Environmentalists push for buying U.S. Sugar land
By JIM TURNER
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 28, 2015.......... The call to complete a purchase of U.S. Sugar Corp. land in the Everglades continues as lawmakers are locked in a budget impasse.
Several members of the Everglades Trust and Audubon Florida gathered Tuesday outside the Capitol to again make the case that money from a voter-approved initiative known as Amendment 1 should be used to carry out a 2010 land deal the powerful sugar company now opposes.
However, with the House cutting short the regular legislative session and heading home Tuesday, there remains little optimism that the deal for the farm land on the south side of Lake Okeechobee will be completed.
Sen. Thad Altman, a Rockledge Republican who supports the purchase of the sugar land, said he expects the issue will be addressed when lawmakers return for a special session to discuss the budget, but the first priority will be increasing funding under Amendment 1 for land acquisition statewide.
"First, we've got to get the body to agree that we need to buy more land," Altman said. "We haven't gotten to that point yet, nevertheless to get to the point of what we need to buy. That's a more complex issue."
Audubon Florida Executive Director Eric Draper, a lobbyist on environmental issues, had hoped to amend a Senate water-policy bill (SB 918) that is expected to come up Wednesday. The amendment would have allowed government agencies to move ahead with the land purchase within the Everglades Agricultural Area to build storage treatment systems. While the House adjourned Tuesday, the Senate will remain in session Wednesday.
"We don't know whether the Legislature is going to commit to buying the U.S. Sugar property or not, but what we're trying to do is get them to commit to buying something," Draper said.
Draper also reiterated his position that lawmakers have so far been "ignoring the will of the voters."
Draper during a press conference Tuesday also held a plastic bottle filled with a murky green liquid that he said came from an algae bloom growing in Lake Okeechobee.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has confirmed the bloom contains low levels of microcystin.
"The U.S. Sugar purchase would give us the opportunity to clean up this water and send it south into the Everglades as clean water, where it's actually needed," said Draper. "If they don't buy the U.S. Sugar land, then the people downstream of Lake Okeechobee can expect to continue to get this kind of green, slimy toxic algae water dumped on them on a continuous basis."
The 2010 deal signed by then- Gov. Charlie Crist calls for the state to acquire 46,800 acres from U.S. Sugar, of which 26,100 acres would be used for construction of the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir.
The purchase price has been estimated starting at $350 million and reaching $500 million to $700 million.
The deal must be completed by Oct. 12 or Florida would have to buy an additional 157,000 acres to get the land for the reservoir.
Amendment 1, which was supported by 75 percent of voters, requires 33 percent of the proceeds from a real-estate tax to go for land and water maintenance and acquisition.
The funding level is currently projected to generate more than $200 million above what lawmakers allocated for such uses in the current year.
A number of lawmakers, and groups like Associated Industry of Florida's H2O Coalition, have repeatedly said the state should first take care of land it already owns instead of buying more property.
Rep. Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers Republican who authored most of the House's water-related legislation this year, has said the House could look at the sugar land in later years, but first among the priorities is cleaning water that now goes into Lake Okeechobee.
