Question is how much Everglades will get

Eric Eikenberg, head of a group that advocates for Everglades restoration, has found himself in a fairly unusual situation.

“Anytime you have a debate or dialogue between the governor and the Legislature in Tallahassee about who’s trying to outspend the other on the Everglades, it’s a good thing,” said Eikenberg, CEO of the nonprofit Everglades Foundation.

Republicans control both the governor’s mansion and the Legislature, and the GOP has historically not been environmentalists’ preferred political party. But this year, Gov. Rick Scott is proposing spending more than $300 million on buying land, Everglades restoration, construction of reservoirs, and programs to clean up the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, the sites of waves of green slime over the summer.

And while that’s a considerable amount, it’s not going to get the job done, as far as Eikenberg is concerned.

“The analogy I would use is, you have a gaping wound on your body, blood is pouring out of the body and what you’re reaching for are Band-Aids for your toenails,” he said. “We’re putting Band-Aids on a problem that is going to continue to get worse year after year.”

Eikenberg can afford to be blasé about Scott’s budget proposals, because one of the top priorities of Florida Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is a bill that would spend $2.4 billion in state and federal money to buy 60,000 acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee to be used as a massive water storage area and natural filter for the polluted water of the lake.

Half that money would come from the state, to be paid for by issuing bonds. But sending the state further into debt is a

nonstarter for the budget hawks in the Florida House, and that money isn’t provided for in Scott’s budget. Nevertheless, Scott has signaled some openness to the idea.

“I like the fact that I’ve got a Senate president that cares about [Lake] Okeechobee, cares about moving water south, cares about Indian River Lagoon and the Caloosahatchee,” Scott said at a news conference Tuesday.

“We’ve been talking about southern storage from Lake Okeechobee for 20 years,” Negron said. “It’s not a new idea . ... It’s an idea that at different points in time, the agricultural industry has supported.

“It’s just a matter of when and where. My view on when is now. And my view on where is, let’s have committee meetings and hearings, and get public input, and let’s make a decision and lets the water management district select the best place.”

Unfortunately for Negron, the agricultural industry does not support the idea at the present time. Negron’s bill requires South Florida Water Management District to find a willing seller of 60,000 acres, and the top target for that land deal is U.S. Sugar, which owns huge tracts of land south of the lake.

But U.S. Sugar isn’t interested in a sale.

If the district can’t find a seller, Negron’s plan could force U.S. Sugar into a deal that would pay the company more than $1 billion for 153,000 acres under the terms of a deal first struck back in 2010. That high price could come down, though, because the state is allowed to swap land with U.S. Sugar to pull it off.

The breakdown of Everglades restoration and landbuying money in Scott’s budget:

$30.2 million to the South Florida Water Management District to buy land for Everglades restoration projects.

$20.5 million to the Florida Forever program for buying land.

$15.2 million to buy land holding unique ecosystems or endangered species, including $5 million for buying land in the Florida Keys near Islamorada and Marathon.

$193 million for projects in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project, a massive federal-state series of projects that will aid in restoring some of the original southward flow of the Everglades.

$20 million for reservoir construction.

$40 million for a matching-grant program that would switch people living near the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee river systems from septic tanks to sewer systems.

$20 million to dredge muck from the bottom of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee river systems.