Guest columnist: District needn't kowtow to Corrigans' legal threats
By RICHARD BAKER & CHARLES LEE
guest columnist
June 5, 2007

How does this one sound to you? The St. Johns River Water Management District trades 1,265 acres it bought for preservation under the Florida Forever program along Interstate 95 in exchange for 460 acres farther west in the St. Johns swamp.

To make matters more lopsided, St. Johns pays the Corrigan family $657,300 for the privilege of ending up with only one acre of public land for each 2.75 acres it gives away.

To do this deal, St. Johns also must bend the rules in Florida's Constitution concerning protection of conservation lands. The district, by two-thirds vote of its board, would have to find that the 1,265 acres it proposes to trade away are "...no longer needed for conservation purposes."

In truth, ecological studies show that this land is just as valuable for conservation as it was the day the district bought it...a key wildlife corridor connecting the Upper St. Johns marshes to protected lands buffering the St. Sebastian River, and thus the Indian River Lagoon.

Conservation databases identify these lands as crucial to the statewide network of conservation lands. Making a finding that these conservation lands are "no longer needed" would strain credulity and put other conservation lands at risk of loss through similar flimsy findings.

So why is the St. Johns District proposing to do this? It turns out that lawyers for the Corrigan family have been pounding the district with threats of a lawsuit.

The 460 acres the Corrigans want to swap are west of a levee and subject to flooding by the St. Johns River marsh. Further, the Corrigans argue that their other 5,900 acres along I-95 just north of State Road 60 are also being flooded, even though these lands are protected by a levee.

The Corrigans' lawyers loudly make this claim, even though the levee that protects those lands was determined to be adequate to prevent flooding by the St. Johns District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when the Upper St. Johns Project was designed.

In truth, the operation of Upper St. Johns Project and the conditions that give rise to allegations of flooding that are the basis for the Corrigans' lawyers' lawsuit threats have been the same for a long time. The assertion of these claims as lawsuit threats has only emerged as a strategic move by the Corrigans as they seek to
consolidate land holdings along I-95 in anticipation of future real-estate development opportunities.

Rather than quickly fold in the face of the Corrigans' legal maneuver, St. Johns should protect its precious conservation lands and contest the Corrigans' threatened lawsuit, should it ever be filed. The district simply ought to budget the funds to buy out the Corrigans' 460 acres that are admittedly flooded.

If the courts ultimately rule in favor of the Corrigans' much more speculative claim that lands behind the protective levee are also flooded, the district should either spread that financial burden throughout its 18-county tax base or seek additional funding to pay any valid claim from the Legislature.

The Upper St. Johns project serves the whole district, and was financed by revenues separate and apart from the scarce funds available for preservation of conservation lands. Audubon of Florida and the Pelican Island Audubon Society believe that this is a bad deal. Conservation land resources should not be treated as a slush fund to pay people off to avoid threatened lawsuits, or even settle real lawsuits once they are filed.

Baker is president of Pelican Island Audubon Society. Lee is director of advocacy for Audubon of Florida.

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