Holy Crap! Go Florida!
LOXAHATCHEE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Fla., June 24 (Reuters) - The state of Florida announced on Tuesday it intends to spend $1.75 billion to buy a large chunk of Everglades land from U.S. Sugar, one of a number of sugar companies blamed for polluting the precious wildlife habitat.
U.S. Sugar Corp., one of the largest privately held U.S. agriculture firms, will abandon its Florida sugar plantations and go out of business in six years, handing over about 187,000 acres of farmland to the state's efforts to restore the Everglades, company and state officials said.
The purchase, lauded by environmentalists as the "missing link" in the restoration project, will be paid for with $50 million cash and $1.7 billion in certificates of participation, similar to bonds, that will be sold in public debt markets, the South Florida Water Management District said.
The land deal would revive an effort to turn sugar cane fields back into marshes and waterways that would help cleanse polluted Everglades water and carry it from Lake Okeechobee to the southern reaches of the Everglades and Florida Bay.
Read the rest of the story here.
posted by birdchick at 7:18 PM
6 Comments:
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Just heard this on the radio. Amazing opportunity for natural restoration. I'm listening to BBC interview with Nature Conservancy guy right now. He seems to be a little stunned by it.
I'm amazed that our State would do something SO environmental. While it looks like Florida cars about the environment, I've seen much to the contrary. Hurray for Charlie Crist finally doing something right!
Sandy in Pinellas Park, FL
WOW! Let's just hope they act as environmentally aware when they decide on this whole offshore drilling issue down there. It seems like all the politicians who were against it before, from Jeb Bush to Charlie Crist, are suddenly all for it.
This is just so exciting!
This feels like a goofy question but, how long does it take a sugar plantation to turn back into marsh land? What's involved in restoring such a gigantic chunk of land? I imagine you can just let it finally flood again and wait.
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