A lawsuit filed today accuses South Florida Water Management District executives of violating the state's open-meetings law by secretly approving the $1.75 billion purchase of U.S. Sugar Corp. holdings in the northern Everglades.

Dexter Lehtinen, a former acting U.S. attorney for South Florida and counsel for the Miccosukee Indian tribe, filed the lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court saying district officials denied the public its right to review and comment on the agreement.

"Open government is the heart of democracy and accountable government," Lehtinen said in a statement. "The public has a right to know the impact of the district's proposal on the Everglades now."

The lawsuit says the district's board of directors violated the Florida Sunshine Law "by failing to properly notify the public of its 'after-the-fact' consideration of the [land purchase] Statement of Principles at its June 30, 2008 meeting." If the court agrees, it could nullify the board's unanimous vote.

Lehtinen has been a critic and frequent litigator of state and federal efforts aimed at restoring the Everglades. He is also a champion of the wetland, having filed a pivotal lawsuit in 1989 to force government agencies to address nutrients flowing from farm fields that continue to degrade Everglades marshes.

Lehtinen and the Miccosukees maintain that the U.S. Sugar agreement, announced by Gov. Charlie Crist (R) last month, will hinder restoration progress because state and federal agencies will have to revamp designs for water storage and treatment areas to incorporate the newly acquired lands.

The lawsuit contends that had the district conducted negotiations in public, "it would have been forced to answer the difficult questions about this proposed land purchase, which left unanswered threaten Everglades restoration."

The tribe says there are issues about how the deal will be financed, how newly acquired lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area will be used, whether the purchase should be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, whether the purchase will divert money from other restoration goals and how the new lands fit into the broad restoration plan adopted by Congress and the state Legislature in 2000.

Lehtinen is particularly concerned about water managers' recent decision to suspend work on a 16,000-acre reservoir project in the heart of the agricultural area that the Miccosukees supported. "The Everglades cannot wait another 10 or 20 years," he said. "It is dying now. The Everglades needs restoration now."

The South Florida Water Management District didn't return calls for comment by press time.