Polluters love Miami law firms by gimleteye

Miami law firms make boatloads of profit protecting the rights of corporations to destroy public health and the environment.

The pattern is so ingrained it has compromised public perception—including what is published in the Miami Herald. So we redress the balance, here.

Since some of our readers have asked about an earlier Gimleteye post (read below: Take the Miami ‘Does my neighbor have prostate cancer? test), we warm you up to our subject by offering the following:

Benzene in drinking water causes cancer and other serious illnesses. The maximum allowable limit by federal regulation is 5 parts per billion.

At wells in the West Dade wellfield—which supplies drinking water for 2.3 million residents of Miami-Dade County—benzene in November, 2006 was detected at 9 parts per billion.

At the present time, 7 of Miami-Dade’s 15 drinking water wells are shut down because of benzene contamination.

We hope you feel like throwing up, while we continue.

The biggest law firms in Miami, like Holland and Knight, Steel Hector Davis, and Greenberg Traurig, have all made millions defending the rights of polluters.

Having gained years of expertise defending Big Sugar, for example, they turned their knowledge to zoning changes for production home building and permits for rock mining in wetlands.

In the process, the resolve of agencies, like the US Army Corps of Engineers, to follow federal laws has been ground to a pulp.

Let’s take one example:

Yesterday an extensive hearing on remedies concluded in Miami federal court. The hearing was an interim result of successful litigation by environmental plaintiffs against the US Army Corps of Engineers for illegally-issued permits for wetlands destruction.

The intervenors are rock mining companies that pulverize fossilized coral, or lime rock, for aggregate used in concrete, highways, and related products. When you fly out of Miami International Airport, you can see what they do in big pits below you.

Only through this litigation did government agencies disclose that the quality of Miami-Dade’s drinking water aquifer, adjacent to public well fields, is kaput.

The majority of Miami Dade county commissioners, lead by Natacha Seijas, were nowhere to be seen or heard during this litigation--though we would have required them to sit in cages to watch the proceedings.

Over 33 days of hearings, rock mining interests had at least twenty attorneys in attendance. A simple calculation:

33 days X 10 hours per day X 20 attorneys X $400/ hour. Factoring in research, preparation, and expert witnesses, the payola to Miami law firms for just the hearing was far in excess of the estimated direct expenses: $2.5 million.

Rock mining is one story about cannibalization of public health and the environment that you did not read in the Miami Herald.

Another story: how the Everglades is a gift that keeps giving.