Big Sugar and Big Enviro are locking horns again, as environmental groups like the Everglades Trust and Everglades Foundation are pushing for a state “land grab” or land purchase of 46,800 land acres from U.S. Sugar Corporation in order to allow a “natural” southward flow of water into the Everglades from Lake Okeechobee, and not east and west to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Rivers.

Here is Big Enviro’s reasoning:

 Environmentalists are asking the state to purchase the land in order to send more water from Lake Okeechobee south, instead of to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Rivers to the east and west. By purchasing U.S. Sugar’s land, they claim, more water can be stored and sent south without harming the coastal estuaries. The land in question lies in Hendry County and is spread out in various-sized chunks, the largest and most viable chunk being a roughly 26,000-acre parcel directly south of the lake. If the state purchased the land, it could turn the parcels into reservoirs that would store water released from Lake Okeechobee during the rainy season.

That water could then be sent south to the Everglades. The state would purchase the lands for $350 million, as laid out in the contract, and would then spend millions more to turn those parcels into reservoirs that could store water and in turn send that water to the Everglades.

Here is Big Sugar’s counter:

The amount of water that could be stored in the largest, 26,000-acre area is “a drop in the bucket,” according to Judy Sanchez, senior director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs for U.S. Sugar. The reservoir could only be dug four feet deep without having to build a levee around the retention area, explained Sanchez. A 26,000-acre area dug four-feet deep could hold about 104,0000-acre-feet of water. In 2013, when the water levels of Lake Okeechobee reached critical levels, the Army Corps of Engineers began discharging large amounts of water to either coast via the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers. About 4.5-million-acre-feet of freshwater was discharged to the coastal estuaries in 2013.

Storing just over 100,000-acre-feet of water south of the lake would seem to do little to stop large amounts of water from being released to the coasts in periods of high rainfall. If water is stored on the specified areas of land with the intention of moving it south, other constraints identified by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) would impact the amount of water that could be moved south. According to information released by SFWMD, federal regulations limit the amount of water allowed to enter the Stormwater Treatment Areas (STA), Water Conservations Areas (WCA) and Everglades National Park (ENP) south of Lake Okeechobee.

Enter the “Save the Nesting Birds” conflict of interest.

Nesting birds that have made their homes in the STAs and ENP also limit the amount of water that can be sent south from Lake Okeechobee. The nests of these birds are federally protected; too much water could destroy those nests and would be a violation of federal law, according to the information.

Could these nesting birds go the way of the extinct Dodo bird, if this land purchase measure moves forward?

I believe it is fair to say that both groups involved in this little political tug-of-war are truly concerned with the protection and preservation of Florida’s all-important and tourism-supporting environment, but is this proposed land purchase from U.S. Sugar actually necessary?

Apparently, the initial fully-funded Everglades Clean Up agreement between Big Sugar and  federal and state governments, seems to be working, so what is the big gripe about needing more land to “clean up” the run-off from the production of azucar (Sugar in Espanol).

Not all environmentalists are convinced that his move to get the state to buy up private land south of Lake Okeechobee to create a “flowway” will actually happen:

Sending water south from Lake Okeechobee to meander naturally through the Everglades — the “flowway” endorsed by the Everglades Foundation as the only way —  “will never happen, it’s pie in the sky,” admitted one of Florida’s leading voices on environmental policy.-SSN

There is no need fear that the Everglades will not get cleaned up, as Big Sugar, specifically U.S. Sugar, is still on the hook for cleaning up the mess they created over decades of sugar production.

So what are state legislators saying? Speaker Steve Crisafulli told the Shark Tank earlier this year at the Republican Party of Florida’s annual meeting that he was going to make “water issues” a focal point in the 2015 legislative session.

Crisafulli recently stated that he favors sticking to the cleaning up the existing state-owned land, and doesn’t support  any future state land purchases from private businesses.

“If we truly want to honor our beautiful state, then we should spend these early years making sure we can maintain the 5.3 million acres of conservation land we already own.”

As the late, great Latin singer Celia Cruz would say, “Azucar!”

More on this issue to come…