Two sugar companies, with plantations near the Everglades in Florida, just received permission to start hard rock mining on their land. Their fields are just 1,000 feet away from the Everglades Agriculture Area (EAA) reservoir, a project that’s being built to help curb the harmful impact of freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee.
The Lake Okeechobee discharges are worth a story all on their own, but the short of it is this: water from Lake Okeechobee is laden with chemicals and pollution that cause toxic algae blooms along Florida’s coast. Those blooms starve the water of oxygen, killing fish, oysters, and seagrass.
The EAA reservoir has enormous benefits for the Everglades and the Florida coast. According to Captains for Clean Water, “The EAA Reservoir is an above-ground storage solution providing measurable benefits, including reduced discharges into coastal estuaries and improved water flow to the Everglades. The project also includes a critical treatment component, known as a Stormwater Treatment Area (STA), to clean the water before it’s sent through the Everglades.”
That benefit is at risk if the hard rock mines near the reservoir move forward. Unfortunately, Palm Beach County Commissioners approved the plan for those mines just last week.
Ignoring The Public
Captains for Clean Water (CCW), a 501(c)3 that advances “science-based solutions” for water management in Florida, has been leading the charge against these new mines, and was at the meeting where the commissioners approved the mine plan. According to CCW, each of the six commissioners acknowledged they’d received up to 7,000 emails from citizens who didn’t want the mines to move forward. They also cut down the time for individuals to speak from three minutes to two, because of the large turnout at the meeting.
That restriction applied even to legal and scientific experts who usually get more time to explain their information.
Fighting Over Water Storage
CCW contends that the two companies that want to build these mines—U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals—are working backroom deals with commissioners and other Florida politicians to move this project forward. Their claims are backed up by the fact that both U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the EAA reservoir, claiming that the water in the reservoir should belong to Big Sugar to irrigate crops, instead of sending it downstream for Everglades restoration efforts.
The sugar companies lost that lawsuit in both district and appellate courts, and decided to pitch their hard rock mines as a water storage initiative.
CCW wrote on their blog in March that, “The [hard rock mine] project has been pitched as a water storage initiative, but we have serious concerns about the true agenda behind it, as it appears to be nothing more than a commercial mining operation primarily benefiting Big Sugar. We’ve put pressure on the proposal due to its potential to undermine Everglades restoration efforts, the special interest influence involved, and the lack of transparency throughout the process.”
Speaking at a hearing of the South Florida Water Management District on May 29, CCW co-founder Captain Chris Wittman said, “why should the district, at this point, believe that U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals are all of a sudden coming to the table, offering to build a reservoir and provide that water to the Everglades? It does not add up. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Wittman and CCW have a point, as evidenced by the overwhelming public opposition against the mines. CCW is working on additional ways to get involved and stop these mines from moving forward.
You can learn even more about this issue and why CCW opposes the mine so much in this episode of their podcast.
U.S. Court Unanimously Rules Against Big Sugar in Everglades Case