Okay, I have to admit I didn't understand Gimleteye's August 18th post. Like, why is anyone talking about a port in Palm Beach County where two Canals meet near Lake Okeechobee? How stupid is that? So, I did my research and I am going to try to explain it to you in simple terms so then you can read Gimleteye's post again and "Get It".There are two sugar companies. U.S. Sugar is publicly owned and it signed on to cease operation in 2006 and sell their land to the State of Florida. This buyout is going to cost the State $1.75 Billion. They estimate that this transaction will put about 1,700 people out of work.
The other sugar company, Florida Crystals is owned by a family named the Fanjuls. They are probably trying to figure out how they can cash in on this deal. One way, of course, is to drive a hard bargain while trading land to the State. The State would like to make a contiguous block of land for the Everglades and U.S. Sugar land alone won't do it. They may need Florida Crystals to cooperate. So Florida Crystals should make some bucks and sweetheart deals with the trades. These trades I think are being negotiated and planned out by the South Florida Water Management District.
Florida Crystals must have figured that they could capitalize further on this historic Sugar buyout of their rival because they dusted off an idea that has been floating around (never looked at by any other existing port) for years:
Let's build an inland port! (see map, I think this is the location). Florida Crystals want to rezone 9,000 acres of their own land for the port but mostly for a lot of ancillary development (they claim no housing). Due to Hurricane Fay, the Palm Beach County meeting (Aug. 19th) to discuss this rezoning was thankfully cancelled. (hit read more)
Carolyn Wehle, Executive Director of the South Florida Water Management District, had said that there were negotiations going on and suggested Florida Crystals wait a few weeks until land acquisition negotiations were complete so that the SFWMD could weigh in on the rezoning issue. Florida Crystals didn't want to wait. They said the Port will create jobs (isn't it funny how they always use jobs as a ploy to get zoning passed) to make up for the jobs lost so they barreled ahead with their port plan.
One problem with the location of the extended Port is that it is smack dab in the middle of where they were going to do Everglades Restoration Projects, to clean polluted water and get more water to the Park.
This story is already long enough. I am sure you are as bored as I am. The questions I am left with from the story are:
1. Is Florida Crystals acting greedy, trying to ram through these zoning changes or are they just savvy business people that care about creating jobs?
2. Are they going to play hardball with the land swaps now and dangle them as bait to get the port?
3. Is the port really what they are after (because you only need about 1,500 acres for a port) or are they really after adding value to land with rezoning?
4. Are we putting the cart before the horse? No one has done a feasibility study for the port idea, so why rezone ahead of time?
5. Do we want an intense commerce hub at the headwaters of the Everglades when we are already spending billions trying to unpollute the existing water?
6. Will the Clewiston Inn stop selling sugar cookies? That would truly be a disaster.
Now go reread the post by Gimleteye and you will see what a great writer we have here. Oh, damn! I just noticed that Gimleteye is working on still another post on this sugar stuff... and Gimeleteye has a better graphic than mine! Double damn.
7 comments:
Genius, thanks for breaking the details down for us.
I spend more and more time up in that area in search of nature adventures(last trip I saw many deer ,tons of pigs ,young turkeys,quail and bunches of the birds I went looking for all in about a half mile walk).
I am having a difficult time accepting the theory posed that the sugar buyout is the best of a bad situation. I agree that the State must be the steward of the land in that area, but the "devil in the details" -in this case the Fanjul family- makes me fear the end result.
I think we would have been better off playing hardball and regulating the sugar barons out of the picture.
"The Everglades is a test.If we pass we get to keep the Earth" Does anyone remember that ?
As it stands now, I am afraid that all we are going to get is a certificate of attendance not a passing score.And that simply is not good enough.
Remember Aerojet in Homestead? Aerojet was in a competition with others to develop rocket fuel for the fledging NASA program at Cape Canaveral. What better place than at the edge of the Everglades in South Dade? They built research and launch buildings and a "canal" to bring supplies in and out by barge. The City of Homestead jumped on board and supported this idea because it would bring "jobs" to Homestead (they are still doing wrong headed things like that). While under construction, Aerojet hired local workers. But once the construction was done they let them go and brought in high tech scientists and engineers to operate the facility. Homestead farmers who pushed for the facility soon learned that the chemicals released during launches destroyed their groves (too late). Aerojet lost the fuel race but the ghost facility and aerojet canal survive today.
Then there was the proposed port on the banks of Biscayne Bay to feed a huge oil refinery. The dredging for the port would have destroyed the bay bottom. Thanks to a few activists they defeated the refinery (against all political odds) and today we have beautiful Biscayne National Park.
The point is, history is full of "ports" in and around sensitive land. They are rarely a good idea but someone stands to make a bundle so they march forward.
Leave it to Florida Crystals to corrupt the goal to restore the Everglades into how can we make more money by further industrializing the Everglades. An inland port in the middle of where the Water Management District wants to store water is not compatible.
Sugar doesn't care about helping out the local communities, but only got big dollar signs in their eyes when thinking about this port. People should be more thoughtful about economic growth and what will actually help affected people before jumping on an inland port bandwagon.
I think the Fanjul company is being greedy, you were right with the first one.
Thanks for explaining this. I was embarressed because I didn't understand what they were doing and I didn't know what it was about. Why do they need a port there. I don't think it is a good idea.
No need to be embarrassed we all learn from each other here on this blog. I am sure you could explain plenty of stuff to me. Yes that is my question too...why a port there? We got a few good replies above...
Trust me, in the end it won't be whether we need a port --- it will end up being about job creation. They muddy the water with jobs, the fact that we are spending billions of our hard earned tax dollars to clean up the Everglades won't matter a bit. Call it tunnel vision or stupidy...it usually rules the day.
We should have bought Florida Crystals and not US Sugar and deported the greedy Fanjuls!
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