agriculture

Florida offered to buy U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.7 billion and restore 187,000 acres to the Everglades.

Environmentalists are swooning over the agreement, which could restart the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. But don't break out your plastic pink flamingos just yet. The deal smells worse than the stinkiest of the sulfate-contaminated wetlands it's supposed to revive, continuing one of the longest-running rip-offs in the history of the republic.