On the island of Maui — where this reporter cut her reportin' teeth — there is a stench along a stretch of road between the east and west end of the island. It is a stench so foul that one close relative of this reporter dubbed it "ass vomit" during a visit. Because if such a substance existed, that's what it would smell like, but with a little burnt rubber mixed in.
The stench, of course, came from a sugar plant whenever it burned cane, a plant that would also occasionally send black ashes into the air that would then rain down on residents and visitors (they call it Maui snow).
Residents on the island perennially raise a stink (not punny, we know) about cane burning and its potentially negative effects on health and the environment. And the science may be on their side.
Now, so are environmentalists in Florida, where big sugar is one of Florida's top political palm greasers.
The News Service of Florida is reporting that the Sierra Club has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block a recent permit the state issued to United States Sugar Corp.
In September, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection renewed a permit for a facility the sugar giant runs in Clewiston because of course.
The Sierra Club is comports that setting fire to cane fields, while making it easier for them to harvest something we should be avoiding anyway, is a possible violation of the Clean Air Act, which protects us from corporations that don't give a shit what the inside of everyone's lungs look like.
Earthjustice, an environmental firm representing the Sierra Club, said the state permit issued to U.S. Sugar "lacked any mention of its sugarcane field burning operations. … EPA must therefore object to the issuance of the permit and require DEP (the state Department of Environmental Protection) to obtain from U.S. Sugar information about its pre-harvest burning of sugarcane."
The industry defends the practice, which is understandable, given that its entire M.O. would have to change if it wasn't allowed to send those gross fumes into the air.
Here's what a spokesperson said during a conference call to reporters defending the practice in September, reports the News Service of Florida, as the industry anticipated environmental groups to fight it.
"We believe that this attack is simply another of their (environmental groups') efforts to put the sugar farming industry out of business in Florida," Judy Sanchez, senior director of corporate communications and public affairs for U.S. Sugar, said during the September call, according to NSF. "And we're prepared to defend this action as we have defended every other attack that they have made on our business."
Environmental groups, judging by how often they serve donuts at their events, probably don't want to shut down the industry, but okay.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2015.