January 23, 2018
By Florida Sportsman Editor
Demand Sugar Get Off Our Land
It's time. Eight million people depend on you to make a phone call and demand we take steps today to preserve and protect south Florida's access to clean water. The habitat and the critters of the Everglades and our coastal estuaries depend on you as well. You don't have to drive to Tallahassee or Washington, at least not right now. But, you have to pick up the phone and call Governor Scott. Tell him in your words that it's Now or Neverglades. Get Sugar off our Land.
Bullsugar.org sums it up perfectly: " Almost a year ago, before the EAA reservoir bill switched to locating the project on public property, US Sugar and Florida Crystals shouted themselves hoarse that they weren't willing to sell land. But no one had asked them to sell any. That idea was written out of the bill long before Rick Scott signed it.
No one is asking the sugar industry to sell land today, either.
It's true that the reservoir plan needs more land for filter marshes, because its benefit to the estuaries and the Everglades is limited by the proposed project footprint. But that footprint can be expanded--and the project can stop more discharges to our rivers and send more clean water to the Everglades--without buying private land.
So what Florida taxpayers are asking the Fanjul and Mott families is much simpler than to become willing sellers. We're asking them to get off our land.
Our land. Governor Scott and his cabinet--the trustees of Florida's Internal Improvement Trust Fund--lease nearly 14,000 acres of taxpayer-owned land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to industrial growers. The terms are cheap, no competitive bids. Mostly a giveaway of taxpayer property, mostly paid for with government handouts. But now we need that property back to protect our economy, public health and safety, a national park and world heritage site, and our water.
So we don't need willing sellers but we do need those leases terminated, just like the law says, and we need those companies to vacate. Now. Also, we need those 4,000 acres of taxpayer-owned US Sugar prison-labor land, especially now that the prisoners have been kicked off it.
We could also use more honesty from state employees at SFWMD. When district spokespeople look you in the eye and say, "We terminated all our leases," they're telling a child's half-truth, talking only about district-held leases, pretending to forget about all those other state leases. They know better.
After those leases are cancelled, sugar vacates, and the free ride ends, maybe the companies will be willing to swap some land? Trade property near the reservoir site for more productive farmland? Help our engineers find more land to clean the reservoir's water and send more of it south and less of it into the rivers? Help taxpayers get the best value for a $2 billion clean water investment?
It's already our land. We just need them off it.
Call the Governor today, we're depending on you.
It's time to make the politicians and elected officials do what they said they would: build that reservoir to help save South Florida coastal estuaries and the Everglades. Now the construction of that reservoir hangs in the balance as planning officials struggle to find a way to make it happen. So it's time to put the pressure back on the officials to get the job done and give our waters a chance.
Tell Gov. Scott to cancel the leases on our land, so the District can deliver a reservoir plan that will work!
You can make the call: 850 488-7146
