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Despite Responsibility, Sugar Industry Avoids Most of the Cost for Everglade Pollution Cleanup

The sugar companies are accused of dodging Everglades clean-up costs and leaving most of the bill to Florida taxpayers.

By Andy Reid

 

Florida taxpayers have been left shouldering most of the $2 billion Everglades water pollution cleanup cost, despite a constitutional amendment passed by nearly 70 percent of voters that calls for the sugar industry to pick up its share of the tab.

While South Florida sugar cane growers excel at providing the sweet ingredient for everything from cakes to candy bars, polluted phosphorus-laden runoff from sugar cane fields has damaging consequences on the Everglades.

About 62 percent of the polluting phosphorus that flows toward the Everglades comes from water draining off farmland dominated by sugar cane, according to state environmental records.

But just 12 percent of the $2 billion cleanup expense has been paid by special taxes on those sugar cane growers and other farmers south of Lake Okeechobee. That means other property taxpayers have had to dig deeper into their wallets to pay to tackle the unnaturally high phosphorus infusion that is a prime focus of Everglades restoration.

A "Polluter Pays" amendment to the Florida Constitution that voters approved in 1996 was supposed to force the sugar industry to at least cover its share of cleaning up damage to the Everglades. But some say state leaders have failed to fully enforce the measure.

That means "it shifts the burden of cleaning up the Everglades to taxpayers," said Dave Cullen, Sierra Club lobbyist. "Everybody else's (share) gets bigger."

The taxpayers' share of the Everglades cleanup gets even bigger under Gov. Rick Scott's $880 million water pollution cleanup plan. Last year, state lawmakers agreed to keep charging Everglades restoration fees paid by sugar cane growers and other farmers south of Lake Okeechobee at existing levels for 10 years longer than once planned. But lawmakers haven't been willing to increase those fees, even as the public cleanup costs increase.

Environmental advocates contend that the sugar industry's political muscle continues to allow it to avoid having to pay a share of Everglades restoration proportionate to its responsibility for pollution problems.

"You have a major industry that is saying, 'We are so powerful we don't want to pay for our pollution treatment. ... Taxpayers, you are going to pay for it. Tough luck,' " said Albert Slap, board member for the Friends of the Everglades environmental group. "It stood Polluter Pays on its head."

Sugar industry advocates, as well as top state leaders, maintain that sugar cane growers are paying enough for Everglades restoration.

They point to those special fees that sugar growers pay, improved farming practices that reduce pollution as well as the industry's economic impact on the state as evidence of the benefits that the sugar industry delivers. Sugar producers also pay property taxes, in addition to those special fees, that help fund Everglades restoration.

"In the environmentalists' eyes, no one is ever paying their fair share," said Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. "And however much money they are throwing at Everglades restoration is never enough."

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Draining parts of South Florida to make way for farming and development shrunk the Everglades to half its size, siphoning away water that once naturally flowed from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. Worsening the problem, polluted stormwater washing off farmland and urban areas threatens what remains of Everglades habitat.

That stormwater brings high levels of phosphorus, found in fertilizer, animal waste and the natural decay of soil. Unnaturally high levels of phosphorus that come from polluted stormwater runoff fuel the growth of cattails, which forces out sawgrass and other natural habitat vital to the survival of the Everglades.

"It chokes out native plant communities," said Melissa Martin, ecologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who works in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, the northern reaches of the Everglades. "It's not as good habitat for wildlife such as wading birds and alligators. ... They can't move through it as well and hunt in it as well."

The state and federal government are in the midst of a multibillion-dollar effort to clean up Everglades water pollution and get more water flowing in Florida's famed River of Grass.

That work has included turning thousands of acres of former sugar cane fields into stormwater treatment areas aimed at removing phosphorus. Reservoirs also are planned to hold onto more stormwater to replenish the Everglades. Long term, the goal is get more Lake Okeechobee water flowing south like it did before South Florida farming and development got in the way.

The public costs of those restoration efforts grew in 2013 when the Florida Legislature approved the $880 million plan, without increasing the "Agricultural Privilege" tax, the special fees levied on sugar cane and other growers south of Lake Okeechobee to help pay for it.

Growers in the vast Everglades Agricultural Area, reaching from Lake Okeechobee to what remains of the Everglades, pay about $25 per acre per year to help fund restoration efforts.

Those special taxes since 1995 have raised enough to equate to about 12 percent of the nearly $2 billion spent building 57,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas, which filter polluting phosphorus from stormwater runoff.

Instead of increasing the $25-per-acre charge on sugar cane and other growers as environmental groups had long sought, lawmakers last year opted to maintain the current charges through 2026 _ 10 years beyond when the tax was set to start declining.

After 2026, the tax begins to decline, eventually dropping to $10 per acre.

Lawmakers last year also tacked on a measure to the legislation saying that those agricultural fees, plus sugar cane growers' pollution reduction efforts, meet the requirements of the Polluter Pays law.

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While environmental groups such as Audubon Florida and the Everglades Foundation supported the Everglades legislation last year because of its $880 million in restoration plans, other environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Friends of the Everglades opposed the measure because of the provision saying that it "fulfills the obligations" of the Polluter Pays amendment.

"That was the ugly compromise," said Eric Draper of Audubon Florida. "It is a minimal extension of the existing tax. It was a minimal contribution from the sugar industry."

The "sweetheart deal" in last year's legislation shouldn't be allowed to trump a constitutional amendment, approved by nearly 70 percent of voters, according to Cullen, of the Sierra Club.

State lawmakers still could change last year's deal and require the sugar industry to pay more. But don't count on it amid the current political climate and given the sugar industry's army of lobbyists, said David Guest, an environmental law attorney for Earthjustice in Tallahassee.

"I think it's the end of the line," Guest said, referring to Polluter Pays. "They are the Teflon industry. ... They skate." Sugar producers counter that agriculture gets unfairly singled out for the polluting consequences of the state-sponsored South Florida drainage system, which long ago allowed farming and development to move onto land that used to be part of the Everglades.

(c)2014 Sun Sentinel

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