A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a ban on rock mining in thousands of acres of Northwest Miami-Dade County, saying U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler let personal views color a ''`pre-determined'' decision to halt digging last July.
A three-judge panel in Atlanta, with one dissenting, ruled that Hoeveler improperly relied on his own analysis and opinions to dismiss studies and decisions by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency charged with regulating the industry.
''No matter what the Corps concluded, and no matter what evidence supported that conclusion, the court would have banned mining because of its own conclusion that mining in the Lake Belt is a bad thing,'' Judge Joel Dubina wrote in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel's majority opinion.
In July, the judge, citing ''grave concerns'' about health risks, ordered an indefinite halt to mining in a portion of the Lake Belt near the county's largest drinking water wells.
The industry, Corps of Engineers and county regulators call the water safe and Judge Hoeveler's concerns overblown.
The rock-mining industry, which says the 10-month curtailment cost South Florida thousands of jobs and drove up road- and home-building costs, called the ruling a major victory.
The decision lifted Hoeveler's ban on mining tracts owned by four companies -- White Rock Quarries South, APAC Florida, Vulcan Materials and Tarmac. It also reversed his 2006 ruling that the Corps had erred in 2001 in issuing permits for the industry to expand into 5,700 acres of wetland near the Everglades.
''This ruling is welcome news for Florida's economy,'' said Kerri Barsh, an attorney for several mining companies. ``It advances transportation projects throughout the state and puts the environmental benefits of the Lake Belt Plan back on track.''
But the decision clearly won't end years of legal battle over the Lake Belt, home to four of the state's five largest limestone mines and source of half the state's cement and fill.
The ruling said Hoeveler condemned Corps actions based on ''simple disagreement'' and had failed ''to grant the Corps the proper level of deference'' it argues is mandated under federal environmental laws.
But the panel issued no opinion on whether the Corps had complied with federal environmental laws in issuing the permits and it put the case back in Hoeveler's court, ordering him to reconsider that key question using ``proper standards of review.''
Paul Schwiep, an attorney representing three environmental groups who sued the Corps in 2002 over the mining permits, called the decision disappointing but based on narrow technical points could allow Hoeveler ``the discretion to reach the same result although on narrower grounds.''
''The appeals court went out of its way to explain that it was not holding that Judge Hoeveler had erred on the merits of his ruling,'' Schwiep wrote in an e-mail.
The panel also rejected a request from miners to reassign the case to another judge
on grounds that Hoeveler was biased. In 2003, complaints of bias by the sugar industry led to Hoeveler's removal from a landmark case that forced Florida to reduce pollution flowing into the Everglades.
In the mining case, the Atlanta panel wrote, ``We have no reason to believe that a well-respected district judge . . . will not be able to apply the proper standards of review.''
In two lengthy rulings in 2006 and 2007, Hoeveler had blasted the Corps as a weak environmental watchdog, saying the federal agency had relied on old or industry-provided data to approve a mining expansion that could harm the Everglades, and endangered wading birds and drinking water. Citing a benzene plume and risks of bacterial contamination, the judge ordered mining halted in a zone near the Northwest Wellfield until the Corps completed a new environmental review. He allowed other mining to continue.
The industry, the Corps and county agencies have played down the concerns.
In September, the Corps completed a draft environmental study that again concluded excavation poses no significant environmental or health risk. The industry also argues its plan to ''mine-out'' another 15,000 to 18,500 acres over the next 50 years will provide environmental benefits because Everglades restoration plans call for abandoned rock pits to serve as reservoirs.
The court's majority opinion said Hoeveler too broadly interpreted the demands of some laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which the ruling said simply required federal agencies to follow a process.
``In this case, it would not violate NEPA if the [Corps environmental study] noted that granting the permits would result in the permanent, irreversible destruction of the entire Florida Everglades, but the Corps decided that economic benefits outweighed the negative environmental impacts.''
In her dissent, Judge Phyllis Kravitch argued that Hoeveler's ruling and ban were justified under the Clean Water Act, which required the Corps to assess broader options for mining and to independently verify data. She noted that the Corps had largely parroted an industry study to support the need to mine the Lake Belt.
That report might be fair, she wrote, ``But for all the Corps has explained in the record, it is a classic hired-gun expert report painted over with a thin veneer of rigor.''
