something at Charlotte.
    Yea Sugar creek drains most of Charlotte. Crazy the hundreds of basketballs and such I remember seeing in the flood plains as a kid.

  7. #7
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    I knew my pond was up to no good.

  8. #8
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    Blythewood
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    If mine tries that I'll shoot it

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by BEAR View Post
    I was in the Palm Bay/Melbourne area of Florida back in December. Hadn’t seen this area in almost 10 years. Places I used to duck hunt there, are gone. Overgrown with invasive willows, housing developments, etc. The guy I used to duck hunt with, took me out on his airboat to show me how much has changed. It’s very sad really. How much developers are destroying Florida, in their developments, water diversion methods, invasive plant/tree species introductions.
    ^THIS. Lennar and DR Horton are destroying Florida one subdivision at a time. South Florida specifically, is going to be one giant parking lot in 20 more years and that not an exaggeration. The yankees can't move here fast enough.
    "Hunt today to kill tomorrow." - Ron Jolly

  10. #10
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    How long before the animals we hunt will be able to sue us through some peta loving yankee lawyer or animal rights group?

    If they ever get around to trees then I'll be screwed.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by ADP View Post
    How long before the animals we hunt will be able to sue us through some peta loving yankee lawyer or animal rights group?

    If they ever get around to trees then I'll be screwed.
    No need for paper products in the near future. Digital or die.

    One of the things that you can most looking forward to when the Muslim's take over, after communism fails as usual, will be wiping your own ass with your hands...

  12. #12
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    Can the trees sue the beavers?

  13. #13
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    TheRez
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    one need ask the Lorax.
    We gave you Corn,you gave us clap,bad trade.

  14. #14
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    you cant any more. he's racist.
    Ugh. Stupid people piss me off.

  15. #15
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    and I peed in my pond yesterday just to let him know I meant business...
    Ugh. Stupid people piss me off.

  16. #16
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    I thought the Clean Water act made it illegal to fill in wetlands for any reason without a permit? Isn't the USA CoE's responsible for permitting?

    If that were the case then why in the hell are they issuing so many permits? Or is there a back door method that companies are using to get around that?

    Lots of questions there, I know, but this baffles me.

    Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Delta in a nutshell: Breeding grounds + small wetlands + big blocks of grass cover + predator removal + nesting structures + enough money to do the job= plenty of ducks to keep everyone smiling!

    "For those that will fight for it...FREEDOM...has a flavor the protected shall never know."
    -L/Cpl Edwin L. "Tim" Craft

  17. #17
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    When we added onto our building a couple years ago we had to buy wetland credits due to a little low spot where we wanted a parking lot

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