POLITICS

SFWMD board member Melanie Peterson and general counsel Brian Accardo resign

Treasure Coast Newspapers

Otto Herrera, of Royal Palm Beach, takes a closer look at the algae from shore at Lake Okeechobee on Friday, June 29, 2018, at Port Mayaca. Herrera, who said he has lived in Florida since he was 12 years old and had never seen the lake, was traveling from Bradenton with a friend who suggested the detour. "I'm surprised about the green stuff," Herrera said. "I was hoping to see a beautiful lake, but the green … it was kind of disappointing, you know." Discharges from the lake to the St. Lucie River were starting to be reduced Friday, with a complete stop for nine consecutive days then resuming in pulses indefinitely, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

A South Florida Water Management District board member and the state agency’s general counsel and chief of staff have resigned.

Vice Chair Melanie Peterson and Brian Accardo quit at a time when a Florida congressman and leading environmentalists are calling for the entire board and Executive Director Ernie Marks to resign over a controversial sugar land lease.

More: U.S. Rep. Brian Mast says board should resign

More:What will Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis do with the SFWMD?

Peterson and Accardo did not cite the controversy in their resignation letters.

Peterson quit with 3½ years left on her volunteer board term. Scott appointed her to serve from July 2014 until March 2022, representing an at-large area that includes St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

“My businesses require more of my personal attention,” she wrote in a Jan. 1 letter to Scott. Peterson is a Realtor at The Fite Group Luxury Homes, the district’s website says.

Private practice

Accardo, whose last day was Jan. 4, now works for Manson Bolves Donaldson Varn, the law firm confirmed to TCPalm Monday. The firm focuses on water, property rights, administrative and regulatory law with offices in Tampa, Orlando and Tallahassee.

The district, which paid Accardo over $147,000 annually, hired him as general counsel in January 2016 and made him chief of staff as well in September 2017.

Before that, according to the district’s website, Accardo was a:

Florida Department of Environmental Protection special counsel and program director for five years
Private environmental law attorney in Tallahassee
Project manager at a South Florida engineering and construction firm.

Mast's reaction

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City and chair of Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis’ environmental advisory committee, was among those calling for district resignations.

Mast said he was happy about the resignations — and predicted more to come.

"I think you’re going to see some other turnaround as we move forward in this next administration in the governor’s office," Mast told TCPalm Monday. "I don’t speak for the governor on that front; I make my recommendations. But I’m happy to see that there will be a change in the guard and a changing in the attitude."

Mast said some of the arguments he’s had with district board and staff have been “totally off-base,” including blaming local stormwater runoff for toxic algal blooms.

“We do have our own local water issues to deal with here, that should never be denied, and we’ll work on those issues,” Mast said. “But that never gives somebody else in some other area the right to go and take their problems and make them our problems as well.”

Sugar land lease

The district leased land needed for the EAA reservoir to a New Hope Sugar Co., a Florida Crystals subsidiary for eight years. The agenda item was posted about 9 p.m. the night before the Nov. 8 meeting, possibly breaking state law.

More:Water district board OKs leasing reservoir land to sugar grower

Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation disputed some critics’ claims the district violated Florida’s sunshine laws requiring "reasonable notice of the board’s meetings" because there's "no prohibition on the board taking action on items not included in the notice, or on the agenda."

However, she told TCPalm the board may have violated another state law specifically requiring the district to publish three notices of an "intention to lease."

More:Expert says board may have broken one law, but not another

Accardo told the board the lease agreement was exempt from that law because it was "mandated" by law, so it didn't have to be advertised.

A state administrative judge ultimately may decide, as the Florida Wildlife Federation and Indian Riverkeeper Marty Baum filed a Nov. 28 challenge to the lease, asking for a hearing.

The EAA reservoir will curb Lake Okeechobee discharges east to the St. Lucie River and west to the Caloosahatchee Rivers, which cause toxic blue-green algae blooms and feed nearshore red tide that often plague the coasts during the summer rainy seasons.

TCPalm politics reporter Ali Schmitz contributed to this report.