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Floridians have no right to bodies of water 'free of pollution,' court rules
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- emilamlom 2y agoFlorida is such a weird state. Their main income is tourism by a lot, yet the government keeps hurting their main money-maker by not taking care of their beaches and environment and, I guess, trying to be more like Texas. When the deepwater horizon oil spill happened, they didn't really clean the beaches or water that well and just dumped more sand on top of the oily film to hide it before the summer tourist season. For years afterwards, you'd always find tarballs and oil spots in the sand just a few inches down.
- quantified 2y agoDid that actually hurt the tourism?
- saxonww 2y agoIt did dip right after, but tourism by number of visitors picked up again shortly after. See e.g. figure 10.2 in https://repository.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:539161/datastream/PDF/view https://repository.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:539161/d.... The Governor's office would like you to know that tourism is record breaking, has never been better, and Florida is amazing.
- emilamlom 2y agoI don't know the actual statistics, so I can't say for sure. From what I remember, it did hurt tourism but people quickly forgot about it. The fishing/shrimping industry locally took a major hit though as far as I know. Even not considering the moral/ethical responsibility to take care of the environment, it seems incredibly risky to the state's main form of income to not take it seriously.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoYeah, without clean beaches and water, why am I vacationing there?
- dotancohen 2y ago[flagged]
- incredible1 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_Flori... The "South American" population in FL is relatively small compared to other groups, especially Caribbean. I know it's going to come off as nitpicking, but the distinction is clear.
- dotancohen 2y agoThe population may or may not be small relative to other groups (I don't know), but their impact on Florida culture is substantial. At least in the Miami area and surrounding counties.
- incredible1 2y ago[dead]
- cjrp 2y agoDisney’s the main draw for Europeans
- likeabatterycar 2y agoWhere else can you walk from Germany to Mexico?
- rbanffy 2y ago
- paxys 2y agoNot too surprising. After many decades of sensible policies which got the state to where it is today Florida is now in its "kill the golden goose" stage. In another decade or so the economy will mirror the rest of the deep south.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago> they didn't really clean the beaches or water that well and just dumped more sand on top of the oily film Is there a particular technical solution you had in mind? The world's largest bottle of Dawn soap? It was one of the worst disasters ever, they were writing the book as they went along. Sometimes the repair is worse than the event (e.g. poisoning the sea life with cleaners or dispersants). Sand is inert, so it may have been the least risky method. In fact, if you spill motor oil in your driveway, the initial recommended cleanup method is to cover it with sand or cat litter and let it soak up the oil...
- emilamlom 2y agoI'm not an ecologist, so no, I don't have a particular technical solution in mind. I'm going off of memory from living there at the time. That said, I would expect any oil company operating so close to shore to have a proper disaster preparedness plan. As I remember it, BP drug their feet fighting over who was responsible for the cleanup which made it end up being worse than it potentially could have been.
- wakawaka28 2y agoThere's only so much a company or anyone else can prepare for in advance. I don't recall much hesitation in trying to deal with the spillage. BP didn't do everything right, and I heard they harrassed some whistleblowers. Some of the chemicals they used to clear up the oil were themselves toxic. But seriously what can you expect anyone to do about such a huge disaster. It's literally an ocean-sized cleanup problem in response to a freak accident.
- tptacek 2y agoWell, that's sort of obviously true, right? Like, there's generations of legal and economic thinking around this problem? It's one of the central problems? This is what Coase was all about. Take the pristine state of nature in some location prior to human interaction, and then anything a society of humans does in that location is in some sense going to injure that state. To say you have a Constitutional right, as a resident, to forbid those injuries is essentially to say you have a veto on virtually all activity. So the question isn't whether you have a procedural right to stop pollution, it's how to negotiate the balance of competing interests.
- DrillShopper 2y agoI think it all comes down to ownership. If I own a piece of land then by virtue of that ownership I get an almost unlimited veto on what is allowed to be done to that piece of land. So if I own a piece of land then I have a right to forbid pollution on it. If a piece of land is owned by the state then in some sense all state residents have some say in how it is used. They have the right to petition the government (lobby, etc), and I think they should have a right to determine, through the representative government process, what happens to that land. That doesn't mean that each individual person gets their own veto, but that the voters of the state have a right to weigh in on how a piece of land is being used and have the right to elect politicians or approve ballot measures expressing their intent.
- tptacek 2y agoYes, but the issue in the story is the belief of some residents that they have a procedurally enforceable right to prevent water pollution. What could that even mean? We have a pretty standard mental image of "water pollution" (most of us are thinking of a plume of black fluid spreading through a lake) but all sorts of things are polluting, including organic agriculture. And, like, it's obviously not the case that the counter- right exists, either; you don't have a right to utilize public resources. There's a balance of competing equities, and we have a whole system of government, with a legislature to do fact-finding and establish rules, an executive to do enforcement, and a judiciary to sanity-check the rules and make sure they're enforced consistently. It works... pretty badly, but so does every other system you can imagine. To claim a "right" in the sense meant by the petitioners in the article is to say that there is a rule that exists above most of that system of governance that gives the judiciary the power to overrule all elected authority in the name of preserving clean water. No? Which water is clean and which isn't is a pretty basic function of government.
