Sugar

Governor Ron DeSantis announced the veto of controversial SB 2508, a Lake Okeechobee water supply bill that environmental advocates strongly opposed.

The most controversial piece of environmental legislation to bounce between chambers during the Florida Legislature’s just-ended 2022 session has trickled onto the desk of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The proposed law, which was under consideration by DeSantis on Wednesday, started out as a yet-another power struggle for control over Lake Okeechobee’s water between agriculture users and Everglades restorationists.

Florida lawmakers are reviewing the most controversial environmental bill to arise during the current legislative session. SB 2508 is the latest attempt by lawmakers sympathetic - or beholden - to the sugar industry to give it and the agricultural industry the key to the Everglades’ huge spigot by guaranteeing “existing legal users” continue to receive a huge amount of the water.

A Florida Senate bill that critics claim is being fast-tracked through the Legislature to ensure big agriculture receives all of the water it already uses from Lake Okeechobee, rather than follow longstanding plans to send more of it into the Everglades, passed the chamber late this week.

We are all connected by the environment we share. The Earth is our home. This is the space where we share the environmental stories that caught our attention this week in Florida and beyond.

Today Governor DeSantis signed the right to farm bill, which passed with overwhelming support in the legislature. Critics, such as the Sierra Club Florida, call it the “right to harm” bill while supporters say the bill is needed to protect agricultural operations.

For residents of the Glades, a string of poor, predominantly African American rural towns dotting the southern shore of Florida's Lake Okeechobee, the...

Chris King is a businessman, not a career politician. And he wants to be Florida’s next governor. The Orlando native, entrepreneur and founder of...

A recent investigation by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel discovered two sugar farms on state-owned land that are contributing to water pollution in the…

Coffee-colored water gurgles near the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam. It flows down the Caloosahatchee River, roughly 30 miles from Fort Myers.The U.S. Army…