Florida's Other Battle

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 8, 2001 | by William Glanz

Florida is waging a battle against bacteria that threaten citrus trees. Residents worry that state officials are cutting healthy trees on private property to accommodate commercial growers.

A resilient bacteria has infected hundreds of thousands of Florida's beloved citrus trees, creating a different sort of crisis that is eroding confidence in government and undermining public support for the state's $8.5 billion citrus industry. Homeowners are uniting against state officials and contractors hired to cut down diseased trees, complaining that they storm onto private property and destroy healthy trees needlessly. Homeowners also complain that the government isn't reimbursing them fairly.

Nevertheless, cutting continues in south Florida neighborhoods and in commercial citrus groves, where canker has taken hold for the third time since 1914. State officials believe they are within weeks of eradicating the current outbreak, and they claim to have gotten rid of the disease in the Tampa Bay area, the northernmost spot to which canker has migrated.

The civic wounds caused by the $200 million state program could take much longer to heal. "Every single person I talk to is outraged but, at the same time, when these eradication crews come to your yard, you feel intimidated and powerless," says Bradley Coule, a project manager for an architectural firm who lives with his wife, Janet, and two children in suburban Miami-Dade County.

Scientists for the U.S. Department of Agriculture say canker can spread rapidly to uninfected citrus trees by birds, rain and humans who inadvertently carry bacteria on their skin or on equipment. The disease doesn't kill trees and it doesn't harm humans, but it causes brown lesions on stems, leaves and fruit. That disturbs commercial growers, who say the spots will make Florida oranges, grapefruits, limes, lemons and tangerines unmarketable. They also say canker causes fruit to drop from trees before it is ready for harvest, and makes trees susceptible to other diseases.

While growers are worried what will happen if citrus trees are not removed, homeowners are worried what will happen if they are. The "No Trespassing" sign on the Coules' tall, wooden fence did not keep out inspectors looking for cankerous trees in South Miami, for example. They walked into the Coules' backyard one day in August while the family was away. On Oct. 11, the Coules received a letter informing them that their orange tree would be cut down.

The Coules, who don't believe their tree is infected (they say it's been tested by an independent lab in Indiana), are trying to convince the Florida Agriculture Department that it's healthy. But state officials have a broad mandate. A controversial new rule enacted earlier this year targets not only infected trees but those surrounding them -- some as far as five blocks away. Complaints about the state program have increased since August, when contractors began inspecting and cutting down trees on as many as 2,000 properties a day in a frantic push to finally eliminate canker's spread.

Craig Meyer, deputy commissioner of the Florida Agriculture Department, says officials are sensitive to homeowner complaints, but notes that they have no other option. "The people who are upset are very passionate, and we understand why," Meyer says. "If there was any other way to do this, we would have done it. We just haven't found any other way."

By Nov. 10, contractors had cut down more than 1.4 million citrus trees in seven counties. That is serious business in a state where residents eat fruit grown on backyard trees and license plates carry an image of a big, healthy orange.

The epidemic was discovered in a grapefruit tree in 1995 near Miami International Airport. After four years of failing to contain the bacteria, Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford decided that citrus trees within 1,900 feet of infected trees must be cut down. Before the change, citrus trees within 125 feet of an infected citrus tree were cut. "We just weren't able to keep up with the spread of the disease," explains Florida Agriculture Department spokesman Mark Fagan.

Furor over the program coincided with the state's decision to increase funding and add tree-cutting crews. Then, in late October, a group of communities in Broward County, on southeast Florida's Gold Coast, filed a lawsuit against the state to stop contractors from cutting seemingly healthy trees within the kill zone. Simply put, many residents feel they have been steamrolled.

John and Patricia Haire of Fort Lauderdale, for example, were told that all 10 of the citrus trees in their yard are to be cut because they are within 1,900 feet of an infected tree. But they haven't been told where the infected tree is. "We have no rights," complains Patricia Haire.

Kathy Batt, who lives in Broward County, has chained off her property and put up a "No Trespassing" sign to keep contractors from removing her grapefruit tree, also within 1,900 feet of an infected tree. Like the Coules, she has been unable to convince the Florida Agriculture Department to reconsider its decision. "You're allowed to have a voice," says Batt. "You just aren't heard."