Coffey Burlington on winning side of veteran judge’s toughest decision
The firm: Coffey Burlington
The lawyers: Paul J. Schwiep, Kendall B. Coffey, Robert K. Burlington
The case: Sierra Club v. Army Corps of Engineers, Rinker Group, Tarmac America, Florida Rock Industries, APAC-Florida and Miami-Dade Limestone Products Association.
In 2003, the Sierra Club and a coalition of organizations devoted to environmental protection sued the Army Corps of Engineers in federal court in the District of Columbia, charging the Army had issued permits to conduct rock mining in the Everglades without conducting proper studies of the environmental impact.
When several of Florida’s largest rock mining companies intervened, the case was transferred to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Although the case originally focused on threats to wildlife, the environmental groups later argued the blasting material used by the miners to break up limestone deposits in the rock pits produces benzene, a known carcinogen, and this could pollute wells that furnish much of the drinking water of Miami-Dade County residents.
The plaintiffs, led by the Coffey Burlington team, asked Senior Judge William M. Hoeveler to shut down the county’s rock mining industry, which provides 40 percent of the limestone used throughout Florida. The defendants insisted their operations were safe and warned that imposing a ban on mining would be an economic disaster for the state…
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