An environmental group gave notice Monday that it is appealing a circuit judge’s decision in a public records dispute involving information about the long-controversial Rodman Reservoir dam in Putnam County.
Florida Defenders of the Environment and an individual plaintiff, Jim Gross, filed a notice at the 1st District Court of Appeal after Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey last month ruled against their records request.
Environmentalists have called for decades to remove the dam, which was built in the 1960s as part of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal project. The barge canal project was later abandoned, but the dam remained on the Ocklawaha River, creating the Rodman Reservoir. Environmentalists have sought to restore the flow of the Ocklawaha.
The public records lawsuit, filed in October, sought what are known as “emergency action plans” about the dam from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The lawsuit alleged that the dam is in poor condition and “is subject to breach especially in the event of severe storms that commonly occur in Florida.”
The lawsuit came after the department rejected a public-records request. In a Feb. 24 order, Judge Dempsey backed the department, which has provided redacted versions of the records to the plaintiffs.
The order said the department argued that other requested information was exempt from disclosure as it contains “threat assessments, emergency evacuation plans and … building plans, blueprints. schematic drawings or diagrams depicting the structural elements of a structure.”