Sugar industry aims to influence Florida governor's race with donations to Adam Putnam

Ali Schmitz | Treasure Coast Newspapers

Florida's sugar industry, a central figure in Lake Okeechobee discharges, also has emerged as a central figure in the Republican primary for the state's next governor.

The state's two largest sugar companies — U.S. Sugar Corp. of Clewiston and Florida Crystals Corp. of West Palm Beach — have long supported Adam Putnam and the farmer-friendly policies he's supported as agriculture commissioner since 2010.

Sugar companies and executives have pumped at least $525,000 into Putnam's gubernatorial campaign so far. The industry also funnels untraceable amounts through business PACs such as Associated Industries of Florida and Florida Prosperity Fund.

Meanwhile, the industry stopped donating to U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis after he opposed policies that inflate sugar prices with import quotas, loans and bailouts. He's made his opposition to sugar price supports part of his campaign against Putnam.

DeSantis claims the industry went a step further and helped fund a $1.8 million-plus "misinformation campaign" against him with a series of TV and radio attack ads. Scroll down for more of the story on this topic.

U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals did not respond to requests for comment from TCPalm or Politico, whose April investigation linked the ads to the sugar industry.

Sweet and sour

The sugar industry gave DeSantis at least $4,500 when he first ran for Congress in 2012 and thousands more within his first year in office.

Contributions stopped after 2014, when he voted to eliminate price supports and foreign import tariffs, calling the policies and a $300 million U.S. Department of Agriculture's bailout "corporate welfare." DeSantis voted for similar reforms last month.

More: U.S. House votes down Sugar Policy Modernization Act

"It's not that Ron is against their issues," campaign manager Brad Herold told TCPalm in May. "It's that they know they can't control him."

DeSantis has campaigned on it heavily, pointing out Putnam benefits from sugar money.

"It's bad for taxpayers, it's bad for jobs, and it's bad for the environment," DeSantis has said.

South Florida clean-water activist group Bullsugar backs DeSantis because he backs reforming sugar policy, curbing Lake Okeechobee discharges and building a larger reservoir than the one being planned for the Everglades Agricultural Area.

The reservoir will hold excess lake water, whose natural flow south to the Everglades is blocked by EAA farms, so the Army Corps of Engineers discharges the less polluted water east to the St. Lucie River and west to the Caloosahatchee River. The water can carry toxic blue-green algae blooms that wreak havoc on the rivers.

More: Possible blue-green algae appears in St. Lucie River

"If the discharge spewing into the St. Lucie right now bothers you," spokesman Peter Girard said, "backing DeSantis over Putnam should be easy."

Video: 2016 Algae Bloom Timeline In the summer of 2016, discharges from Lake Okeechobee caused widespread toxic algae blooms in the St. Lucie River.

Friend or foe?

Putnam's policies have long drawn opposition from other Treasure Coast residents, environmentalists and area lawmakers — even a fellow Republican leader.

More: Clean water activists abandon Publix for supporting Adam Putnam

Putnam initially declined to support the reservoir Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, championed in 2017, saying there are better ways to spend state funds.

“If there was ooze and poisonous fluids flowing down the center of Bartow and Polk County, we wouldn’t be ... making comments that somehow this is a political effort," Negron said then.

"As a member of the Cabinet, he [Putnam] has a responsibility to look after the environmental condition of every part of Florida.”

Video: How a drop of water at Disney can pollute the St. Lucie River Here's why that Lake O reservoir is necessary. DACIA JOHNSON/TCPALM

Putnam visited Martin County in February 2016, when toxic algae blooms from Lake O discharges fouled the river, Indian River Lagoon and even Atlantic beaches. Clean-water activists surrounded him, holding signs urging him to support the state buying more land — including sugar farms, if need be — to build a bigger reservoir. He did not.

Putnam supported a 2016 bill that gutted water-quality regulations and opposed a 2008 deal then-Gov. Charlie Crist struck with U.S. Sugar to buy all its Clewiston holdings for $1.75 billion. Myriad reasons killed the deal and U.S. Sugar sold only 27,000 acres.

"Adam Putnam has always sided against clean-water initiatives in Florida," Girard said.

Environmental support

Putnam told TCPalm in April he "absolutely supports" the current, smaller reservoir model that doesn't include any sugar farmland.

"It is a worthy investment that I believe is critical to protecting both the water quality and water quantity in and around the Everglades," Putnam said in an email.

More: Uncooperative Florida Crystals holds key to reservoir expansion

He said he also supports Gov. Rick Scott ponying up state money for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the aging Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounds the lake.

At the same time, Putnam supports Glades farming as a "viable, vibrant part of our economy" and touted the jobs it provides those communities' residents, he reportedly said at an April 30 event at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.

More: Lake O reservoir stokes fear — well founded or not — in the Glades

Putnam said critics are too quick to blame sugar for pollution, saying people have to "get out of the habit of thinking that there’s just some simple answer of just, you know, take out the bad guys."

The vast majority of excess water that gets discharged from Lake O comes from the Kissimmee River watershed north of the lake, not from the sugar fields south of it.

Putnam did not answer TCPalm's questions about Lake Okeechobee discharges, his sugar industry donations or criticisms from local environmentalists.

Attack ads

The ads attacking DeSantis were funded by the National Liberty Federation, an issue-advocacy nonprofit run by Palm Beach County tea party activist Everett Wilkinson.

Wilkinson said neither sugar executives nor Putnam's campaign were involved in creating the ads, but he "didn't know" if they were among the group's "thousands" of donors.

The group received $13,174 from donors in 2015, according to its most recent public tax return — far less than the hefty cost of their ads. Federal laws don't require nonprofits to disclose donors who fund their operations, including advertisements.

Several radio stations in April pulled an ad that falsely accused DeSantis of voting "to give food stamps to people who are in the United States illegally."

The group also launched an opposition research website and handed out packets critical of DeSantis at an Orlando event in May.

The group does not endorse candidates, and Wilkinson declined to say whether he supports Putnam.

"What we're trying to do is expose Ron DeSantis as a fake Trump supporter," he said.

However, Wilkinson has ties to sugar and participated in a 2015 protest opposing what he called a "government land grab" to build the Lake O reservoir.

DeSantis' campaign manager called Putnam U.S. Sugar's preferred candidate.

"They've been investing millions of dollars in this guy for the latter part of two decades and preparing for the day that Adam Putnam is governor, so they can get whatever they want," Herold said.

"They're going to try and do whatever it takes to get him across the finish line, and I think they're doing that now."