Imperial Sugar Company Online Newsroom » Everglades

Finding Money for Florida Sugar Deal

isc — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:01:49 +0000

Buying U.S. Sugar’s land is more important to Everglades restoration than lesser projects under way, writes the Palm Beach Post. The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board must scrutinize the agency’s budget and determine what to sacrifice to deliver the greater long-term benefit.

Board Chairman Eric Buermann understands this, despite withering criticism from opponents of the deal, particularly U.S. Sugar’s rival — Florida Crystals. The critics cited a new list of projects the district could cancel or delay so the budget can absorb the deal’s estimated $46 million annual debt service. Making the list, though, doesn’t mean that the most popular projects would be cut. The governing board must decide in the next few months where the U.S. Sugar deal ranks.

Read the full story. Click here.

US Sugar Deal Sparks Call for Oversight

isc — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:59:47 +0000

With lawmakers already frustrated over a lack of oversight, recent reports on the state’s landmark $536 million Everglades agreement with U.S. Sugar Corp. may add momentum for a legislative response in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the controversial deal, a key House lawmaker said Monday.

The Miami Herald reports – Backers say the purchase is critical for Everglades restoration efforts. Critics, meanwhile, characterize it as a sweetheart deal for an otherwise financially strapped company and the law firm that represents it.

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US Sugar May Benefit from Everglades Deal

isc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:23:22 +0000

Florida cane sugar

Gov. Charlie Crist fired back today at critics who pummeled him for a $536 million Everglades land deal that they describe as a giveaway to U.S. Sugar Corp.

When Crist announced Florida’s $1.75 billion plan nearly two years ago to save the Everglades by buying out a major landowner, United States Sugar, he declared that the deal would be remembered as a public acquisition “as monumental as the creation of the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”

Now, the governor’s ambitious plan to reclaim the river of grass, as the famed wetlands are known, is instead on track to rescue the fortunes of United States Sugar.

Read the full story in The New York Times.

Water Managers Work to Finance US Sugar Deal

isc — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:30:34 +0000

Water managers in south Florida may offer Wall Street more than a quarter-million acres of state-owned lands, including thousands of acres of Everglades restoration tracts, as collateral to finance Gov. Charlie Crist’s large land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp. and future environmental projects, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Reporter Paul Quinlan writes: The South Florida Water Management District has identified 283,000 acres worth $1.5 billion — including preserve lands, filter marshes and Everglades-area wetlands — that could be used to guarantee some of the $2.2 billion they intend to borrow to buy the U.S. Sugar land and recreate the historic flow of water from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades.

Click here to read the full story.