Left Flank

It seems not even a miracle, like buying out Big Sugar, is enough to give Floridians hope about saving the Everglades. Enough, that is, to stop bickering.

«There's clearly a philosophical divide between the corps, who want to
build more structures, and those of us who believe that nature can do a
good job by itself,» said Stuart Pimm, professor of conservation
ecology at Duke University. «Yes, it could be a natural system, but
only if the corps could be persuaded not to over-engineer it.»

Despite the debate that has begun over the land's future, no one
challenges the importance of the purchase. Reducing sugar farming would
improve the health of ecosystems across the southern third of the
Florida peninsula, from the seagrass beds of the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts that suffer from artificial discharges of fresh water to the
polluted waters of Lake Okeechobee and the parched sawgrass marshes of
Everglades National Park.

And it could revive a moribund restoration effort that was suffering
from climbing costs and a lack of federal dollars to match the state's
investment.

Stuart Appelbaum, Everglades restoration chief for the corps, said
permanent changes to the environment mean the Everglades can't function
naturally, as it had in the past. But he said the U.S. Sugar deal
offers a chance to rethink the 8-year-old restoration blueprint, and
government agencies, scientists, environmental groups and other
stakeholders have much to do in the coming months.

«Obviously it presents a lot of new possibilities for us,» he said.

Spock would be proud.

Hailed as a «Nixon went to China» moment, Florida's Governor Charlie Crist stood up to Big Sugar and didn't blink.

The idea offered an end to a three-decade war over the future of the Florida Everglades, a dispute that had seen environmentalists and four governors and regulators frustrated at every turn by the company they called Big Sugar.

And last week, after seven months of top-secret huddles between the state and company officials, Crist's idea became a formal proposal: $1.75 billion to buy U.S. Sugar «lock, stock and barrel.»

If finalized by November, the state will take over U.S. Sugar's 187,000 acres of land, its sugar mill, railroad and citrus-processing facilities. Within six years, Big Sugar will be gone.

And the rich, black muck farmland that has grown cane since the 1930s will be used to re-create natural water flows between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

The Economist also highlights Crist's coup as an example for Kenya, which is just starting down the road Florida is ending now.

The wetlands that Florida plans to preserve will not only provide a natural buffer against hurricanes, they will also help provide fresh water to Florida's growing population. It will also act as a natural filtering system, eliminating the need to pump contaminated agricultural runoff into the Everglades' Lake Okeechobee.

Today, the South Florida Water Management District approved the plan, but not without some concern for local employment.

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