Florida Moves to Restore Wetlands

Robert Buker, chief executive of U.S. Sugar Corp., left, walks to a news conference with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Shannon Estenoz, vice chair of the South Florida Water Management District Board, in Palm Beach County. (By Bill Ingram -- Associated Press)

U.S. Sugar is based in Clewiston, "America's sweetest town," on the west bank of Lake Okeechobee. The company was founded in 1931 by auto executive Charles Stewart Mott, who saw riches in the muck that bordered the lake. By the end of World War II, it was the biggest sugar company in the United States. Today it employs 1,700 people and produces 700,000 tons of cane sugar annually.

But the industry has been blamed for many of South Florida's environmental problems. Agriculture has dramatically changed the ancient landscape, and fertilizers have polluted the water.

The cane fields stretch to the horizon along the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee. Instead of flowing south to the Everglades, much of the water from the lake -- heavy with phosphorous and other chemicals -- is diverted to the west and east coasts of Florida by the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers. The state hopes to clean up those waterways as a result of the buyout.

It is unclear how the state can soften the economic impact of the company's demise. Employees will have six years to make the transition to other work. But at a news event Tuesday announcing the tentative agreement, U.S. Sugar chief executive Robert Buker said the deal is bittersweet.

"We built a company that right now is the pillar of the agriculture community in Florida," he said. "Because of that, I stand here today with mixed feelings."

U.S. Sugar Senior Vice President Robert Coker said the plan originated with Crist last fall in a meeting with company representatives in Tallahassee when the governor made a statement seemingly out of the blue: "I just think we ought to buy you out."

Said Coker: "I was very surprised. I've been dealing with Everglades issues for 27 years with this company, and nobody's ever taken that kind of bold stroke, to say we're going to solve this thing once and for all."

Under the agreement, the company will continue operations for six years. Then it will hand the state 155,000 acres of sugar cane, 30,000 acres of orange trees, a commercial short-line railroad, a private railroad for hauling cane from field to factory, a sugar mill, a sugar refinery, and a just-completed orange juice plant.

"We're turning over lock, stock and barrel," Coker said.