Cerabino opinion: Florida gives sugar company sweet deal after midterm done

November 12, 2018, The Palm Beach Post

The biggest voting outrage story last week in Florida was not Tuesday’s midterm election.

And Gov. Rick Scott, who has been carrying on for days about his imaginary victimhood in South Florida voting, is actually better cast as a perp in a consequential, South Florida vote that has been buried by the news of the midterm recount.

Late Wednesday night, a day after the midterms, a new item was slipped into the agenda for the next day’s meeting of the South Florida Water Management District.

It had to do with the lease on state-owned land south of Lake Okeechobee that has been earmarked to be a reservoir for algae-clogged lake water…

The algae crisis had been a big campaign issue. Scott put the blame on the federal government’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not making the lake’s dike more sturdy.

Scott also touted the state’s funding to develop water reservoirs south of the lake to eliminate the need for the dirty water to be pumped through the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries.

(Cont'd) Eric Eikenberg, the head of the Everglades Foundation, was flabbergasted. He wrote Scott a letter.

“In a breathtaking effort to thwart the public will, less than 48 hours after a statewide election during which you repeatedly and personally assured the people of Florida of your commitment to protecting Florida’s environment, it appears that your appointees at SFWMD have been engaged in secret negotiations with Florida Crystals to extend these leases for the growing of sugar cane through the year 2027, a fact we just learned yesterday through a public records request …"

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