State attorneys oppose Miccosukee Tribe's efforts to join Alligator Alcatraz environmental lawsuit
Attorneys for the state Friday opposed an effort by the Miccosukee Tribe to join a lawsuit challenging an immigrant detention center in the Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."
The tribe on July 14 filed a motion seeking to intervene in the lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, which allege that state and federal officials did not comply with a law requiring that an environmental impact study be performed before developing the detention center.
Opponents of the facility contend, in part, that it could cause environmental damage in the surrounding Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve. The tribe's intervention request said the "Miccosukee people have lived in and cared for the land now known as the Big Cypress National Preserve since time immemorial" and raised environmental concerns.
The detention center's "proximity to the tribe's villages, sacred and ceremonial sites, traditional hunting grounds, and other lands protected by the tribe raises significant concerns about environmental degradation and potential impacts to same caused by the construction and operation of a detention facility" at the site, the document said.
But in an 11-page response Friday, attorneys for state Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, a defendant in the lawsuit, raised a series of objections to the tribe's intervention. In part, they argued that the tribe's participation would be "duplicative" of arguments by the environmental groups.
"If the tribe seeks simply to mimic plaintiffs in every particular, then plaintiffs — who are already vigorously litigating this case — adequately represent the tribe's interests," the state's attorneys wrote.
The response added that "the tribe would inject into the case additional briefing and discovery that would seriously burden the existing parties and the court."
Federal officials, meanwhile, made a filing Friday that said they did not take a position on the tribe's intervention. It is not clear when U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams will rule on the intervention request.
