The administration has worked to silence public input by denying that individuals or groups have a valid standing in opposing permit requests by companies. In one case, Young, through an administrative court process, challenged a permit by a paper mill owned by Georgia Pacific in Palatka. The mill owners sought a permit to build a pipeline to dump its wastewater directly into the St. Johns River instead of into Rice Creek, a small tributary that led to the larger river. The DEP -- the very agency charged with environmental protection -- joined the company in a motion claiming that Young had no standing because she had no personal ties to the St. Johns River.
Young thinks that as the environmental community in Florida has become more adept in court, special interests are learning new defensive maneuvers. "The public would be outraged if they came out and said, 'OK, we're going to change the law so we don't have to protect water.' This is their way of getting around it."
Colby Katz
Colby Katz
Jeb Bush is "singularly brilliant," Brumberg insists. He just has too many polluting buddies.
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Brumberg says that as ombudsman, he sought balance. "There are people who would like to pave over the whole state, on one hand, and those who'd like people to leave the state and have no more anything," he says. "In any society, you have to have someone on the extreme ends on both sides because the extreme positions tend to make a better balance."
So where does Jeb Bush stand on that spectrum?
"Yes, the governor is a developer, but I think it's too easy to classify him as an extremist," Brumberg answers. "That's not fair. I know the governor has an environmentally sensitive side to him. I've seen it. There's a balanced approach there, in my opinion. Maybe my approach is a little more green and maybe his is a little more toward the economics."
In a proper setting, Brumberg contends, the secretary of the DEP should be a "natural antagonist" toward other state agencies, such as the Department of Transportation. "Having less than an arm's-length relationship with them isn't necessarily in the best interest of the environment," he says. "But it's certainly in the best interests of the governor and the administration to have" -- he slowly moves his hands down in front of him as though to shush someone -- "quietude, quietude."
"I was the anti-quietude," he declares, a rare boast and one he tempers with confessions of failure. Scientists at the University of Florida in Gainesville have had spectacular success in breeding the near-extinct butterfly in captivity, and some will soon be transplanted to hospitable parks around the state. But even in his moment of highest achievement with the Miami Blue, he adds a postscript of disappointment.
He relates the story of his last meeting in the spring of 2003 with the various officials who were key in saving the Miami Blue. "Everybody was real happy sitting around the table," he recalls -- until Brumberg reeled off for them a litany of other endangered butterflies in Florida. There was the Florida Leafwing and the Martial Scrub-Hairstreak and another that's found only on the tops of cedar trees in the St. Augustine area. "Now that we've got the Miami Blue taken care of, what about these?" Brumberg posed to his eye-rolling colleagues. "Sure, they're not as endangered as the Miami Blue, but do we wait until we get down to 30 and the next guy gets the call?"
Perhaps the more important question to ask now is: Who's going to pick up the phone?
