But the big question in Florida, where the population is expected to grow almost 60 percent to more than 28 million people by 2030, is how long will that open space last?

While not the land of palm trees and postcards, the Everglades Agricultural Area has easy access to 730-square-mile Lake Okeechobee and wide-open spaces that are hard to find along Florida's populous coasts. As the EAA grows, however, more pressure is put on the shallow lake's water supply for conservation and consumption. Photo courtesy of the South Florida Water Management District.

As housing prices in West Palm Beach and other coastal cities climb beyond reach for many, developers are setting their sights on the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) that sprawls across more than 1,200 square miles south of Lake Okeechobee. Raising sugarcane is the agricultural basin's legacy, but it is unclear how much farming will be its future.

"Growth is coming," says Joe Browder, a longtime Everglades preservation advocate. "The big picture in the EAA is transition from growing crops to growing condos."

Growth carries a big ecological price tag in South Florida, where more than 6 million people draw water from a single aquifer. And in drought years, such as this one, the region's sprawling cities are facing severe water restrictions.

Water is also the lifeblood of the Everglades -- which dominates the lower Florida peninsula -- and its wealth of subtropical flora and fauna. A massive state and federal effort to restore the ecosystem, the $10.9 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), is aimed at restoring the quality and quantity of its water supply in a series of projects over the next 30 years.

The challenge: balancing the demands of farms and new development with the ecosystem's needs.

Some people want more houses and industries in hardscrabble EAA towns that have been buffeted by a slowly shrinking sugar industry. Others want to build more wetlands to treat polluted water washing off farms and roads before it flows south toward Everglades National Park.

There's no comprehensive plan to govern development in the EAA. Rather, municipalities, landowners, state agencies and a regional water managers engage in a complex system of checks and balances.

In many ways, the EAA -- a central piece of the historic Everglades -- was and still is the "next frontier," says Vince Cautero, planning and development director for Hendry County, which stretches west from Lake Okeechobee to the outskirts of Fort Myers.

"We are situated in a unique place, where growth is coming and major developers are buying up the land," Cautero notes. "We're as busy as we've ever been, as people try to get building permits."

Sawgrass to sugarcane

A prairie of tall, impenetrable sawgrass -- named for its sharp, serrated leaf blades -- swayed in the breeze less than a century ago where impossibly straight highways and farm fields stretch out today.

Under the sedge, a slow-moving river and decaying plants had covered South Florida's limestone backbone with several feet of rich, dark soil. The "muck" would be ideal for growing crops, Florida's forefathers believed -- if only they could drain the marsh.

And drain it they did.

Canals dug during the early 20th century began diverting water from flood-prone Lake Okeechobee through the eastern coastal ridge atop which the megalopolis of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach now sprawls. A massive federal drainage project authorized by Congress in the late 1940s finished the job.

The rich soil, coupled with a protective dike and trade policy, helped transform the EAA into the nation's sugar bowl.

But in recent years, rising costs are narrowing the domestic sugar industry's margins. And pressure from lower-cost foreign producers means more uncertainty for the area's farmers (See Part I of special report).

The state's biggest sugar producers, Florida Crystals Inc. and U.S. Sugar Corp., are exploring how to turn their farm waste into ethanol. If growing energy crops pencils out, it could help secure the agricultural viability of the EAA for decades, some agribusiness executives suggest.

"The EAA will always have some component of farming because of the amount of money invested in it," predicts Gaston Cantens, a Florida Crystals vice president. "But 50 years from now, there will be more residential development here as well because people need a place to live."

Simple chemistry may have a role in determining where growth occurs.

'The soil is melting'

Scientists agree that crops are more sustainable than concrete. And sugarcane is the EAA's least environmentally taxing crop because it can be grown with relatively little fertilizer in fairly high water tables, says George Snyder, a University of Florida professor emeritus of soil science.

Even so, the muck evaporates unless it is submerged in a protective layer of water.

More than 6 feet of dirt has disappeared from parts of the EAA, says Tommy Strowd, assistant deputy executive director of the 16-county South Florida Water Management District.

"The soil is melting," he says. "You just literally have it evaporate over time."

In areas where Florida Crystals grows cane, for example, the remaining muck is 16-18 inches deep. Though the company has rotated crops, leveled fields, dug ditches and used other best-management practices, the dirt is subsiding by about half an inch each year, says Barney Eiland, an agricultural engineer with the West Palm Beach-based company.

Almost half of the EAA will have soil less than 8 inches deep by 2050, Snyder projected in a 2004 study. Based on current farming practices, sugarcane production would be difficult and costly, but not impossible, he concluded. The area should also be suitable for pasture, but not for most vegetables.

In the southern EAA, where the soil has oxidized fastest, the state has purchased 60,000 acres to filter pollution from agricultural runoff before it enters sensitive wetlands. However, some of the sugar industry's historic adversaries worry that landowners will sell to limestone mining companies and developers as the muck becomes more expensive to farm.

Changing landscape

Next month, U.S. Sugar is expected to ask Palm Beach County's zoning commission for permission to turn 7,000 acres of its fields south of Lake Okeechobee into a rock quarry.

