WEST PALM BEACH — Mayors and ministers from the Glades area gathered Oct. 22 to voice their support for the sugar industry and their opposition to a lawsuit that seeks to end burning of the sugar cane fields in preparation for the harvest.
Glades community leaders are calling on the plaintiffs to drop what they consider a frivolous lawsuit.
“We are not going to sit back and allow them to file lawsuits to shut down the sugar industry,” said South Bay Mayor Joe Kyles. “It is very vital that we have the sugar industry in the Glades area. We will continue to fight and support the sugar industry at all times, not just 100% but 110%. We will go beyond and over to make sure our sugar industry stays in the Glades area.
“When you think about the number of jobs at the present time at the sugar cane mills in that particular area, we know we have different sugar mills. We have Glades Coop, we have Florida Crystals. We have Osceola and also we have U.S. Sugar. If those particular sugar mills shut down, it doesn’t make any sense for people to live there. It’s going to be a ghost town,” said Kyles.
Belle Glade Mayor Steve Wilson commented, “If at any point, if I thought burning the cane was causing any problems — I love all of you. I love the people I serve. I love me, too. Do you think I would put myself in harm’s way as well as my family? That’s not going to happen.
“We support our industry. They support our community. It’s important for Palm Beach County. It’s important for America. We feed America. That’s what this is all about,” he said.
“I have seen the impact when you close down mills in this area and the economic impact it has on our community. We just can’t afford to lose the sugar industry,” said Pastor Robert L. Rease of St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Belle Glade.
He said he has lived in the Glades for more than 15 years and no one in his family has ever had any health issues related to cane burning. “I don’t know where or when ‘big sugar’ became the enemy,” he said, adding that the sugar farmers have been good neighbors and good friends to others in the community. He also noted the high number of young athletes who go on to play college and professional football. “Those kids, they grew up in the Glades, breathing some of the same air we are breathing now,” he said. He added the Glades also produces some outstanding track and field athletes who have no problem with the air quality.
“Agribusiness here in the Glades is woven into our community as a core component in our economic engine and has consistently given back to our local worship center, schools and many community efforts,” said Julia duPlooy of the Lake Okeechobee Business Alliance. “You don’t have to look far to see the positive impact of agriculture.”

Pastor Jeff Smith of First United Methodist Church in Clewiston thanked U.S. Sugar for its support of the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. “They have been on our side,” he said. “They have been feeding people, caring for people, providing masks.
“We live in one of the most beautiful agricultural basins in the world,” he said. “For someone who does not know our way of life to come and cast doubt and shadow over that, we do not welcome that.” He said the community will come together “to fight the good fight for the right cause.”

Background

• The class action lawsuit was filed June 4, 2019, against Florida Crystals, Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, U.S. Sugar Corporation, Flo-Sun Inc., American Sugar Refining Inc., Okeelanta Corp., Osceola Farms, Sugarland Harvesting, Trucane Sugar Corp., Independent Harvesting Inc., King Ranch Inc., J&J Ag Prodcuts Inc. and DOES 1-50. The original complaint had two plaintiffs, Clover Coffie and Jennie Thompson.

• The first amended complaint was filed Aug. 28, 2919, and lists three plaintiffs, adding Shante LeGrand.

• On May 8, 2020, United States Southern District of Florida Judge Rodney Smith dismissed much of the amended lawsuit. The court permitted plaintiffs to attempt to re-plead only three of the seven counts. In the court order, U.S. Southern District of Florida Judge Rodney Smith noted, “There is nothing in the amended complaint showing that each of the plaintiffs has been harmed by all of the defendants … Unlike the plaintiffs in the cases cited by plaintiffs, who sued one or two defendants, plaintiffs here have sued virtually an entire industry involving what amounts to dozens of actual sugarcane growers. Additionally, the cases cited by plaintiff all involved waterways which have a unidirectional flow, unlike wind patterns, which change. There is nothing in the amended complaint alleging that plaintiffs have been exposed to smoke and ash from all of these dozens of sugarcane producers.” The judge’s ruling also stated, “Defendants maintain that sugarcane burning falls squarely within the Right to Farm Act: It is a generally accepted agricultural management practice, as evidenced by the fact that it is statutorily permitted and regulated by the Florida Forest Service, and there are no allegations that preharvest burning was a nuisance to anyone at the time these farm operations commenced.” The order also references the “air quality in Florida is monitored and regulated by FDEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) which sets standards for air quality.”

• On June 22, the plaintiff filed a second amended complaint. In this complaint, the defendants claimed “Preliminary air dispersion modeling by plaintiffs demonstrates to a high degree of certainty that byproducts from burning conducted by each defendant impacts receptors in all seven communities in the class area, and that defendants’ burning cumulatively exceeds air quality standards.” This complaint now had 10 plaintiffs: William Armstrong of Moore Haven, Gloria Atkins of Clewiston, James Brooks of Clewiston, Clover Coffie of Belle Glade, Debra Jones of Pahokee and Shante Legrand of Belle Glade, Donald McClean of South Bay, Robert Reimbold of Moore Haven, Elijah Smith of Clewiston and Linda Wilcher of South Bay.

• On Aug. 5, attorneys for the defendants filed a response to the lawsuit pointing out the plaintiff’s attorneys used hypothetical modeling data rather than the actual air quality data available from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The lawsuit claims modeling indicates “projected” concentrations of particulate matter hundreds of times higher than the actual air quality data collected by the Palm Beach County Health Department.

“The court previously dismissed plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint (FAC) because plaintiffs’ allegations against the entire sugar industry across all of an approximately 675-square mile area were far too generic to plausibly trace their alleged injuries to each defendant,” the response states. “The court allowed plaintiffs an opportunity to amend to attempt to cure the standing deficiencies ... Plaintiffs responded by filing the SAC, which attempts to address standing by using air modeling without any actual air quality data.”
These “models project air quality that is comparable to or far worse than air quality in the vicinity of significantly larger emission events like the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption and the recent massive Camp Fire in California. In short, plaintiffs offer an unexplained model that spits out pure fiction — a conclusory set of numbers with no plausible basis — and does not come close to curing the standing defects the court found in plaintiffs’ prior complaint,” the defendants argue.
The plaintiffs claim the model shows a high level of particulate matter of 3,934 micrograms per cubic meter in 2016, while actual monitoring by Palm Beach County Health Department shows the high for that year was 22.9 micrograms per cubic meter on July 5, 2016. Defendants also note the highest particulate levels documented by the health department were in June, July, August and September, which are not months in which sugar cane is burned, indicating the particulates came from other sources.
The response also notes that photos of cane burning included in the SAC show the smoke going straight up, in an otherwise blue sky, not affecting adjacent properties. The SAC does not attribute the photos to any particular location. The defendants note one photo was taken in Maui, not Florida.

• On Sept. 8, the plaintiffs’ lawyers amended the lawsuit explaining that an inadvertent formula error in the AERMOD model used by plaintiffs’ expert caused the prior complaint to overstate pollutant levels. However, their amended modeling still shows air pollution at much higher levels than that actually measured by the EPA in Palm Beach County.

• On Sept. 30, in celebration of the start of U.S. Sugar’s 90th harvest season, U.S. Sugar published a “State of Our Air Report,” compiling data available online to anyone from state and federal databases, that shows the rural communities south of Lake Okeechobee enjoy air quality ranked at the highest level by the EPA, even better than air quality of the coastal communities.

To watch the full Oct. 22 event visit https://fb.watch/1iQDWtJM8I/
To view the Post Event Presser go to: 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc6p7mm3xisk6d1/Cane%20Burn%20Presser.mov?dl=0