- kristjansson 2y ago> The Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that although 83% of voters in Titusville approved a 2022 initiative establishing the right to clean water, the city in Brevard County couldn’t enact it because of a 2020 state law preventing local government from giving rights to bodies of water, plants, and animals. Finding seems to be that the city law is prohibited under a state law, and the state law does not contravene the state constitution and so cannot be invalidated to allow the city's new law. which makes for a ridiculous headline, but doesn't seem wrong on its face. The problem is Florida's state government reserving environmental protection for itself, and then failing to sufficiently protect its environment...
- willvarfar 2y agoWhy did the state enact the legislation in the first place? Was it because it meant to save the environment, or was it to stop towns and cities from frustrating lobby interests?
- DrillShopper 2y agoThe latter. The state has also prohibited cities from issuing heat ordinances because some localities wanted to mandate water and rest breaks for workers when temperatures are above a certain threshold, and Florida thinks that only restriction that should be on corporations is that they toe the Florida state party line and otherwise not be interfered with in any way.
- giantg2 2y agoThe third option is that it's so you don't end up with a patchwork of different laws/rights/restrictions and potential conflict between local and state laws. That's supposed to be the intent with most preemptive laws. In theory, there's supposed to be a balance between the use of natural resources and their protection.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoA third options is to prevent towns from establishing rights that override those of other individuals (and interests).
- nemo44x 2y agoIt sounds worse than it is. The judge cited that the cause is admirable but there's no legislation which supports this and it isn't the courts job to legislate from the bench. There is overwhelming support for this so now the activists need to pressure state legislators to make it law. Once it's law then a court can determine if citizens are having their rights trampled on. We get into a lot of trouble when judges step outside their bounds.
- redserk 2y agoThe last remark ignores that there are two tiers of legislation in our American system: the constitution (state or federal) which has acted as a “North Star” of sorts, and legislation passed by a body. What’s one person’s “step outside their bounds” is another’s perception of a “dereliction of duty”. That said, I don’t have a strong opinion on Florida’s case here in this regard as I would need to read more to understand it.
- wakawaka28 2y agoThis quote from the article is enlightening: >“Although it is an admirable goal, we know of no provision that is authorized in either general law or specifically granted in the State Constitution, nor has one been provided by Speak Up, which specifically provides a citizen the right to have a body of water that ‘flows, exists in its natural form, is free of pollution, and which maintains a healthy ecosystem,'” the judges wrote. I think the phrase he quoted was from the case filing. What would it mean if you took that literally? It would probably mean that a Floridian has a right for all of Florida's waterways to be untouched by human activity of any kind, as anything we do can potentially pollute or disturb ecosystems (even if to an insignificant degree). It would also mean that people whose property is under water or bounded by water would be severely restricted as to what can be done with their property. Part of a judge's job is to not waste everyone's time. If he does not think he has the authority to issue a legitimate ruling on the matter, it is his obligation to defer the issue to someone who can handle it properly, such as the legislature or a higher court.
- 23B1 2y agoThe real headline is "Municipalities can't make an end-run around Florida state law." I'm not saying it's right, but you can imagine where this sort of thing can go sideways. And I'm not even saying it's clear-cut (e.g. see how the Supremacy Clause and 10A work when it comes to Federal/State). Anyway, obviously people shouldn't be forced to drink crappy water, but methinks that 'right' would have to be applied top-down instead of bottom-up under the U.S. system.
- Clubber 2y agoIt's aggravating how misleading these headlines are.
- njarboe 2y agoWith mass spectrometers measuring concentrations of things in the parts per trillion or less, some man made pollution is everywhere on Earth and many other planets.
- anastasiaess 2y agoThey outlawed giving animals rights?
- treetalker 2y agoHere is the opinion, for those interested in the actual legal analysis: https://5dca.flcourts.gov/content/download/2445192/opinion/Opinion_2023-3739.pdf https://5dca.flcourts.gov/content/download/2445192/opinion/O...
- zjp 2y agoThe more I think about cases like this, and our legal culture broadly, the more dread I feel. The Florida legislature wrote something and didn't consider all possible outcomes, and didn't correct itself in time for this local law to be struck down. Is the modern world too complex for American legislatures? They don't seem to have the agility to respond to obvious wrongs. And so so much of our law is written in the courts, at times for better, this time for worse.
- kristjansson 2y agoYour mistake is thinking this is a mistake. For the proponents of the state-level law, this is an expected and desirable outcome.
- engineer_22 2y agoClick bait
- ryaniscool 2y agoNative Floridian here. In fact, I lived in this particular city for a few years. In my opinion, the biggest challenge our waterways are facing is nitrogen and phosphate runoff from residential lawn fertilizer. As we bulldoze natural environments to build subdivisions, we're adding acres of pristine healthy looking lawns. I live in a coastal region. Depending on the type of grass, it's not possible to maintain a healthy lawn without adding some kind of fertilizer. This is because the soil is sandy and alkaline. Lawns generally want slightly acidic soil. We want to be able to point the finger at large entities like municipal sewage treatment plants and large farms. That is easier than changing our own habits and expectations around what our yards should look like.
- howard941 2y agoThere was a time when home rule meant something in Florida. Around that time the Sunshine Laws were also meaningful. Those time are gone.
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- metalman 2y agoDenialism is in fact Floridas legal policy towards climate change, extending that to water polution is to be expected. Which might just be pragmatism, in that all of the sea level rise contour maps I have seen, show florida ,mostly just gone, with a few small islands. Florida does rockets, retirement living, tourism,spring break, and is making money. And what is not generaly known is that the aquifier that feeds the swamps in Florida, has its origins in fossil water flowing from the great lakes region, and is ultimatly derived from the melting of the last ice age, and it is good clean water, so