$1.7B Everglades Land Deal in Works

The United States Sugar Corp. is selling 187,000 acres to Florida for $1.75 billion, Governor Charlie Crist announced yesterday. The South Florida water management district’s proposal aims to restore the agricultural land in order to help preserve the Everglades.

The proposal covers almost 300 square miles across four South Florida counties, and would include all of U.S. Sugars property south of Lake Okeechobee, including its cane fields, mill and railroad line. The two sides had been ironing out the logistics of the deal since Crist unexpectedly proposed to purchase U.S. Sugar Corp. at a meeting this past November.

“The deal wasn’t because of economic issues and it wasn’t because of environmental pressure,” said Robert Coker, the vice president of U.S. Sugar Corp. “We’ve been consistently building new factories, plants and other facilities and we’ve been dealing with environmental pressure since the company started.”