New Everglades land deal could ease restitution

Changes in the pending land deal with U.S. Sugar could clear the way for faster, easier land swaps with rival growers for Everglades restoration.

If water managers approve the smaller, cheaper version of Gov. Charlie Crist's Big Sugar land deal Wednesday, they won't be done dealing.

New tweaks in the $536 million offer to buy 73,000 acres from the U.S. Sugar Corp. would give water managers more time and flexibility to cut follow-up land deals -- most likely with rival grower Florida Crystals -- to improve Everglades restoration projects.

''This puts us in a much better bargaining position in any future negotiations,'' said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District.

The district's governing board, which met Monday to discuss the deal and must approve it, is expected to vote Wednesday or Thursday.

While approval isn't a lock, criticism has eased since the governor -- bowing to a declining economy and rising political pressure -- announced in April that he had scaled back his original $1.34 billion bid to acquire 181,000 acres of U.S. Sugar's farmland. The new deal reduced the land, and cost, by more than half.

''We're really close to doing the right thing for the right reasons, but I am concerned about the timing of it,'' said Charles Dauray, a board member from Southwest Florida who had voted against the earlier deal.

Beyond the bottom line, other key changes were hammered out during contract negotiations since Crist modified the original deal -- most notably, a new ''exclusive'' three-year option to buy some or all of U.S. Sugar's remaining 107,000 acres at $7,400 an acre.

Water managers acknowledged they wouldn't be able to afford much, if any, of that land. That was underlined when they spent half of Monday's daylong meeting outlining plans to cut costs, cap staff raises, prioritize projects and shift funds to cover gaps.

But the new option could help in talks with outside parties whom water managers hope to coax into land swaps or sales -- particularly Florida Crystals, which owns massive tracts south of Lake Okeechobee considered targets for restoration projects.

The company, second-largest to U.S. Sugar, has said it was willing to discuss swaps but not with terms that would allow U.S. Sugar to continue leasing and farming those fields for at least a decade. Water managers said the new agreement would let them hand U.S. Sugar fields to a prospective buyer or swapper within three years.

If the board approves the deal, Wehle said, the district would have a year-long window to pinpoint the best tracts and the total needed.

Environmentalists contend more than the 73,500 acres are needed to supply the Everglades with clean water.

The district currently is analyzing nine widely varying and still sketchy restoration concepts. Most would convert massive sugar and citrus tracts into reservoirs to store water for the Everglades or marshes to treat farm runoff, but one touted by the agricultural industry would turn a portion of Lake Okeechobee into a reservoir.

The new contract also would push back the deadline for closing the deal to as late as next June. That could ease concerns that ongoing legal challenges by Florida Crystals and the Miccosukee Tribe could derail the agreement.

Wehle told board members they could afford to make the deal even under conservative revenue projections, but assured them the agency could still back out over budget concerns up to the last minute.


source: miamiherald