Florida's Buyout of Muck Farms Leaves Lake Apopka Workers Jobless.

Byline: Jason Garcia

Oct. 5--It was touted as the only way to save Florida's most polluted large lake: Buy out the muck farms leeching chemicals into Lake Apopka. Shut them down forever.

State lawmakers did that in 1998, ending more than a century of farming on the fertile lake bottom. The price was $91 million, but the cost was much more.

As many as 2,500 farmworkers, most of them poor, most of them minorities, lost their jobs when Florida bought out Lake Apopka's muck farms. To soften the blow, legislators established a $5 million program meant to retrain and replace farmworkers, and rehabilitate the areas where businesses relied on their patronage.

But five years after the muck farms closed for good, many familiar with the buyouts say the relief program has failed.

Retraining programs weren't set up until long after workers became unemployed. Once established, programs produced only a few dozen graduates.

Meanwhile, much of the money slated for economic redevelopment has done little to help the affected areas. Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to build community centers in places far from the muck farms. More than half of the $5 million still has not been spent.

Defenders of the plan, including Orange County Commissioner Bob Sindler, who represents northwest Orange County, point to individual successes such as a community center in Zellwood and a health center in Apopka, as proof it did provide some relief.

"There were folks that needed help in Orange County, even if they might not have been farmworkers," he said.

But just about everyone acknowledges the money has not done as much as they anticipated.

"It doesn't sound like it had as much of a positive impact as we had hoped," said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who as a state senator sponsored the buyout legislation.

Others are more blunt. Jeannie Economos, who worked for the Farmworker Association of…