Judge Hoeveler served as a judge on the US Southern District Court. His rulings occupy a special place in my heart and in my files.
To know how much heartbreak and indignation is warranted by the conduct of polluters like Big Sugar or rock miners -- who have used our Everglades as their sacrifice zones -- you would have to read through Judge Hoeveler's rulings and in particular the footnotes where he stuck his most trenchant observations.
Conservatives didn't like Hoeveler because they fundamentally disagree that protecting the environment from harm involves a federal role. Hoeveler, to them, represented a "liberal" point of view -- the common good as protected by federal law -- and they fought him at every turn, supported by their proxies in the appellate court.
That's not what Judge Hoeveler represented to conservationists who believe the federal courts are the last bulwark against polluters' determination to sow chaos in public processes meant to confer order on the relationship between industry profits and clean water for all.
This week I will post some of the Hoeveler file, in memory of a truly significant life.
Hoeveler's only bias is for the Everglades
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Monday, June 9, 2003
Sugar growers -- who showed their power by ramming through a law that delays Everglades cleanup for 10 years -- already own Florida's Legislature and Gov. Bush. Now, the industry wants to "get" the judge who has protected the fragile ecosystem for more than a decade.
The growers launched a two-front battle against U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler last week, claiming he should be removed from supervising the Everglades restoration because he is biased against them. Filing in Miami and in Atlanta, the state's biggest sugar companies cited Judge Hoeveler's recent rulings and comments to reporters as reasons he should be removed. The judge said the new Everglades law is "defective," criticized the South Florida Water Management District, the Legislature and Gov. Bush's advisers, and told a St. Petersburg Times reporter he no longer trusts Gov. Bush. Comments he made to the press echo those he made in open court.
The industry's contentions lack merit. Judge Hoeveler's comments don't compare to interviews outside the courtroom that resulted in another judge being removed from the Microsoft antitrust case. A final judgment hadn't been made in that case, which still was in trial.
In contrast, the Everglades lawsuit between the state and the federal government was settled in 1992, when Florida agreed to an order that set a 2006 deadline for reducing phosphorus pollution in the Everglades to 10 parts per billion. Judge Hoeveler is enforcing that order -- an order threatened by a law the sugar industry wrote and railroaded through the Legislature with Gov. Bush's blessing. The law extends the pollution cleanup deadline to 2016, opens the pollution limit to dispute and shifts payment for the cleanup from the sugar industry to state taxpayers.
The law also dims Florida's chances to win the federal money needed for the $8.4 billion state-federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Convincing Congress to spend federal money is a tough sell after the state has extended the cleanup deadline and weakened pollution standards.
The industry's real beef is Judge Hoeveler's plan to appoint a special master, a supervisor who would closely scrutinize cleanup details. The growers' pressure got him to postpone a hearing Tuesday when he was set to do that, but he still should. He has several outstanding candidates to consider. His best choice would be a man like himself: honest, honorable, and an unwavering advocate for the Everglades.
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