Hoping to halt a limestone mining plan that would destroy 15,000 acres of wetlands in the Florida Everglades, environmentalists sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday. The Corps has issued permits to mine 1.7 billion tons of limestone from Everglades wetlands for roads in southern Florida, despite its own findings that the mining would lead to “irreversible significant impact on the environmental resources of this region.” Over a 50-year period, the project would destroy more wetlands in the Everglades than the Corps permitted to be destroyed in the entire country last year, and could also lead to collapsing mines and tainted drinking water. The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and National Parks Conservation Association are suing the Corps for violation of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.
