Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 16, 1994 TAG: 9401160022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Medium
The new strategy, following a deadlock last month in negotiations with the industry, was tersely described at an Everglades conservation conference here by state Lt. Gov. Buddy McKay: "litigate, legislate, regulate and mediate."
On Thursday, the pressure created a breach in what had been a solid opposition by the growers: the Clinton administration reached an agreement with one grower over cleaning up water pollution.
The agreement with the giant Flo-Sun company, signed by the Interior Department on Thursday, appeared to strengthen the government's hand, but the other major producer, U.S. Sugar Corp., said it would not sign.
Flo-Sun and U.S. Sugar each produce nearly a third of the state's sugar, a major industry.
The emerging tough strategy, part of a broad attempt to restore the Florida Everglades, exemplifies the administration's ambitious attempts to reverse environmental damage to entire ecosystems.
In a speech Saturday to the Everglades Coalition, an alliance of environmental groups, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called the fight over the Everglades "the singular most important, ultimate test case of whether we are going to have the capability to do ecosystem restoration."
Although he called the agreement with Flo-Sun a breakthrough, he said the administration was committed to a broad program of repairing the entire ecosystem of south Florida.
"We are not declaring victory on a hit-and-run basis," he said.
The agreement commits Flo-Sun to spend millions of dollars annually to reduce phosphorus pollution in water draining from its lands in the Everglades agricultural area south of Lake Okeechobee.
The company also agreed to build a vast series of artificial marshes to filter pollution from the water that flows toward the endangered Everglades National Park.
A tentative agreement with the entire industry, described in July as a breakthrough with enormous potential to revive the watery grassland and protect Everglades National Park, the Florida Bay and other natural resources, fell apart when growers demanded that the agreement incorporate protections against further demands on them.
Environmentalists strongly opposed such a condition.
The impasse sent the dispute back to the courts, where the matter will be considered in April unless other farmers make concessions.
by CNB