Description: John H. Hankinson, Jr., Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which is preparing recommendations to restore the Gulf Coast areas damaged by the 2010 oil spill, will speak at the University of Florida on June 17.  Hankinson’s visit, which is open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Center for Governmental Responsibility at UF’s Levin College of Law and by the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering in UF’s College of Engineering.

Hankinson’s visit, which is open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Center for Governmental Responsibility at UF’s Levin College of Law and by the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering in UF’s College of Engineering.

The program begins at 10 a.m. and will be held in the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center at the law school.

“We are honored to host John Hankinson, who is at the forefront of restoring the Gulf of Mexico and making the region even stronger, following the disaster of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said UF Law Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who is also director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility. “We know John well because he is a graduate of the UF law school and has spent decades as one of the leading authorities on environmental issues throughout the southeast.”

Mills and Peter Sheng, Ph.D., professor of coastal and oceanographic engineering, will co-host Hankinson’s visit. Both served on UF’s university-wide oil spill task force, an interdisciplinary group of faculty researchers who developed research projects related to the spill and who served as experts during the response process. Additionally, Mills chaired the law school’s working group on legal and policy issues related to the oil spill.

Hankinson has spent more than 30 years on environmental policy and regulation, including work on the National Estuary Program in the Gulf of Mexico, water quality protection plans for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, restoration and protection of the St. Johns River system, and serving as regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. His top priority while at EPA was helping states and communities protect air and water quality and restoring and protecting key ecosystems such as the Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to his service at EPA, Hankinson worked for almost ten years as Director of Planning and Acquisition for the St. Johns River Water Management District in Palatka. Hankinson most recently served as an environment and conservation lands consultant, advising on land conservation, strategic land use decision-making, and constructive environmental management and policy projects across the Southeastern United States.

As the executive director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, Hankinson – who reports directly to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson – coordinates interagency efforts, oversees staff and outreach efforts in developing a regional ecosystem restoration strategy and ensures that science underpins the task force’s efforts. The task force is an advisory body comprised of lead officials from the five Gulf states appointed by the president upon recommendation of each governor, and 11 federal agencies and White House offices. Engagement of local stakeholders, representatives from affected tribes, and the scientific and academic communities is ongoing and will inform the development of the strategy. Offices for the task force are located in Washington, D.C. The Task Force was created by President Barack Obama in October, 2010, and will prepare a restoration strategy for the Gulf Coast by October, 2011.

For additional information: Jon Mills, 352-273-0835

Presented by the University of Florida Levin College of Law and co-sponsored by The Florida Bar Environmental and Land Use Law Section and The Florida Bar City County and Local Government Section, this year’s conference is entitled “Green Building: Prospects and Pitfalls for Local Governments.” The event will draw experts from law and related fields to discuss topics such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and other certification programs, state and local climate change initiatives, private environmental lawmaking, building industry and local government programs, and national trends.

The state of Florida is positioning itself to be in the forefront of governmental efforts to incorporate design and construction practices that will yield energy efficiency, enable the conservation of resources, and protect the environment. Some local governments and universities have also been experimenting with their own green building programs. This rapidly changing field presents challenges and potential problems for local government counsel, as well as attorneys who specialize in real estate, land use, environmental and construction law.

“There are certainly a lot of positives to green building practices,” says UF Law Professor Michael Allan Wolf, Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law. “Local governments can promote themselves as being green. They might provide incentives for people to build green-certified buildings and create a green corridor or green district, and that can sort of promote the city, because there are a lot of people when they are choosing where to live or where to shop who are cognizant of these issues.

“But ultimately there might be some strings attached that might prove troublesome for local governments. There might be some extra regulatory hoops that they have to jump through, additional costs that the state could pass on to them, or legal challenges that could arise from these green building incentives and requirements.”

UF has been one of the leaders in the state in the green movement. UF’s Rinker Hall became Florida’s first LEED Gold-Certified building in 2004, and last year Library West became the second building at UF to attain gold status. Other UF buildings are now certified by LEED and several more are being renovated to meet these standards.

Scheduled presenters include Douglas Buck, director of governmental affairs, Florida Home Builders Association; Kristen H. Engel, professor of law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law; Douglas E. Meyers, III, a lawyer at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, Jacksonville, Florida; Charles J. Kibert, professor, University of Florida M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Building Construction; Errol E. Meidinger, vice dean for research and professor, University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York; Joshua Yaffin, energy coordinator, Florida Department of Management Services; Jeffry S. Wade, director, Environmental Division, Center for Governmental Responsibility, UF Levin College of Law; and Jariel Bortnick, J.D. candidate, UF Levin College of Law.

