Pot conflict
Contradictions in new policies
A12
Making it official
River Warriors launch OneFlorida
A17 Love and Opera
B1
Carmen at the Sunrise Theatre
ST. LUCIE WEST • TRADITION
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 2/ISSUE 14
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2014
Army Corps defends discharge decisions
Councilman’s Sunshine Law case delayed
Nicole Rodriguez Staff writer
nrodriguez@YourVoiceWeekly.com
JENSEN BEACH — Should the state see another soggy wet season with record rainfall, the flood gates will again wreak havoc on the Indian River Lagoon as it did last year, water managers for the Army Corps of Engineers said. The Corps had no choice but to release billions of gallons of polluted water into the Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatchee River, water managers said last week during a Jensen Beach town hall meeting with concerned residents. Had they not dumped the water, a Herbert Hoover dike breach would have led to catastrophic casualties south of the aging dam, said Jorge Tous, chief of the water management section in Jacksonville. “All you need is a weak point ... That’s the way it is with dams and levees,” Tous said. “You start with a small breach and they keep opening and opening.” The large discharges were authorized under the Corps’ water control plan, the 2008 Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule, also known as LORS for short. The schedule is determined by climate and weather forecasts. The plan took two years to formulate, water managers said. Only an act of Congress could change the plan. But that option would take time, years in fact,
See WATER page A10
Mitch Kloorfain/chief photographer Suspended Port St. Lucie City council member Ron Bowen speaks with his attorneys following a hearing at the St. Lucie County Courthouse Friday, Jan. 31. The case had to be rescheduled when Judge Kathryn Nelson recused herself for having a friendship with one of the witnesses in the case.
Nicole Rodriguez Staff writer
nrodriguez@YourVoiceWeekly.com
PORT ST. LUCIE — The judge presiding over a suspended Port St. Lucie city councilman’s misdemeanor case for an alleged open records law violation has recused herself from the case. During a hearing in a St. Lucie
County courtroom the morning of Jan. 31, Judge Kathryn Nelson removed herself from the case because of a close friendship with Nora Pffeifer, a lead investigator for the state attorney’s office case against Ron Bowen. Pffeifer was on the defense’s witness list on a motion to dismiss hearing, scheduled for that day.
“We’ve been friends since 1990. We’ve traveled together, we’ve been on vacations together,” Nelson told the court. Bowen was present in the courtroom, but had no comment on the case. The case will be reassigned to another judge, which could take a week, Bowen’s attorney, Rich-
See BOWEN page A25
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