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Love nature? Prove it, club told
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 6, 2001 NEW TAMPA -- What if someone asked you to enter into the courthouse records a list of parks where you bird-watch, lakes where you canoe and country roads where you ride your bicycle? How about naming the birds you admire while walking your dog? The oak trees that give you pleasure -- or displeasure, if you are an allergy sufferer? What if you had to catalog every hike and document every impromptu picnic, prove you enjoy being outside or lose the right to be there? That's a bit like what the Sierra Club has been asked to do in Hillsborough Circuit Court. Members of the environmental organization are having to prove that they have true standing in their lawsuit against the city of Tampa. The 2000 suit has in its cross hairs a future community just south of the Pasco County line, called Grand Hampton. Developers, represented locally by the formidable Lee Atkinson, want to claim 931 acres for homes, shops and -- just what we need in a two-year drought -- another golf course. With a maximum of 1,599 homes, Grand Hampton, the lawsuit says, is "just one unit shy" of being a Development of Regional Impact, a status that comes with all kinds of government oversight. Sneaky, sneaky. The Sierra Club alleges that the land owners did some "forum shopping" by allowing the site to be annexed into city limits, knowing that environmental regulations are tougher in the unincorporated county. More to the point, the organization says Grand Hampton threatens the Hillsborough River watershed and innumerable species of wildlife in and around the Cypress Creek Preserve. Oh, yeah? responds the city, and now the land owners, who were allowed to join the suit. Can you prove Grand Hampton will hurt the water supply? Can you even prove that the water supply is in trouble? And so it goes, in motions that bulge from a thick yellow court file. And now this: the hunt for birdwatchers. The issue was raised several months ago, when Atkinson filed an "Intervenors' First Request for Production of Documents to Plaintiff." In it, the one-time criminal litigator asked for ledgers, correspondence and other Sierra Club papers that pertain to Grand Hampton, or that would illustrate the organization's plans to oppose future developments in New Tampa. He went on to request the members' names, addresses and occupations. The Sierra Club pretty much told the developers to buzz off, saying its 1,794 members have a constitutional right to privacy. Atkinson said the group was being "evasive" and "unresponsive." Last week he elaborated. "What I really want to know is which Sierra Club members hike, which one bike, which ones canoe and which ones bird-watch," he said. "Then I want to ask them how that will be adversely affected. I don't think a single Sierra Club member will be able to say they will be adversely affected in a way that is different from the general public." Judge Greg Holder split the difference. Club members deserve their privacy, he ruled. But they still need to provide the court with some information that will prove they have a right to be heard. Go ahead and say it: Lawyers. As they say on the lawyer shows, the Sierra Club did open the door. Its lawsuit, which consumes more than 40 pages, describes the Sierra Club as "an organization whose members utilize the surrounding area, including the Cypress Creek Preserve ... for canoeing, kayaking, hiking, wildlife observation and/or bird-watching." But, they go on to say, they also concern themselves with water quality, urban sprawl and other quality-of-life issues that no one else seems to be thinking about as developers carve every last bit of New Tampa up for strip shopping centers and gated cul-de-sacs. Does their activism give them standing? You'd think so, but it doesn't. "You have to prove, above and beyond the normal Joe, how you are affected," says Denise Layne of Lutz, the Sierra Club member whose name is on that lawsuit. Layne said that despite its pro-development reputation, New Tampa has plenty of Sierra Club members. The organization, while not naming names, is tabulating those numbers for the court. The Tampa chapter takes children on nature trips along the Hillsborough River, and plans to provide the court with information about those trips, Layne said. "Right now you can swim in that river," Layne said. But that might not be possible if its New Tampa tributaries, Trout Creek and Cypress Creek, become polluted by "golf courses and all those lovely chemicals." Having fought the Grand Hampton plan for years, Layne said she was not at all surprised by Atkinson's request. "I've been a paralegal for 20 years," she said. "He's just asking for the moon and we're not going to give him the moon."
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