Florida is pursuing a major buyout of a large swath of land from Big Sugar, which has been blamed for polluting the Everglades.

Gov. Charlie Crist (R) should announce today state plans to purchase up to 187,000 acres of U.S. Sugar Corp.'s vast holdings between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades marshes. The bid could be around $1.7 billion, though some close to the negotiations say the state's economic and budget crises could bring the bid down.

U.S. Sugar would be allowed to lease the land for five or six more years, and the deal would not end sugar farming in the 400,000-acre Everglades Agricultural Area.

But the potential land buy has raised environmentalists' hopes of creating a flow-way that would allow Lake Okeechobee to spill south into the remaining marshes of the Everglades. That idea, however, is opposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as many rural communities still line the lake.

Still, converting the former sugar fields into larger pollution treatment marshes would make it easier for water managers to address major concerns about water quality and quantity (Curtis Morgan, Miami Herald, June 24). -- KJH