Back in June I posted that after my visit to the US to study water issues I had read this article by Reuters . I have talked about social capital before and the $1.34 billion now proposed is a lot of social capital to purchase land in the Everglades. U.S. Sugar Corp., was going to sell its Florida sugar plantations totalling over 187,000 acres (75,680 hectares) of farmland to the state to assist its efforts to restore the Everglades.
This week The Economist carried a further article which said that the land will be used to restore the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee into the marshy Everglades—the “river of grass”.
There are a number of issues that have affected the Everglades including the growth of Orlando, intensive agriculture, phosphorous pollution and water management issues.
The proposed plan is to build a water management system that will improve water quality before the water enters the Everglades National Park. The land will be purchased through bond issues by the South Florida Water Management District, but US Sugar will be able to lease most of it back for seven years at $50 an acre/annum as well as continuing to operate a mill, an extensive rail network and a citrus-processing plant. The sugar could be used for bioethanol production. The Economist reports that the Illinois firm, Coskata, may in a joint venture with US Sugar build a 100m-gallon cellulosic ethanol plant using farm waste and municipal rubbish.
The Everglades deal, has yet to be approved by the Water Management Board, but it will be interesting to see how this plan progresses.
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