Just Say Yes

So then, with the help of a former Corps employee now working for the wildlife service, they prepared a lengthy report that examined how 24 projects in Lee and Collier counties had been given permits for destroying wetlands. The report concluded the Corps should have blocked or curtailed each one, in part because the so-called "alternatives" test had been a sham. But when they presented the report to the Corps, Hall told them they did not know what they were talking about, and that ended that.

"At that point it just became something I didn't think we would be able to move forward," says Jay Slack, the top wildlife official in South Florida.

In the meantime, an unlikely crusader has been pushing for the Corps to change its ways: activist Hauck of Bonita Springs, who when asked her age says, "I'm 60, and that's a lie." Hauck, founder of the Council of Civic Associations, regularly bombards the Corps, the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Congress with calls, e-mails, letters, Freedom of Information Act requests and comments on various development projects. Her persistence got the attention of Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. At his request, the GAO launched an investigation of how the Corps decides which wetlands to regulate and which ones to let developers wipe out without a permit.

A bigger and better-funded critic of the Corps is the National Wildlife Federation, which has already gone to court twice to overturn permits in Southwest Florida. In April a federal judge ruled that the Corps was illegally issuing permits for small wetland impacts in Lee and Collier counties without considering the overall effect on panthers.

And last year the environmental group persuaded a federal judge to overturn a Corps permit for a 6,000-acre Florida Rock mine in panther habitat. The judge said the Corps and the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to consider the cumulative impact of wiping out so much of Southwest Florida's dwindling swamps and marshes.

Corps officials insist that, despite their power over permits, they're not responsible for Florida losing so many wetlands. They blame the EPA and other federal agencies for failing to give them reasons to say "no." They blame the state for not blocking development that harms water quality. They blame local officials for approving zoning changes for new development and then expecting the Corps to block it.

"Nobody," says Hall, "has the guts to draw the line."

St. Petersburg's Craig Pittman won the Waldo Proffitt Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism in Florida.