City of Toledo appeals judge’s LEBOR ruling

The city of Toledo has appealed a federal judge’s decision to throw out the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

In February, federal Judge Jack Zouhary ruled that the bill, also known as LEBOR, is invalid and sided with Drewes Farms Partnerships and the state of Ohio, in a civil lawsuit.

The city of Toledo appealed the decisions, filing with the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit March 27.

LEBOR

Toledoans voted in the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, in February 2019, in an effort to protect the lake from polluters, following a three-day period in 2014 when the city water was unsafe to drink due to pollution in the lake.

The bill gave Toledo citizens the right to sue polluters on behalf of the lake and declared both that Toledo citizens had the right to a clean and healthy environment, and that Lake Erie itself had a right to exist, flourish and naturally evolve.

The move sparked extensive national and international conversations about rights of nature.

Lawsuit

Drewes Farms Partnerships, of Wood County, brought a lawsuit against the City of Toledo the day after the bill passed. The suit said the bill was unconstitutional and put the farm at risk. The state of Ohio later joined the suit, both parties asking the court to invalidate the bill.

Zouhary ruled in favor of the farm and the state of Ohio, saying that the bill was unconstitutionally vague and exceeded Toledo’s power as a municipal government.

Zouhary said his decision to invalidate LEBOR was “not even a close call.”

“[The bill’s] authors ignored basic legal principles and constitutional limitations, and its invalidation should come as no surprise,” Zouhary wrote.

Response

Thomas Fusonie, of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, which represents Drewes Farms in the case, said, in an email to Farm and Dairy, “on behalf of Drewes Farms, we are disappointed that Toledo continues to try and aggressively defend LEBOR, which the district court invalidated as unconstitutional.”

Toledoans for Safe Water, a nonprofit organized to create and pass LEBOR, told Farm and Dairy it was glad to see the city advocating for the rights of Lake Erie and the community. The group was shut out of the court case after attempting to intervene as a defendant in spring 2019, but called on the city to appeal the decision in a press release, after Zouhary invalidated LEBOR.

The nonprofit noted concerns about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s March 26 decision to suspend enforcement of U.S. environmental laws amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now we are learning that funds from the proposed H2Ohio plan, that the state claimed would protect Lake Erie and other Ohio waterways, will now be greatly reduced or cut completely,” the group told Farm and Dairy. “We need LEBOR now more than ever.”

The Ohio Farm Bureau, which publicly supported Drewes Farms in the court case, also said it was disappointed that the city has decided to keep pursuing LEBOR, considering Zouhary’s “straightforward opinion” in the order invalidating the bill.

“Unnecessary and expensive litigation isn’t the way to solve water quality challenges,” the bureau said.

The attorney representing the city of Toledo did not respond to requests for comment by press time.