Glades residents who alleged in a 2019 federal lawsuit that pre-harvest burning in nearby sugarcane fields leads to health-compromising air pollution have agreed to end their litigation with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs cannot refile the same claim.
Judge Rodney Smith of the Southern District of Florida issued the order of dismissal on Feb. 25, saying that all pending motions are denied as moot and that the case – Coffie et al. v. Florida Crystals Corp. et al. – was closed. Each side in the litigation would pay for their own attorney fees, according to a stipulation filed with the court.
The spokeswoman for U.S. Sugar, Judy Sanchez, said the plaintiffs dropped the litigation just prior to deadlines that would have required them to produce data supporting their claims.
“The plaintiffs are walking away from their case after U.S. Sugar recently released three years of air-quality data and its second annual State of Our Air Report, which provided scientific, accurate and actual air-quality data from both publicly available monitors and a series of private monitors located throughout the farming communities,” Sanchez said in a statement that was emailed to the Florida Record.
The report shows that Glades air meets all Florida and federal clean-air standards, she said.
“In contrast, the plaintiffs failed to produce or provide a single data point related to our communities’ air quality,” Sanchez said. “Instead, they relied on hypothetical modeling to provide speculations – which, they admitted, was inaccurate and had to be corrected in repeated re- filings before the court.”
A total of three amended complaints were filed during the course of the litigation, a timeline of the litigation shows.
Many residents of Glades communities in southern Florida have expressed strong support for local farmers even as activist groups have criticized the controlled burns used during harvests, according to Sanchez.
“They understand that our farming practices are safe, environmentally sound and among the most advanced and heavily regulated in the nation,” she said.