State OKs citrus payouts — but not for Orange County

TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers want to pay millions to homeowners in two counties whose healthy citrus trees were torn down in a failed attempt to eradicate citrus canker.

But the money won’t cover homeowners in Orange, MiamiDade and Palm Beach counties that also have sued the state over lost citrus trees.

Republicans say the proposed state budget sets aside $37.4 million on behalf of homeowners in Broward and Lee counties.

Gov. Rick Scott, however, could still block the payments with a veto.

Canker is a bacterial disease that blemishes a tree’s fruit and can cause it to drop prematurely, although fruit that ripens can still be squeezed for juice — the primary use of Florida’s commercial citrus crop. After a 53-year lull, canker reappeared in Florida in 1986 and was spread by the wind.

A last-ditch effort to protect Florida’s $9 billion dollar citrus industry from widespread contamination began in 2000, as the state ordered the destruction of even healthy citrus trees within 1,900 feet of an infected tree with or without the owner’s permission. More than 16 million trees were destroyed statewide during the six-year program, including 865,000 residential trees, before a series of hurricanes spread canker too widely for it to be eradicated.

For compensation, the state gave each homeowner a $100 Wal-Mart gift card for the first tree killed and $55 cash for each subsequent tree, but thousands complained their trees were worth much more. Homeowners filed class-action lawsuits against the state.

The Florida House initially proposed paying homeowners in Palm Beach County, too, but that county was dropped during closed-door negotiations.

“We couldn’t afford to pay all three of them,” said Rep. Carlos Trujillo, a Miami Republican and House budget chairman.

He said legislators decided to pay off claims related to the two oldest outstanding lawsuits. He noted that the first lawsuit was filed before he first ran for office.