Florida Crystals Corporation is proud of its more than 30-year role in the immensely successful public-private partnership that has restored America’s Everglades and for its part in helping accelerate the EAA Reservoir project.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Florida Crystals Corporation congratulates the State of Florida and Army Corps of Engineers for finalizing all contracts to build the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir.
“Florida Crystals has supported the EAA Reservoir since it was first authorized almost 30 years ago as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan,” said Pepe Fanjul, Jr., Co-President of Florida Crystals. “We advocated for the passage of CERP in 2000, and we’re extremely proud of the role we played to facilitate acceleration of the EAA Reservoir’s construction.”
In 2019, Florida Crystals voluntarily terminated leases early with the State of Florida and the South Florida Water Management District to make land available in the EAA Reservoir Project’s footprint to facilitate its expedited schedule, including terminating a lease early that had a term through 2045. Transitioning the farmland subject to those leases early to the government was pivotal to helping meet the reservoir’s 2029 completion goal.
“For decades, the EAA Reservoir has been hailed as the final and most important project to restore the southern Everglades, so this is a great moment for Everglades restoration,” said Gaston Cantens, Vice President of Florida Crystals. “We commend the Governor and the Army Corps for this milestone in finalizing Everglades restoration.”
The collaboration between EAA farmers, who have carried out the work on the ground, day-to-day for more than 30 years to supply clean water to the Everglades, and the government in the monumental task of restoring the Everglades is a model for the overwhelming success a public-private partnership can accomplish.
Florida Crystals is tremendously proud to be a part of the EAA farming community, a remarkable group of farmers who supply America with a secure, reliable, U.S.-grown source of sugar, rice, vegetables, fruits and more, while also preserving the Everglades. As part of the 1994 Everglades Forever Act, EAA farmers implemented a science-based Best Management Practices (BMPs) program to help restore the Everglades. EAA farmers have invested heavily in the on-farm BMPs and monitoring to ensure clean water flows south to the Everglades. Annual water data consistently show water leaving the EAA farming basin is cleaner than when EAA farms received it from Lake Okeechobee. EAA farmers – the largest private funders of Everglades restoration – also pay an Agricultural Privilege Tax, which has generated approximately $350 million to fund the construction of Everglades projects and contributes to ongoing operations and maintenance costs. EAA farmers, including Florida Crystals, have also given up more than 100,000 acres of the most productive farmland in the U.S. for restoration projects.
“We look forward to the EAA Reservoir coming online in a few short years, and we commend all the elected leaders, staff and the agricultural community over the past three decades who have worked together to make this goal a reality,” said Cantens.
About Florida Crystals Corporation
Florida Crystals Corporation is a vertically integrated cane sugar company that rotates sugarcane, rice and vegetables on more than 190,000 acres in South Florida, where it also owns two sugar mills, a sugar refinery, a packaging and distribution center, Florida’s only rice mill, and one of the largest renewable power plants of its kind in the U.S., which uses sugarcane fiber to generate eco-friendly energy that powers its sugar operations. Florida Crystals is Florida’s largest organic farmer and the only producer of Regenerative Organic Certified® sugar that is grown and milled in the U.S. and sold through the Florida Crystals® brand. Its subsidiary, ASR Group International, Inc., is the world’s largest cane sugar refining and marketing company and sells sugar under the Domino®, C&H®, Florida Crystals®, Redpath®, Tate & Lyle®, Lyle’s®, Sidul® and Whitworths® brands. It also owns Tellus Products, which makes single-use, compostable tableware products from plant fibers sold under the Tellus® brand. Florida Crystals Corporation and ASR Group International, Inc. are holding companies that conduct business through their subsidiaries and are headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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SOURCE Florida Crystals Corporation