The sugar giant has also signed a long-term lease with Fort Pierce-based Stewart Mining Industries Inc. to extract limestone from another 5,000 acres, a few miles west of the fairgrounds. Stewart Mining is among more than a dozen companies seeking new or amended state permits for 22 quarries in the Everglades watershed, according to Florida Department of Environmental Protection records.

Malcolm "Bubba" Wade Jr., U.S. Sugar's senior vice president for sugar operations, says his company limits quarry activity to 100 acres per year, per site.

"Mining allows us to diversify," explains Wade, whose company owns about 190,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee. "We don't view it as a threat to our agriculture business."

Wade points to a multimillion-dollar expansion under way at his company's Clewiston sugar mill as proof the hometown company is committed to agribusiness. The remodeled plant will be North America's largest, he notes, capable of grinding 42,000 tons of sugarcane per day.

"We have to have the cane supply and acreage to supply that facility," adds Wade, who is also a member of the water management district's powerful governing board.

But Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus, who has pushed for a moratorium on mining to study its environmental effects, worries that rock quarries will hamper the Everglades restoration effort.

"CERP is based on the EAA being mostly agriculture," Marcus says. "What if we can't complete the CERP process because we've allowed all of these holes to get in the way?"

Charles Lee, Audubon of Florida's advocacy director, worries that development will follow mining.

For decades, the extracted rock has been used to build bigger roads for bigger communities, he notes. And some exhausted quarries have been converted into lake-and-canal housing developments along the edge of water conservation areas.

"The only thing that would prevent the EAA from becoming South Florida's version of the Los Angeles Valley is a comprehensive plan that identifies the highest and best use of the land," Lee contends. "For now, the highest and best use of the land is agriculture."

Lee's organization is pressing state officials to work with municipalities, farmers, environmentalists and other stakeholders to adopt a long-term sustainability plan for the EAA. Audubon's recommendations call for turning the lower third of the EAA into wildlife areas and water retention and storage basins to filter out agricultural pollutants, including phosphorous. The upper two-thirds of the EAA should remain farms and compact communities.

Eric Draper, Audubon's policy director in Tallahassee, suggests that the state would need to buy 50,000 additional conservation acres to adequately cleanse nutrients that have turned parts of the northern Everglades from a sawgrass prairie to a stagnant cattail marsh. The goal is to reduce the phosphorous in water leaving the southern EAA's stormwater treatment areas to 10 parts per billion (See photo slideshow).

Tax revenue from a projected influx of baby boomer retirees and other well-heeled transplants would be sufficient to underwrite the costs of the land purchases -- perhaps $250 million in today's dollars, Draper estimates.

"Florida used to be a place where the poor moved," he adds. "But now it's getting to the point where the poor can't afford to move to Florida."

But the water management district's Strowd rejects Draper's view that more stormwater treatment areas are needed. The 60,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas now under the district's management will be sufficient, he says.

Besides, Strowd adds, there are not a lot of landowners willing to sell.

Municipalities in the EAA have plans of their own.

'You will see more homes'

Belle Glade's motto is "her soil is her fortune," but the town gained notoriety decades ago as one of the poorest in the country. A 1985 New York Times article reported that the rate of AIDS cases in the town was as at least 1,500 per million people -- more than four times the incidence in New York City. Poverty, drug use and cramped cane-cutter housing were among the reasons cited.

Urban development's rising tide

If current development patterns continue, roughly 7 million acres in Florida will be converted from rural to urban uses between now and 2060, according to the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center in Gainesville. The analysis, which was prepared last year for the advocacy group 1000 Friends of Florida, uses geographic information systems to map how a projected doubling of the population to about 36 million people by 2060 could change the state's 38.3 million acres. Cities and suburbs, which now account for about 6 million acres, would more than double to 13 million acres. Agricultural and undeveloped lands would decrease to 12.5 million acres from 19.5 million acres. More than 2 million acres within a mile of conservation lands would be eaten up by houses, roads and other urban development. Rural communities near Lake Okeechobee would undergo some of the biggest changes. The development is expected to surge east from Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties -- which are stacked along the Gulf of Mexico northwest of Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. As the Fort Myers-Naples metropolis gets built out, developers will move into rural Glades and Hendry counties, the report says. "The result will be an almost continuous urban strip linking Fort Myers with West Palm Beach" on the Atlantic Coast, the report concludes. All this, of course, assumes status quo conservation policies. Environmentalists aim to change this. Audubon of Florida is urging state policymakers to implement a sustainability plan for the 1,200-square-mile Everglades Agricultural Area that separates the coasts below Lake Okeechobee (See main story). The Audubon plan would preserve farmland and expand areas for treating and storing water between the Lake Okeechobee basin and the Everglades. Meanwhile, a Georgia Institute of Technology report, also prepared for 1000 Friends of Florida, advises policymakers on how to rein in urban growth. Partial funding for the report was provided by The Nature Conservancy and The St. Joe Co. -- Florida's largest landowner. Key recommendations of the Georgia Tech report: Expanding Florida Forever, a Division of State Lands program in which more than $1.8 billion was spent as of the start of 2007 to conserve almost 536,000 acres. Adopting rules that allow rural land to be converted to urban land only if open spaces are preserved elsewhere. Creating a 100-year "legacy plan" that identifies permanent conservation areas and appropriate development lands. To make the recommendations a reality, 1000 Friends of Florida President Charles Pattison says his organization will lobby the Florida Legislature to change the state's growth management act. A key goal: focus growth in existing urban areas, especially in the state's rural interior. In the meantime, Pattison is pushing the recommendations as a member of the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, a 15-member panel that includes developers, environmentalists and municipal lawmakers appointed by the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist (R). One of the commission's main tasks is identifying statewide areas critical to protecting biodiversity and natural resources. "We want to maintain any and all environmentally sensitive lands to maintain the state's natural systems," Pattison says. Click here to view Florida population projection maps. -- Michael Burnham

