92-Year-Old Crusader's Latest Cause

Stetson Kennedy, a civil rights worker, anti-Ku Klux Klan activist and Florida folklorist, on the back deck of his home in Fruit Cove, Fla., 2007, file photo. Photo by Oscar Sosa/AP Photo

Stetson Kennedy, legendary champion of civil rights and cultural preservation, has begun a legal battle at age 92 to keep thirsty Central Florida from draining the St. Johns River.

It started in April, when Kennedy skipped a checkup on his recovery from a heart attack. He had learned about a public hearing over a plan to supply a growing population in the Orlando area with water from the river. Rather than see the doctor, Kennedy and his wife drove to Palatka to voice their fears for the St. Johns.

They never got to. Guards barred Kennedy and dozens of others from getting into an auditorium filled to capacity.

With no place outside to sit or escape the heat, he managed to wait 90 minutes and then left, channeling his frustration into another way to be heard. Kennedy doesn't easily tolerate what he sees as injustice. Long ago, he donned Ku Klux Klan robes to infiltrate and expose the group's inner workings.

This time, he got a lawyer and filed a lawsuit three weeks ago, alleging a violation of his rights under the state's open-government laws and asking a judge to void the decision made during the meeting to grant Seminole County rights to pump river water.

"We pay enough of a price for the arrogance of government," Kennedy said last week at his home near the St. Johns River. "The river is in for a heap of big trouble."

A child of the river

Kennedy was born in Jacksonville before any of its many bridges spanned the St. Johns River. His boyhood was about rowing and fishing in the wide river's slow waters. Filing the lawsuit stemmed from his distress over the river's declining health, a result of shoreline development, poorly treated sewage and other sources of pollution.

He and others worry that Central Florida withdrawals from the river would invite harmful intrusion of salty ocean waters at the river's mouth near Jacksonville.

"It's not dead, but it's on the critical list," Kennedy said of the St. Johns. "The banks and the tidal flats look like they've been poisoned, and the food chain has been broken."

Kennedy wasn't aware initially of how his legal battle is playing into broader and fast-growing fears about water in Florida.

Many Floridians already resent having too little say in who gets water and how much. Those decisions are made by the state's five water-management districts, which are led by board members appointed by the governor. Because they aren't elected, board members regularly draw criticism as not being accountable enough in local issues.

As it turns out, Kennedy launched his legal fight as state lawmakers were preparing to get rid of the basic process in which citizens can speak to board members before they vote on water permits.

Under a bill now on Gov. Charlie Crist's desk, the bulk of the direct authority over allocating water would shift to a single bureaucrat in each district. That would result in quicker decisions, according to legislators who made a priority of cutting what they deemed environmental red tape impeding the state's economic recovery.

Packed hearing

If Crist doesn't veto the bill, called SB 2080, the executive directors of Florida's water districts will be put in charge of water decisions, the likes of which have already been met with increasing public mistrust. One such decision -- permitting Seminole County to pump river water -- was the focus of the St. Johns River Water Management District hearing that Kennedy tried to attend in April.

By then, the issue had been blown up into a complicated and costly legal fight. It has been the kind of struggle concerned citizens and environmentalists would have to pursue more often if SB 2080 becomes law, doing away with the public votes and hearings conducted by board members.

Experts on Florida's open-government rules say they know of little precedent for supporting Kennedy's allegation that the St. Johns district was negligent in dealing with the spillover crowd. More common are instances in which officials are challenged for having met in settings such as an office or a restaurant, where a crowd obviously could not be accommodated.

However, state law makes clear that the water district was obligated to accommodate those who tried to attend the April meeting, said Barbara Peterson, president of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.

"If they had a controversial issue and had fair warning that many people would attend, and then left many of them standing outside, it's questionable whether they were in compliance," Peterson said.

The subject was controversial enough that the six-hour meeting ended with a narrow 5-4 vote in favor of issuing Seminole County its river-water permit.

District attorney Bill Congdon said the agency had scheduled a special meeting with no other topics to consider, cleared out nonessential staff, and opened two additional rooms to host a capacity crowd of 279 people. It was the district's largest public gathering on record.

"What this boils down to is someone says they didn't get in quickly enough, and that violates their rights," Congdon said.

What district officials didn't do was find another, larger meeting place, such as the auditorium at St. Johns River Community College. A few minutes from district offices, the auditorium holds nearly 500 people and costs about $300 to rent.

Home will be museum

Kennedy's life has been a campaign on behalf of speaking out. He worked with Zora Neale Hurston during the Great Depression, gathering stories from state residents. He battled the KKK in the 1940s and has investigated and written about violations of civil rights. And his home, filled with social-justice memorabilia, will open as a museum after his death.

Kennedy said this latest chapter of his life is about striking back after being unnecessarily silenced.

"I tried to get in the door, and they wouldn't let me," he said.

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