A plantation purchased by the state is needed for Everglades restoration, but the growers are ignoring a request to leave.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published March 31, 2004
Florida taxpayers spent $130-million five years ago to buy a 50,000-acre sugar plantation south of Lake Okeechobee as part of the ambitious plan to replumb the Everglades.
Gov. Jeb Bush called the Talisman Sugar Plantation "the linchpin of Everglades restoration."
The state didn't need the Palm Beach County land immediately, so it let sugar companies continue farming there. Now the state is preparing to take it over and recently notified the sugar companies to move out by April 2005.
But the companies won't budge.
They say the notices sent out by the South Florida Water Management District don't meet the strict contractual requirements for terminating the lease.
"Accordingly, we do not recognize the notices as valid, and we will continue to plan our operations consistent with this position," Florida Crystals vice president Armando Tabernilla wrote in a terse, Feb. 11 letter. The other two companies that lease the land, U.S. Sugar and the Florida Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative, agree.
The dispute could end up in court, said Henry Dean, the water district's executive director. "But my hope is we can reach some amicable understanding."
The stakes are higher than the typical landlord-tenant dispute, since a standoff could stall the construction of large reservoirs essential for restoring the Everglades.
"That would delay for a significant period of time the use of that property for a water conservation area," said Thom Rumberger, chairman of the Everglades Trust, an environmental group that has long been critical of the sugar companies.
Environmentalists want the state to take swift action.
"If I were Jeb Bush, I would serve them with an eviction notice now because they're squatting on public land," said Jon Ullman of the Sierra Club.
Florida Crystals spokesman Jorge Dominicis said the sugar companies hope to avoid a court battle.
Until now, the sugar companies haven't even been charged for leasing the public's property. They are supposed to start paying Thursday, but as of Tuesday how much had not been agreed upon.
The sugar companies have performed a valuable service by preventing exotic plants from taking over, Dominicis said. But Ullman pointed out that the sugar farms are still dumping phosphorous pollution into the Everglades.
Florida spent a century draining the Everglades for farms and homes. What's left is about half the original size. The once leisurely flow of what is known as the River of Grass now depends on canals, pumps and levees to get rid of rain water as fast as possible to avoid flooding urban areas.
In 1999, state and federal officials unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan to return the Everglades to a semblance of its old self. The plan requires capturing that water before it flows to the sea, and rerouting it to the Everglades.
That will require creating several places to store water, and that's where Talisman comes in.
The plan calls for the state and federal governments to begin building two or more reservoirs next year that would take in excess water from Lake Okeechobee during the rainy season and hold it for release into the Everglades during the dry season. The scheduled completion date is 2009.
Talisman once belonged to the St. Joe Co., the state's largest private landowner. Years of negotiations finally resulted in St. Joe selling the land. In announcing the 1999 deal, Bush pledged, "I will do all I can to ensure that construction of the reservoir begins on schedule."
Before construction can begin, the sugar farmers have to move, said Dean, the water district official. While it's possible the construction could proceed in phases, he said, the first phase would need to take 17,000 of the 20,000 acres that Florida Crystals is leasing.
Dominicis said the water district isn't close to starting work. He said the district has made a show of speeding up its schedule to please environmental activists, yet has failed to take several steps that should have occurred before sending eviction notices.
The sugar companies say that, among other concerns, the district must sign a formal project cooperation agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before any eviction notice could be issued.
Last fall, U.S. Sugar vice president Bob Coker told a Fort Pierce TV station: "If you go through the process and you get the engineering done and the conceptual design plan done and you get authorization, we're ready to back off that property at a day's notice."
"We're asking they follow the process they wrote," Dominicis said Tuesday.
- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
