Jobs, the US Sugar buyout, and The Media... by gimleteye

For editors and journalists considering how to write about the state buyout of lands owned by US Sugar, the issue of 1,700 jobs that may be lost needs sharper focus.

Let's take a look at one example, from this morning's Palm Beach Post: "Belle Glade Commissioner Michael Martin ... challenged the value of the deal between U.S. Sugar and the state, despite the joy on the part of environmentalists who say the sale will save the Everglades."

"The environmentalists have claimed yet another victory which will take away from the livelihood of many people and families," Martin wrote in an e-mail to The Palm Beach Post."

"Joy" and "victory" are two words foreign to the vocabulary of the environmental side of the equation, in relation to the State of Florida and the environment.

The history of state and federal land purchases for the Everglades is written in costly delays and tactics employed by Agriculture to extract the last dime from converting lands to public ownership. Journalists might want to back track to the Frog Pond and Talisman deals, for detail.

More from the Post: "The employees of U.S. Sugar are hard-working people who are trying to make an honest living and raise their families with dignity," Martin wrote. "So, while the environmentalists are starting their celebration and popping the cork on their champagne bottles, remember the 1,700-plus employees and their families and ask yourself this question, 'Who'll be next?' It just might be you."

I would hardly say, there is "cork-popping" of "champagne"; though that is language consistent with painting environmentalists as elitists who don't drink Bud or Wild Turkey.

Who is in favor of pitting environmentalists against "hard working people"? For one, the public relations firms and lobbyists who earn hefty fees for spinning conflicts with environmental protection in favor of industries.

It is the tactic most often employed by special interests seeking to get their way in legislatures, when it comes to exploiting natural resources. It was, for example, the tactic used effectively in the 1996 state-wide referendum to tax sugar a penny a pound to pay for clean-up of the industry's pollution.

Big Sugar, at the time, spurred the flow of money into African American churches whose leaders--including Jesse Jackson-- turned out congregations throughout South Florida.

"The concerns of those leaders are being echoed at the federal level. U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, who represents the Glades communities, has said he will not comment on the deal until he knows what will be done to offset the loss of jobs and tax revenues."

Journalists might want to ask the question of Alcee Hastings as well: what has his relationship been to Flo-Sun interests and US Sugar, over the years?

Journalists might also want to track back to the employment number claims of US Sugar during the debate over the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan: it may be 1,700 today but what did industry say the number was, fifteen years ago? Journalists ought to ground truth the employment number claims.

There are two categories of special interests who stand to gain, by inflicting political pain on the advocates for the US Sugar buyout: the first is Flo-Sun Sugar, owned by the Fanjul family. In the end, Flo-Sun will extract the maximum value in exchange for lands it owns and the state needs to provide large contiguous parcels. Fanning the flames, is a way to keep the pressure up.

The second category of interests are land speculators and rock mining companies, who are trying to outflank the Crist administration. Currently, there are permit applications to rock mine on thousands of acres in the Everglades Agricultural Area. With the massive collapse of housing markets, it is not clear why so many new mines need to permitted except as a way to keep legislatures and county commissions on tight leashes. (Unless, of course, rock miners have figured out how to economically and profitably excavate Florida to fuel the growth of China.) Journalists should pay heed, on this point as well.

If news editors want to pit the Environment against Jobs, because it sells news or because it is an easy way to frame the story, then what is fair is to widen the scope.

It is not just 1,700 jobs against the Everglades, it is the survival of jobs tied to coastal real estate values and home owners watching their equity disappear because of unrelenting pollution of estuaries and Lake Okeechobee, it is the bleak transformation of Florida Bay and the coral reef into cesspools for excess nitrogen and nutrients, and the billions of dollars of a tourism-based economy in South Florida that are directly in harm's way from the collapse of the Everglades.

An even larger frame: the Everglades reflects the damage to the South Florida economy through patterns of growth that are not sustainable, whether farming at the edge of environmentally sensitive lands, or, the conversion of wetlands to strip malls and suburban sprawl.

I certainly hope that the state and US Sugar come up with an economic development package for sugar farm workers. But even more, I hope that the media gets this story, right.