FORT LAUDERDALE - A judge has ordered the state to stop cutting citrus trees in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, ruling that the state's method for determining which trees should be cut under the program to fight citrus canker is "patently at odds" with state law.
State law directs the Department of Agriculture to cut down all citrus trees within 1,900 feet of an infected tree. But Broward County Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet said the way the state measures that zone was flawed and stopped the state Department of Agriculture from destroying any trees in the three counties based on samples collected before Friday.
State officials said the delay is ill-advised.
"This only allows tens of thousands of citrus trees that previously were not in jeopardy to be placed in jeopardy, because this disease will spread," said Mark Fagan, spokesman for the state's canker eradication program.
The state is required by a judge to use global positioning system measurements to measure 1,900 feet from tree to tree. Instead, workers have been measuring from the center of one property to the center of another, Fleet said.
Canker is harmless to humans but reduces the amount of fruit produced by a tree.
