An Orange County judge tossed out a lawsuit that was the first test of Orange County’s constitutional right to clean water.
The county’s charter amendment, passed by voters in the county nearly unanimously, put forward the idea that nature has a legal right to carry on existing. Environmentalist activist Chuck O’Neal specifically helped craft the amendment with the intention of suing to stop development in the county on behalf of affected bodies of water. The lawsuit that was dismissed last week, with Judge Paetra T. Brownlee saying that a state law passed in 2020 that disallowed granting legal rights to any “part of the natural environment.”
This runs in direct opposition to Orange County’s charter amendment which holds that bodies of water “have a right to exist, to flow, to be protected against pollution and to maintain a healthy ecosystem.” O’Neal’s lawsuit was attempting to stop the destruction of 115 acres of wetlands to build a housing development. Nearby Lake Mary Jane and Lake Hart were named as plaintiffs.
O’Neal plans to appeal the lawsuit, which is being watched nationally by rights-of-nature advocates. The Florida Chamber of Commerce has been a vocal opponent of Orange County’s amendment, backing the very change to Florida law that allowed the case to be overturned.