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Tuesday deadline nears on Everglades Restoration decision

By Staff | Dec 14, 2008

WEST PALM BEACH (AP) – The South Florida Water Management District faces a Tuesday deadline to decide whether to pay $1.34 billion to U.S. Sugar Corp. for a vast farming tract needed for an ambitious plan to restore the Everglades.

District approval is required to realize the turnover of some 180,000 acres of land – or about 285 square miles. It would amount to the most expensive conservation land purchase in state history, the cornerstone of environmental efforts to restore natural water flow to the Everglades after decades of overdevelopment and farming.

The wetlands once covered more than 6,250 square miles but have shrunk by half, replaced with homes and farms and a 2,000-mile grid of drainage canals. In the process, the Everglades has lost 90 percent of its wading birds.

Other creatures are reported at risk, too, including 68 species that are considered threatened or endangered.

While Gov. Charlie Crist basked in the praise of environmentalists when the first proposal for a land deal with U.S. Sugar was announced in June, and again after a scaled-back pitch last month, opponents are growing louder.

Among them is former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who like others, questions whether the state is paying too much – potentially burying itself in debt and eventually crippling the deal altogether.

Graham wonders why the federal government isn’t helping in the purchase despite an 8-year-old agreement to split Everglades restoration costs evenly between Tallahassee and Washington.

“I haven’t heard any compelling argument why we should pay significantly more than the market price,” Graham said.

Nat Reed, a Hobe Sound environmentalist, offered one reason: U.S. Sugar might back out.

Executives at U.S. Sugar, the nation’s largest producer of cane sugar, say they will not return to the negotiating table if the contract is rejected Tuesday.

“The board would be taking a chance that Sugar would walk and that this great opportunity would be lost,” said Reed, a former water manager who was assistant interior secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford. “It’s a really tough call.”

Under the contract, U.S. Sugar could continue to farm for seven years, leasing the land back for a total of $54 million, a quarter of typical market value.

Competitors, including Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, call the proposed contract terms a sweetheart deal that would give U.S. Sugar an unfair edge.

But U.S. Sugar Senior Vice President Robert Coker scoffs at such criticism.

He said opponents are overlooking the fact that his company’s land sits in the heart of the priceless Everglades.

“If you want to restore sheet flow (of water) from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades, you’ve got to use U.S. Sugar land,” he said.

Water managers want the land to construct a network of marsh treatment areas and reservoirs to clean and store water before sending it south into the Everglades.

Regardless of the proposed deal, some 300,000 acres in the Everglades, or about 500 square miles, will remain in agriculture production by other companies.