tcpalm.com: WEST PALM BEACH — As expected, the South Florida Water Management District board Thursday rejected the proposal to buy U.S. Sugar Corp. land south of Lake Okeechobee.
Board member Kevin Powers of Stuart made the motion to “irrevocably” terminate the option to buy 46,800 acres of U.S. Sugar land by Oct. 12. The motion was approved unanimously.
At their April meeting, board members approved Gov. Rick Scott’s proposal for Everglades restoration that doesn’t include the U.S. Sugar land purchase.
The board’s action puts the final nail in the coffin.
As they have at the past several meetings, dozens of people asked the board to move forward with the land buy, saying the land is needed to help stop Lake O discharges to the St. Lucie River and send the water to the Everglades where it’s needed.
The proposed purchase includes a 26,100-acre parcel on the Hendry-Palm Beach County line that environmentalists say would be the perfect spot to build a reservoir to hold excess lake water.
The Legislature would have to add the purchase to the state budget, which will be hammered out during a June 1-20 special session.
Several district staffers told the board high construction and operation costs make the land a poor site for a water quality project, and the contract worked out with U.S. Sugar requires the district to lease most of it back to the company for up to 20 years.
Chief Engineer Jeff Kivett said a reservoir could be built on a 26,100-acre parcel of the land, or on at least most of it; but it would cost about $2.5 billion.
Tom Teets, district director of Everglades policy, said buying the land would cost $500 to $700 million; and Ben Ward, the director of real estate, said appraisals and other work needed to make the purchase would cost from $500,000 to $1 million.
Frank Jackalone, organizing manager for the Florida Sierra Club, called the district staff’s report “a travesty” designed to give the board excuses not to buy the land.
Several purchase proponents, including former Martin County Commissioner Maggy Hurchalla, asked the board to support state Sen. Joe Negron’s call for $500 million of Amendment 1 money be set aside for land acquisition for Everglades restoration.
Then Hurchalla challenged the district to find “the perfect piece of land” to buy with the money “that’s better than the U.S. Sugar option.”
The district still has an option to buy more than 150,000 acres from U.S. Sugar land by 2020.
Some of the purchase proponents addressing the board dropped “Everglades quarters,” recently minted quarters with an Everglades scene on the “tails” side, into a bucket near the podium. Sierra Club officials who passed them out said the quarters symbolize that the cost of the land purchase is “a drop in the bucket” compared to the cost of inaction by the board.