Florida Buys Sugar Land to Save Everglades

Guv backs alternative energy, but open to more oil drilling

(NEWSER) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is walking an environmental tightrope between encouraging conservation and alternative energy, and promoting oil exploration off the state’s coast, the Wall Street Journal reports. Recent moves include the purchase of 300 square miles in the Everglades—a deal that shuts down the nation’s largest sugar-grower. But the governor also says he’ll support drilling off the coast as long as the state’s people and beaches are protected. More»

(NEWSER) - With Florida’s python population exploding, state wildlife officials are going on the offensive, hiring a team of trained hunters to track down the alarmingly large snakes and take them out, the Miami Herald reports. “There’s one way to do this: kill the snakes,” says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who yesterday called for a hunt in the federally protected Everglades National Park, said to be home to 100,000 of them, each up to 20 feet long. More»

(NEWSER) - As a revised deal by US Sugar to sell 180,000 Everglades acres to Florida nears completion, critics are stepping up their efforts to derail it, the Wall Street Journal reports. The deal, hailed by environmentalists, would allow the state to restore natural waterways, but opponents see it as a wasteful, secretive bailout of a struggling company. A state agency could finalize it next week, and foes say more time is needed to assess it. More»

Farming company offers to buy US Sugar

(NEWSER) - A possible new bid has thrown a wrench into the state of Florida's plan to buy most of US Sugar's land for $1.34 billion and use it to help restore the Everglades, the St. Petersburg Times reports. The Lawrence Group, which has tried twice before to buy US Sugar, says it plans to offer a "far superior" deal for $300 a share, but the bid is not yet official. More»

Florida land deal boosts ecological preservation efforts

(NEWSER) - Everglades restoration may finally be a reality, writes Michael Grunwald in Yale Environment 360 during his “vacation from defeatism.” Florida's tentative $1.75 billion land deal with US Sugar would halt sugar production (and pollution) on nearly 300 square miles, and have an ecological ripple-effect that extends beyond saving the Florida Panther or sparing nature from suburban development. More»