Tomorrow, the lakeside town might be able to cash in on its location. Belle Glade and its sister cities of South Bay and Clewiston are less than two hours by car from Miami, Fort Myers and other coastal population hubs. Lake Okeechobee, spreading across 730 square miles, dominates the towns' backyard.

While it is not the Florida of palm trees and postcards, the EAA has warm winters, four-lane highways and the open spaces that are increasingly hard to find closer to the coasts.

"You will see more homes in this area because it's a very desirable place to live," predicts Christopher Roog, director of government affairs for the Gold Coast Builders Association.

According to a Florida International University study for the Economic Leadership Council of Palm Beach County, the median single-family home price-to-income ratio increased to 7 to 1 from 5 to 1 between 2003 and 2005.

Citing state employment data, the business advocacy group's study says Palm Beach County will need another 98,000 housing units by 2025 for workers who earn 50 to 120 percent of the area median income, $27,851.

The affordability gap could place greater pressure on county planners to rezone rural areas for development in coming decades, Roog predicts.

"The EAA is mostly zoned agriculture now," Roog adds. "Right now, the politics aren't there to open it up for future development."

Jeff Barwick, a former executive director of the Clewiston Chamber of Commerce, in neighboring Hendry County, says civic and business boosters want to diversify the county's economic base to attract residents with diverse job skills.

"Our labor base is mostly people whose skills are aligned with agriculture," Barwick concedes. "Once you're in a circle chasing your tail, it's hard to stop."

The Hendry County Economic Development Commission, for example, is working to attract health and science businesses to office and industrial parks along the State Road 80 corridor that connects the coasts.

The strategy is consistent with Hendry's comprehensive plan, which focuses most of the commercial and residential growth around existing towns so as to preserve agricultural space, says Cautero, the planning director.

At least that's the theory.

The western EAA town of LaBelle recently annexed 5,200 acres of citrus-growing area near State Road 80. Meanwhile, Hendry County has given an area developer a green light to build 15,000 housing units, a college campus, medical center, K-12 schools and parks on the site.

The master-planned community -- which could potentially double the county's current 40,000 population -- is one of five sites Bonita Springs-based Bonita Bay Group has banked for houses along the Caloosahatchee River between Clewiston and Fort Myers.

"We love LaBelle and its rural character," says Mary Briggs, a company spokeswoman. "We want to build something similar."

As the county prepares for growth, there's also more pressure to conserve open spaces, Cautero concedes. "If there is a prime area where we think development should occur," he says, "we could trade off with preservation land in another area. That's the best we can do."

Making this balancing act work all comes back to water, of course.

Water is power

Two years ago, the Florida Legislature passed a law requiring local governments to prove they will have the water necessary for growth. The state Department of Community Affairs has final say over municipal comprehensive plans, but the landmark law strengthened the hand of the state's five water management districts.

Flexing its new muscle, the South Florida Water Management District last month opposed Hendry County's bid to amend its comprehensive plan to support more development on 18,400 acres adjacent to the Caloosahatchee River, west of LaBelle. The amendments would add 64,000 people and more than 71 million square feet of industrial and commercial office space to the county, according to the water district's analysis.

The district's governing board urged the Department of Community Affairs to reject the county's plan because it failed to identify an alternative source for the estimated 15 million to 20 million gallons a day of water the additional residents would need.

Six million South Florida residents already get their water from the Biscayne Aquifer that underlies most of Everglades National Park and parts of four counties in southeast Florida. Drawing down the aquifer more would divert water from the Everglades and invite saltwater intrusion, warns Randy Smith, a spokesman for the water district.

"We've come to a point where we can't expand on our aquifer," adds Smith, whose district last year rejected a similar plan by Miami-Dade County to withdraw more water.

Hendry County officials say they are reviewing their alternatives. Options for the county could include recycling water, desalinating ocean water or tapping into the deeper, salty Floridan Aquifer, Smith says. Each alternative comes with expensive logistical challenges.

The district's objection to the Hendry plan may well signal a new era in Florida, a state long synonymous with sprawl. Growth -- however expensive or difficult it may become -- must now get water without harming the environment.

"We have so many straws in the ground already," Smith says. "Growth is going to be hand-in-hand with water supply from here on out."

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