Florida’s sugar industry began its pre-harvest cane burning Wednesday. It’s a decades-old method that removes excess leaves around cane stalks before they are cut and taken for processing.
But an environmental group is challenging the practice through a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency. The Sierra Club said sugar cane burning pollutes the air and makes people sick. It’s asking the EPA to investigate for any possible violations of the clean air act.
Florida’s sugar industry is expected to harvest nearly 17 tons of sugarcane this season. The first step in that process is burning the fields. But, the Sierra Club wants the industry to change to a greener method that does not involve burning.
The Sierra Club’s Frank Jackalone said they are talking to people who have contacted them, such as an Ortona resident, who he said wrote in an email from which Jackalone quoted.
“Our community, Ortona, has been suffering every fall through spring from the seasonal sugarcane burning,” he reads. “Smoky days causing asthma and bronchial problems along with the ash fallout covering in an out of our homes. The prettiest and most comfortable time of the year is ruined by one industry and its total disregard for surrounding populations in its quest for money.”
US Sugar’s Judy Sanchez said Hendry and Glades Counties have nearly the best quality air in the state.
“The air quality in our area is carefully monitored and the data shows that whether it is cane burning season or not the air quality in these areas whether it is Palm Beach County, Hendry or Glades County is some of the best in the state,” she said.
But the Sierra Club’s Julie Hathaway said counties only monitor for five pollutants over a 24 hour period of time. And they do not monitor for other things like benzene and formaldehyde that are emitted when burning sugarcane.
“None of these harmful air pollutants are monitored for and it’s a well- known problem across the United States that when you do agricultural burning, you’re really not if you’re monitoring just for the five criteria air pollutants, it’s not capturing what people are really experiencing,” she said. “These burns are episodic, intense, short-lived but there are many, many of them.”
Hathaway said there is likely a health effect that has been underreported.
But Barbara Miedema with the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida said moving to green harvesting, which growers are doing in some parts of Brazil and Australia, is not practical in Florida because of our subtropical climate and mucky soil.
“We have close to freezing and sometimes freezing so our soil is colder,” she said. “It’s also mucky and moist so that layer of vegetation that you would be leaving on the soil from the leaves would create a blanket that would rot out the stubble that would become next year’s sugar cane crop. So not only does it harm the economic operation for the year you’re harvesting but it actually will suffocate your subsequent crops.”
However David Guest of Earthjustice, Sierra Club’s attorney, said that idea has been proven wrong in Australia.
“There are muck soils in other parts of the world,” he said. “And the studies show that the story from US Sugar that everything will rot there underneath the leaf mat is a rural myth. It has been refuted long ago.”
US Sugar’s Judy Sanchez said sugarcane burning is closely monitored to make sure it does not hurt residents. Permits are granted only when the wind speed and direction prevent smoke and ash from drifting into eastern Palm Beach County.
There have been only 20 verified complaints filed with the Florida Department of Health or the U.S. Forest Service about the burns in the past 11 years, she said.
“And we believe this attack is simply another of their efforts to put the sugar farming industry out of business in Florida and we’re prepared to defend this action as we have defended every other attack that they’ve made on our business,” said Sanchez.
The Sierra Club said it’s waiting for the EPA to respond to its petitions. If the agency doesn’t take any action the Club will fill a federal lawsuit.