Water Management District Sued Over U.S. Sugar Deal

By Missy Diaz, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Aug. 2–A plan for the largest conservation land deal ever in Florida is being challenged by a former U.S. attorney who alleges that the South Florida Water Management District violated state laws when brokering the $1.75 billion deal.

Dexter Lehtinen, an open government and Everglades advocate, filed suit Friday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. He accuses the South Florida Water Management District of holding illegal meetings based on Florida’s Sunshine Law, which are among the broadest open-government measures in the country. It requires advance notice of government meetings and their agendas, a provision Lehtinen claims was ignored in the lead-up to the deal with U.S. Sugar Corp.

“I’m not necessarily against the deal, just the way it was brokered,” he said Friday. “It’s a true example of why the Sunshine Law was needed. We don’t know where they’re going to get the money or how the deal was made. Everything the public wanted to know they did in the shade.”

Among the questions Lehtinen wants answered: How will the purchase be funded? How will the land be used? And how does the land fit into the restoration plan adopted by Congress?

Lehtinen wants a judge to find that the district violated the Sunshine Law and order it from participating in closed-door meetings in the future and to have the June 30 vote declared null and void.

In a prepared statement, the district called the project one of the most important opportunities to protect the Everglades ecosystem since the designation of the Everglades National Park 60 years ago. The district is “committed to open government and conducting itself according to the letter and spirit of the law throughout these complex and delicate negotiations,” the statement read.

The district says it will pay for the land and assets without raising taxes or requiring new funding, a promise Lehtinen finds troubling, adding that buying the land is only the beginning.

“It costs more to engineer the projects than to buy the land,” he said. “It’s a silly, no-new-taxes pledge. One-point-eight billion dollars … there’s no free lunch. That’s coming from somewhere.”

The deal between U.S. Sugar and the state calls for the Florida to buy 187,000 acres of farmland owned by U.S. Sugar for $1.75 billion and use the land to recreate water flows between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Over the course of at least six years, U.S. Sugar’s property would be transferred to the state, which would then use the land to recreate a link between the lake and the Everglades, which would in turn restore water flows cut off by modern farming. Officials hope to have a final agreement by November.

Lehtinen is also a former state legislator and the husband of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. He has long represented the Miccosukee Indian tribe in similar lawsuits aimed at accelerating Everglades restoration.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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