November 23, 2010
Late last week, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the arguments of both Florida Crystals and the Miccosukee Tribe and unanimously deemed Florida’s purchase of U.S. Sugar Corp. lands to serve an overwhelming public purpose. That’s some good news.
The court also ruled, with one important exception, that the South Florida Water Management District would have the legal authority to finance the land acquisition by issuing bonds called certificates of participation. These are commonly used to benefit schools and road improvements but not typically for public land acquisition. That’s more good news.
The water district will not be using such bonds to purchase the 26,800 acres from U.S. Sugar and has instead paid cash on the deal that closed in October. Part of that deal included a three-year option to buy some or all of the rest of the U.S. Sugar land proposed in the original 2008 deal put forth by Gov. Charlie Crist.
Here’s the important exception the court included in its ruling: The court order cuts out this option to purchase more of the U.S. Sugar Land and prohibits water managers from using bond money to buy other parcels. This is terrible news. It was, and remains, PURRE’s goal to fight hard for the state to acquire not just some, but all of the remaining U.S. Sugar land.
South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann was quoted in The Miami Herald saying the court’s decision on the land option could complicate any effort to acquire more land in the future – including options to buy the tens of thousands more acres [of U.S. Sugar land] at $7,400 an acre over the next three years or at market price over the next decade.
This, clearly, is bad news and makes PURRE’s fight to acquire more of the U.S. Sugar land to establish a flow way south from Lake Okeechobee an even steeper uphill battle. It forces PURRE to step up the pressure any way we can. As we said when the land deal was so drastically downsized – from its original 180,000 acres to 26,800 acres that were not even in strategic locations to benefit the Caloosahatchee and its estuary in any way – we will not allow this dream of a flow way south to end here without a fight. We are far from satisfied that a deal was done, financed, and closed; nor are we congratulating anyone that this lawsuit was won. All is not well, and we are not finished.
PURRE will continue to fight for the state of Florida to acquire all the land that is needed to restore the historic flow through the River of Grass to Florida Bay, to save the Caloosahatchee and the west coast estuaries, and join with our east coast friends in their quest to save their precious water resources. It will be harder now, and we hope we will continue to have your support. If we don’t do this, who will?
