Billion-Dollar Everglades Sale Drastically Downsized

Florida’s ambitious Everglades restoration plan has been drastically scaled back, a victim of the economic recession. Originally slated to be a 187,000-acre, $1.75 billion deal when announced in June 2008, the deal has gone back to the drawing board on two occasions. On Wednesday, April 1, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced the most recent revision of the ambitious plan: $533 million for 72,500 acres of citrus and sugar cane fields that presently belong to US Sugar.