Environmental activists are cheering this morning after a Federal Judge ruled in their favor and against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday for issuing a permit to allow for a 1 million-square foot mall called the Cypress Creek Town Center in Pasco County. The proposed mall is being developed by the Richard E. Jacobs Group of Cleveland and Sierra Properties of Tampa, and has had many setbacks along the way, such as being called out for allowing for muddy discharges to pollute nearby Cypress Creek, which is a tributary for the Hillsborough River, the main source of drinking water for Tampa citizens.
As reported by the St. Pete Times, developers have said when constructed, the Cypress Creek Town Center would provide more than 3,800 full-time jobs, and, annual revenue of $6 million for Pasco County and $2.4 million for the Pasco County school district.
Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that:
The Corps has failed to fulfill its statutory duties under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) and the CWA (Clean Water Act). Unfortunately, this is a familiar course of action for the Corps when processing permit
applications. As another member of this Court has stated, the Corps “resorted to arbitrary and
capricious meaning – manipulating models and changing definitions where necessary – to make
this project seem compliant with [CWA] and [NEPA] when it is not.” Envtl Def. v. Army Corps
of Eng’s, 515 F.Supp. 2d. 69, 74 (D.D.C. 2007). The record here shows a similarly disturbing
pattern. The Corps failed to prepare a required EIS for the project site pursuant to NEPA and failed to require the applicant to demonstrate that practicable alternatives were not available pursuant to CWA.
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.