Fla.: Delay Everglades pollution crackdown

MIAMI, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Florida asked a U.S. judge to give it more time to comply with an ecological accord requiring the state to halt the flow of polluted water into the Everglades.

But the Miccosukee American Indian tribe living in Florida urged Chief U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno to act now, arguing the state repeatedly missed deadlines and broke multiple promises to meet water-quality standards.

Those delays spread pollution deeper into the Everglades' subtropical wetlands and threatened tribal lands there, Miccosukee lawyers argued.

South Florida Water Management District attorney Kirk Burns said the state was completing $1.1 billion in projects and pursuing a $536 million purchase of 73,000 acres of sugar farms and citrus groves that could greatly expand cleanup efforts, The Miami Herald reported.

"We are making substantial progress," Burns said. "We would appreciate the opportunity to be able to finish our hundreds of millions in remedies before being asked to add to it."

But tribe attorney Dexter Lehtinen argued repeated delays and bureaucratic red tape were poisoning the Miccosukee's homeland.

"Process has destroyed the Indians," he said. "They don't need more process; they need performance."

Moreno said he would rule soon, but noted he felt the tribe had "a right, based on history, to be cynical" of government promises.

He added the long-running case made him feel "like a gerbil: We keep going around and around. ... Nothing gets done except talk."