Big sugar land buy for Everglades restoration hits road block

Calling the deal too costly with too little benefit, the South Florida Water Management District board on Thursday effectively canned a 2010 deal to buy 46,800 acres of U.S. Sugar land that it once considered critical to restoring the Everglades and coastal estuaries.

Instead, board members voted to back a $5 billion restoration plan mapped out by Gov. Rick Scott for the next 20 years that does not include the land.

“If we can get $5 billion in state dollars and match that with $5 billion in federal dollars and have $10 billion, to me that is the big huge goal we have to go after right now,” said board chairman Dan O’Keefe.

The vote followed weeks of rowdy protests by environmentalists, topped by a Tallahassee concert headlined by Jimmy Buffett this week demanding the state buy the land. Located just south of Lake Okeechobee, the cane fields would help fill what supporters say is a critical need to store and move water to the parched southern Glades, a major goal in fixing marshes and reviving Florida Bay and the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article17992718.html