Water managers OK $533M Everglades deal
WEST PALM BEACH (AP) – South Florida water managers approved Gov. Charlie Crist’s deal Wednesday to pay U.S. Sugar Corp. $536 million for 73,000 acres of farmland for Everglades restoration.
The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board voted 6-1 in the final step of the deal, which has until June 2010 to close. U.S. Sugar’s board of directors approved the deal last week.
“Benefits of this acquisition to the Everglades and Florida’s coastal estuaries are immense, providing us the opportunity to restore a unique and treasured ecosystem in ways not previously envisioned,” said Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann in a prepared statement.
U.S. Sugar is the nation’s largest cane sugar producer and owns a vast amount of land between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. The goal of the land purchase is to convert farm land into conservation land, allowing water managers to create a natural system to clean and store water before it flows south into the Everglades, sometimes referred to as the River of Grass. The acreage covered by the deal represents a land mass nearly twice the size of Orlando and is the largest single acquisition of land in the district’s history.
Still, the scope of the land deal has been twice trimmed since Crist’s June 2008 proposal to buy out U.S. Sugar and all its assets for $1.75 billion. The deal approved Wednesday includes less than half the company’s farmland but includes options to purchase the remaining 107,000 acres within the next decade.
“By gaining access to hundreds of square miles of prime property, the River of Grass and the wildlife that depend on it face a brighter and more secure future,” Crist said in a prepared statement.
Not everyone is happy about the deal. Florida Crystals, the state’s second largest sugar producer, has filed a lawsuit to stop the purchase. The company claims part of the deal gives an unfair business advantage to its competitor.
The Miccosukee Tribe, which controls land in the Everglades, has joined Florida Crystals’ suit. Attorney Claudio Riedi told The Palm Beach Post that the deal would saddle the district with debt and delay the construction of restoration projects for decades.
The case could ultimately go to the Florida Supreme Court.