SECRETS OF THE EVERGLADES:
ENRON, POPULISM AND ELECTION 2000
by
Nicholas
E. Hollis
(All Rights Reserved)
Deep
in the Everglades, the “River of Grass” with its alluring tropical
habitat, colorful birds and lush vegetation, the ghosts of Osceola,
William S. Jennings and latter day populism are stirring in the warm
Caribbean-borne breezes. The Everglades have seen it all—and its
secrets have remained hidden. But the latest bombshell revelation on
Enron’s water trading scheme, pushed before Election 2000, could rip
Pandora’s Box open. At a minimum it may provide another wake up call
for the American public.
Background
At the turn of the 20th century,
Florida’s newly elected governor, William S.
Jennings, a populist and
cousin of erstwhile Democratic presidential contender, William Jennings
Bryan, cited a little known state law for authority to begin a massive
land reclamation project south of Lake Okeechobee. The idea was to
create farmlands for smaller landholders and attract settlement with
food systems support for the surge of coastal hotel projects. Jennings
opposed the powerful railroad and development lobbies led by Henry M.
Flagler of Standard Oil. Flagler’s railroad extension, from Jacksonville to Miami
and Key West had sparked a tourist boom in South Florida. The railroads
saw the agricultural potential of the Everglades early. But Governor
Jennings skillfully outmaneuvered the monied interests by partnering
with the Theodore Roosevelt Administration. In 1903 Jennings was able to
sell the concept in
Washington after a flood wiped out many farms in South Florida.
Thousands of acres were ceded by the federal government
to the State of Florida. The result was thousands of small farm
allotments, parceled and sold with reclaimed land. The huge
infrastructure project included dredging and drainage through a massive
complex of canals, levees, roads and controlling locks. Much of the cost
was financed through state bonds and private land sales.
Environmental
Preservation Campaign
Over the years cozy relations between land companies
and state government were reinforced at the federal level, and the
project grew. However, by the late 1920’s, after two devastating
hurricanes (1926-28) which took thousands of lives, the project was
nearly bankrupt. Moreover, in 1930 , naturalists behind Florida’s
first Congresswoman Ruth Bryan Owen (William Jennings Bryan’s
daughter) fearing for the Everglades,
mounted a preservation/containment movement. Seventeen years
later during the Truman Administration (1947), the Everglades National
Park was created south of the land reclamation project. At the
dedication ceremony, both Ruth Bryan Owen and May Mann
Jennings, wife of
the late Governor Jennings (and an extraordinary civic activist in her
own right) were on the dais. 1/
The
fragile ecosystems of this great park remained threatened by the massive
water drainage system, and in the Clinton Administration, a huge $7.8
billion re-plumbing project was proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers
(COE) and approved to redirect rainwater back into the Everglades. But
after much fanfare, few outside the COE seemed pleased . The plan’s
details – particularly what would happen to the water – remained
vague. As Election 2000 loomed on the horizon, frantic stakeholders
watched the Everglades project gather momentum.. Delicate negotiations -
only a few months earlier suddenly seemed strangely out of focus.
The Phantom
Factor
Behind the formidable phalanx of EPA, the
environmental community and COE lurked a “Phantom Factor”: the
Midwest agribusiness power from Illinois, ADM, and its chairman Dwayne
O. Andreas – a longtime South Florida
resident – pushing
hard for the re-plumbing project. Perhaps
Andreas envisaged collateral benefits in crippling certain powerful
sugar interests from Palm Beach and Broward counties. As the torrent of
campaign contributions hedged on both sides, the sugar barons smelled a
rat when Enron’s subsidiary, Azurix rushed to Tallahassee with a
cockeyed scheme to sell water futures.
Water
has often been a political football and bargaining chip in agriculture
and land development. Some could have reasoned that the “fool’s
rush” by Enron signaled something more sinister. Would farmers find
thousands of acres of sugar cane, vegetables even fruit trees under
water one morning – perhaps due to a technical snafu with no
accountability? ..The wrong lock opened by accident?
Several
days before the Election, The Washington
Post carried two small stories together in its Briefs column. The first indicated that the “Everglades Bill was
on course” for final approval in House/Senate conference and
immediately below it was a story about USDA offering new direct
subsidies to ethanol producers to purchase corn and soybeans. Coupled
with the bizarre Elian Gonzalez saga, where the Clinton Justice
Department seemed to be taking orders from ADM ‘s Andreas – long
known for his visionary interest in normalizing trade with Cuba and
modernizing the country’s sugar production (probably for a low cost
ethanol feedstock) – the prize and the game itself took on clarity.
Years
from now pundits and historians may still be arguing about the “cane
mutiny” – the battle of agribusiness behemoths and the impact on
Election 2000. But like its
other many secrets, as with Osceola’s ghost, the truth will probably
still be lost, running deep in the Everglades.
_____________________________________________________________
Nicholas E.
Hollis is president of the Agribusiness Council (ABC), a nonprofit, tax
exempt organization formed in 1967.
References:
1/
Nelson Manfred Blake, Land
into Water – Water into Land: History of Water Management in Florida, Florida
State University Press, Tallahassee, (1980)
“Everglades,
A Chance for Redemption” Michael Grunwald, Washington
Post , September 14, 2000
Linda
D. Vance, May Mann
Jennings: Florida’s Genteel Activist, University of Florida Press,
1985
Jennings Heritage Project
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