As those of you know who are following the fight against Seven Springs and Nestle, they stopped the Suwannee River Water Management District Board vote on the renewal application at the eleventh hour with a Department of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) petition.
In order to keep moving forward with this, Our Santa Fe River Inc. needs to enter the fray as an intervenor or as a separate DOAH petitioner. To do this, Our Santa Fe River has retained a lawyer who specializes in Administrative Hearing and Florida Administrative Code Rules to pursue a legal battle to stop Nestle from their bottled water grab.
If we go the petition route, the deadline to file would be the end of this week. As intervenors, there is no such deadline, but apparently the earlier we enter the better.
Our lawyer has graciously agreed to give us a discount because we are a non-profit, but even so, litigation is not inexpensive and we are looking to raise $77,000 for the legal battle.
$50,000 attorneys
$20,000 experts
$7,000 travel, materials, publicity and educational materials
As it is impossible to predict legal fees, this may be a conservative estimate. OSFR exists only because of our volunteers, none of whom get paid. Our only sources of revenue are dues, donations and our annual RiverFest fundraiser.
If Seven Springs Water Company/Nestle is granted this permit to pull millions of gallons of water out of Ginnie Springs and the Santa Fe River, it will cause further damage to our already impaired springs, river and wetlands. The river and springs are below their minimums, yet Nestle claims they only pump from sustainable sources, which is a lie.
The Santa Fe River needs your voice. Please consider making a donation to defray our legal fees. Our Santa Fe River is the only organization that has stopped not just one water bottler within our river, but four! Together we can make that number five and stop this last one on the Santa Fe River. Make the Santa Fe River a bottled water free zone!
Please click the PayPal button below to help us reach our goal of $77,000 to help pay for attorneys and scientific experts to get the job done.
Click the image below to donate now or send a check by snail mail to 2070 SW CR 138, Fort White, FL 32038.
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I will gladly donate but it might be easier to gain traction on a website such as GoFundMe where it is easier to see how close the fundraiser is to its goal.
Have you talked with CELDF and is there a movement in Gainesville or Alachua County to get a local Community Bill of Rights passed?
There is – check out SAFEBOR.org. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the people-power to get enough petitions filed in time, and the Charter Review Commission didn’t accept our request. It’s still in the hands of the Alachua BOCC, however.
Thank you. Our mailing address is at the bottom of this website.
Might want to add a address for snail mail
Hi Garth! Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll add it to the page to make sure it is easy to find. In the meantime, our mailing address is 2070 SW CR 138, Fort White, FL 32038. Thanks for the support!