Saving the Oklawaha River
The Cross-Florida Barge Canal litigation
The Cross-Florida Barge Canal litigation was filed on 15 September 1969. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) did not become law until January 1970.
The Oklawaha River was saved from becoming a series of sewage lagoons central across Florida from the Alantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the efforts of Marjorie Harris Carr who in the summer of 1969 organized a coalition of volunteer scientific, legal, and economic experts from the University of Florida and other institutions into an activist organization she named the Florida Defenders of the Environment (FDE).
The Yannacone complaint challenged the questionable benefits of the barge canal, which would destroy the Ocklawaha River and disrupt the Ocklawaha Regional Ecosystem and supported the claims with what was to become the model for the environmental impact statements soon to be mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 which, when the suit was filed was still being worked through Congress by Senator “Scoop” Jackson of Washington.
Yannacone chose to file the case in the District of Columbia federal court in order to show Congressional leaders that there was little political downside in supporting the general statement of environmental concern that was the heart of Senator Jackson’s legislation. The District Court granted a temporary injunction and President Richard Nixon halted construction of the canal by executive order.
In 1998, the right-of-way was turned over to the state of Florida and became the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway, named in honor of Marjorie Harris Carr, who had led opposition to the canal. Carr had died the prior year at age 82.
The following is the last complaint Yannacone ever filed for EDF as the organization abandoned confrontational equity litigation on the merits to protect natural resources and the environment. Instead the reorganized and repurposed EDF planned to bring actions against federal administrative agencies to delay projects because of procedural violations of NEPA.