Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 21, 2009, at 6:44 am
The landmark US Sugar-Everglades deal fashioned by Gov. Charlie Crist – limping toward the finish line, a fraction of its once grand scale – could have received a shot in the arm this week with three new appointees to the South Florida Water Management District.
Crist appointed three new members to the district board that oversees and approves the deal to purchase more than 78,000 acres of US Sugar property and eventually take them out of farming production as a means of lowering pollutant runoff into the Everglades.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 19, 2009, at 8:13 am
U.S. Sugar’s prime competitor, the Fanjul-owned Florida Crystals, has commissioned an engineering study that estimates it will cost the state more than $9 billion to fully use all 180,000 acres it is buying from the sugar-growing giant.
That estimate is well in excess of any previous guess.
The Palm Beach Post reports that pro-US Sugar deal forces say the Florida Crystals report has no validity:
The cost estimates for design and construction raise questions about whether the Everglades, which scientists say is in near-irreversible decline, would benefit quickly enough from Crist’s initiative, critics say.
But one leading champion of the land purchase dismissed the study as propaganda by the opposition, which includes rival sugar grower Florida Crystals Corp.
“Their goal is to undermine this land acquisition,” said Kirk Fordham, CEO of the Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit group that pushed Crist to put together the deal. “The report has no credibility.”
Still, opponents say the figures suggest that the ecological benefits from the mammoth land deal remain too distant to justify putting existing restoration plans on hold to pay for U.S. Sugar’s property.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 10, 2009, at 10:03 am
There are two big problems with the landmark deal being pushed by Charlie Crist to buy out U.S. Sugar’s acreage in the Everglades Agricultural Area: he wants to pay too much for the property, even at the premium it should demand as a trade-off for going out of the business of growing sugar and polluting the Everglades with fertilizer; and it isn’t enough land or a quick enough timetable for the sugar shutdown.
But Crist pushed ahead with the historic deal. The recession and the Legislature, however, may scuttle it.
The St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reports:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 15, 2008, at 8:29 am
This morning’s top political and media stories in Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond:
The Tampa Tribune’s bizarre front-page: We’re not dead! “By organizing the paper as we have, we’ve been able to preserve more space for local content. The Times, which clings to traditional sections as being more important to readers than local news, is stuck with a format that requires reducing local content.”
