A large, man-made marsh filled with plants that naturally cleanse water of contaminants next to a reservoir the size of Manhattan under construction in the Everglades.
Photographer: Zak Bennett/BloombergPalm Beach Billionaires Feud Over Who’s Really Protecting the Everglades
A plan by the influential Fanjul brothers to convert sugarcane fields in the Florida wetlands into a rock mine has angered fellow elites.
Sugar tycoons Jose “Pepe” Fanjul and Alfonso “Alfy” Fanjul Jr. have a plan to dig up thousands of acres of the Florida Everglades for rock that the state needs to build roads. One of the brothers’ billionaire neighbors in Palm Beach leads a group who want to stop them.
The Fanjuls fled Cuba after Fidel Castro’s takeover and built a sugar empire with colossal political might, amassing a fortune of more than $6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Pepe Fanjul, 81, Alfy Fanjul, 88, and their family own sugar refineries in several countries, along with brands like Domino Foods, a luxury resort in the Caribbean, and about 190,000 acres of sugarcane plantations in South Florida, mostly in the Everglades.