The South Florida Water Management District, the agency tasked with Everglades restoration, announced today that the EAA’s on-farm Best Management Practices (BMPs), developed by university scientists in collaboration with farmers, are a resounding success. The District praised EAA farmers for being proactive and often implementing more BMPs than what is required.

“We’re proud of farmers’ accomplishments cleaning water, with an average phosphorus reduction of 55 percent over the last 16 years,” said Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative. “When the BMP program was first envisioned in 1991, no one imagined it would be this effective over the long term. It’s an example of the kind of success that can be achieved in partnership with scientists and farmers, who roll up their sleeves to get the job done.”

In addition to improving water quality using high-tech sustainable practices, more than $200 million has been paid by farmers for the construction of Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) to further clean water. Built on 60,000 acres of former farmland, the STAs have reduced phosphorus to the Everglades Protection Area by an additional 1,470 metric tons. That’s in addition to the 2,400 metric tons of phosphorus removed by farmers.

“Along with being stable economic drivers and job providers for our state and county, farmers have a long track record of supporting and implementing Everglades restoration,” said Gaston Cantens, vice president of Florida Crystals Corporation. “Today’s record-breaking results are another example of the proven success of our sustainable practices and demonstrate the significant role our farms continue to play in protecting and preserving the Everglades ecosystem, as the design was intended.”

Florida Agriculture Fast Facts:
* Supports 766,000 jobs
* Generates $100 billion annual economic impact in Florida
* Responsible for $3 billion in tax revenue for local and state government
* Florida Sugar Industry provides 7,000 direct jobs & 23,500 indirect jobs
* Florida Sugar Industry generates $2 billion economic impact

The initial land purchase is about one-ninth the size that was originally planned. The state had planned to pay $1.75 billion to buy all of U.S. Sugar’s 180,000 acres, but the faltering economy led to repeated scale-backs. The revised deal still gives the state the option to purchase the remainder of the land over the next decade.

According to an article by the Associated Press, environmentalists praised the news while critics, including U.S. Sugar competitor Florida Crystals, have called the deal a waste of taxpayer money.

The deal is an attempt to restore the Everglades, which have been dying for decades from the intrusion of farms and development, dissected by dikes, dams and canals, effectively draining much of the swamp and polluting it with fertilizers and urban runoff. The state and federal governments’ efforts to restore the wetlands have been stymied for years by funding shortfalls, legal challenges and political bickering.

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.

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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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.

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.

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