Senate President Joe Negron’s $2.4 billion plan to build a 60,000-acre reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee — to protect waterways in his East Coast district and on the state’s West Coast — will create more than 39,000 jobs and result in $20 billion in economic benefits.
Or it will cost 4,000 jobs and negatively impact the state’s economy to the tune of $700 million — above the costs to buy the land and create the reservoir, which is opposed by farmers in the Everglades Agricultural Area, along with many residents and politicians south of the lake.
The Everglades Foundation — a key backer of Negron’s proposal (SB 10 and HB 761) –– introduced a study this week overseen by Clemson University professor-emeritus Michael Maloney.
The study estimated that 60,000 acres of cultivated land in the Everglades Agricultural Area account for 90 farming jobs, while each $1 million spent on construction would lead to about 20 jobs. It found the “South Reservoir is clearly a project with benefits vastly outweighing costs.”
The study pointed to increased real-estate values along the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, based on having cleaner waterways. The basic idea of Negron’s plan is to move polluted lake discharges into a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee instead of into the estuaries.
Meanwhile, sugar farmers, who oppose the land deal, were quick to claim Maloney’s study relies on “fake science” and “fake economics.”
About a week earlier, The James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee think tank, also took issue with Negron’s approach.
The institute rolled out a study Feb. 23 arguing the reservoir would drain the region of jobs, while lowering household incomes and eroding the business climate.
“The current land purchase proposal would have significant, ongoing and negative impacts on surrounding towns such as Belle Glade, South Bay, Clewiston and Pahokee,” said institute senior fellow Dr. J. Antonio Villamil, founder and principal of the Washington Economics Group, which conducted that study.