NY Times: Florida to Buy Sugar Maker in Bid to Restore Everglades!

(photo via flickr user acmelucky777)


OMG!

This is wonderful, inspiring news!

The state of Florida has worked out an agreement with U.S. Sugar that will allow the sugar producer to continue operating for six more years, and then...

Allow the land to return to its natural state!

Looky!:

"LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. — In a deal that environmental groups said would be the largest ecological restoration in the country’s history, a plan for the state to buy the nation’s largest producer of cane sugar was announced Tuesday by the governor and officials of U.S. Sugar Corporation.

Joe Skipper/Reuters

Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, with Robert H Buker Jr., the chief of U.S. Sugar, held up an agreement struck between the state and the sugar producer.

The intention is to restore the Everglades by restoring the water flow from Lake Okeechobee, in the heart of the state, south to Florida Bay. That flow had been interrupted by commercial farming and the Everglades have suffered as a result.

Under term of the tentative deal, U.S. Sugar would continue farming and processing for six more years before closing the business and allowing 187,000 acres of land to return to its natural state. For its part the state would pay U.S. Sugar $1.7 billion.

Governor Charlie Crist said the deal was “as monumental as the creation of the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”"

187,000 acres of land! That's approximately 2,200 Disneylands!

Plenty of room for 'gators, and birds, and snakes, and all manner of wildlife to move back in and get to work setting things right.

What deliriously wonderful news.

Here's the original article.

And a huge thanks goes out to the NY Times, U.S. Sugar, Governor Charlie Crist, Robert H. Buker Jr., and the good state of Florida.

You've made our night, y'all.

Have an excellent evening.

Love,

Team SuperForest