WASHINGTON, D.C. - Environmental groups are suing two federal agencies to block limestone mining on more than 5,000 acres of Everglades wetlands.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) said they fear the mining project, which has been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would threaten Everglades National Park and the historic environmental restoration projects now getting underway in southern Florida.

The groups filed suit Tuesday in federal district court in Washington DC against the Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) challenging the agencies permitting of a massive mining operation on the national park's border.

The approvals are part of the mining industry's long term plans for a total of over 22,000 acres of mining in the eastern Everglades, an area the size of the city of Miami. Despite its own conclusion that the mining "will have an irreversible significant impact on the environmental resources of this region," the Corps has issued 12 permit approvals to 10 companies since announcing its decision on April 11, 2002.

In their legal complaint, the environmental organizations assert that the approvals in the so called Lakebelt area violated numerous federal environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Under the Clinton administration, federal agencies including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the USFWS, objected to the mining project because of the thousands of acres of rare habitat that would be destroyed and the increased water seepage out of the Everglades caused by the mining pits, among other concerns.

Department of Interior reviewers wrote that "[t]he conversion of the … wetland habitat within the Lakebelt area to deep, open water lakes removes an extensive area of this critical wetland habitat from the system, replacing it with non-natural habitat of little or no value to the Everglades ecosystem. The size, habitat type, and location of this area makes it critical to the ecological integrity of the Everglades ecosystem." These objections were withdrawn after the Bush Administration took office.

Local officials have also objected that the mining project, which is located next to drinking water wellfields, arguing that it could expose public water supplies to contamination and cost hundreds of millions in water treatment.

"This huge mining project directly conflicts with the billions of dollars that the Corps says it's going to spend to restore the Everglades," said Barbara Lange, Everglades chair for Sierra Club Miami Group. "To top it off, the project will do incalculable damage to this precious American natural resource."

In 2000, Congress approved a 30 year, $8 billion program to protect and restore the vast Everglades wetlands that have suffered from a century of habitat loss, pollution and water diversion. The Corps has promised further studies and non-public reviews of the mining project's environmental problems, but will allow mining to go forward in the meantime.

"This mine first, study later process makes no sense, considering the colossal scale of the environmental and health issues. And excluding the public from any later reviews is simply frightening," said Brad Sewell, senior attorney for the NRDC.

Limestone is a major building material in south Florida and newspaper accounts have reported more than $800,000 worth of campaign contributions by mining companies and their executives in the last five years.