This is the seventh symposium honoring Richard E. Nelson–who served with distinction as Sarasota County attorney for 30 years–and Jane Nelson, two UF alumni who gave more than $1 million to establish the Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law, which sponsors the annual event. Their support of the Levin College of Law’s Environmental and Land Use Program has been key to the program’s success and national recognition for excellence.

With 4-to-6 million unwanted animals – mostly cats – put to sleep each year in the United States, some people might consider it more humane to free the felines into the wild. But as these cats forage for food and establish their territories, they kill more than a billion small mammals and birds each year, many of which are threatened or endangered, a University of Florida study shows.

Feral, or free-roaming, untamed cats pose a serious threat to endangered species nationwide as colonies of the wild cats have grown, largely because local groups provide funding and resources to sustain them, according to the UF Levin College of Law Conservation Clinic study commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In addition, although the study found those who release cats into the wild or support feral cat colonies are violating numerous federal and state wildlife protection laws, enforcement of the law in these cases has largely been ignored, according to the study (presented in March at Ninth Annual Public Interest Environmental Conference).

“The domestic cat species is not indigenous to Florida or anywhere else in North America. They impact native wildlife in three primary ways: predation, competition, and disease,” said Pamela Hatley, UFLaw student who conducted the study. The results also will be published in the spring volume of the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law.

“Cats are non-indigenous predators that compete in the wild with native predators like owls, hawks, fox, because cats, being subsidized by humans, outnumber these native predators and prey on the same small mammals and birds. Thus, cats reduce the prey base for native predators, making it difficult for native predators to feed themselves and their young,” she said.

In addition, these cats spread diseases – rabies in particular – that can kill wildlife. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that rabies is more than twice as common in cats as it is in dogs or cattle, and cats have the highest incidence of rabies among domestic species, she said.

The number of feral cats in the United States is estimated to be 40 million to 60 million, said Hatley, who works with Conservation Clinic, which was commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the applicability of federal, state and local wildlife laws to the practice of releasing cats into the wild and maintaining feral cat colonies. Compounding the problem is that another 40 million domestic cats nationwide also roam outside, hunting and killing small animals.

For example, the Lower Florida Keys marsh rabbit is a federal endangered species with a remaining population of about 100 to 300. A 1999 study found free-roaming cats were responsible for 53 percent of the deaths of these rabbits in one year, and a 2002 study indicated the species could be extinct within two or three decades, Hatley said.

Cats also have been recognized as instinctive predators and a serious threat to the Key Largo cotton mouse, Key Largo woodrat, Choctawhatchee beach mouse, Perdido Key beach mouse, green sea turtle, roseate tern, least tern and Florida scrub jay, she said.

Cat predation also is a serious problem in California and Hawaii, where, like Florida, the climate is ideal for cats to survive outside and breed year-round. As a result, endangered animals, such as the Hawaiian goose, California brown pelican and blunt nosed leopard lizard also face additional threats.

“There are some 15 million cats in Florida which spend all or part of their time outside preying on wildlife,” Hatley said. “It is estimated that cats kill as many as 271 million small mammals and 68 million birds each year in Florida, many of these members of threatened and endangered species.”

As an alternative to euthanasia, many cat advocates believe in trap-neuter-release, or TNR, programs, in which feral cats are spayed or neutered and returned to colonies where caretakers look after them. While the programs aim to reduce wild cat populations, however, irresponsible pet owners continue to release unwanted cats that often join feral cat colonies.

In Florida, such colonies are known to exist in 17 counties. The largest, in Key Largo, may include as many as 1,000 cats and operates on an annual budget of $100,000, Hatley said.

TNR programs and managing large numbers of cats in colonies do not effectively control cat overpopulation or the predation of endangered animals, she said.

And although Hatley determined releasing cats into the wild and supporting feral cat colonies is a violation of federal laws, such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Endangered Species Act, enforcement of these and other state and local regulations with the same goals is rare against those who release cats or support feral colonies, she said.

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, for example, has left enforcement of state laws up to local governments, whose ordinances vary greatly as to what they prohibit and the fines involved.

“It is essential that our state and local governments take steps to educate the public about the destructive impact of free-roaming cats on native wildlife, and strictly enforce against the release of cats into the wild,” Hatley said.

Michael Wooten, an associate professor of biology at Auburn University, has done extensive research on endangered beach mice nationwide. His studies have found limited direct evidence that feral cats hunt the endangered mice, but he said he has observed immense indirect evidence, including cat paw prints in the dunes where mice live and mouse-tracking devices in the bellies of cats.

“Predators in general have taken quite a toll on the beach mouse population,” Wooten said. “Where you have cat colonies, there is a decrease on the mouse population.”

Feral cat colonies are a well-intentioned but misguided idea, Wooten said. “If people really loved animals,” he said, “they wouldn’t release large groups of predators into the wild.”