Editorial: Ban the burning of Florida sugarcane fields
The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
When the cane fields burn and skies turn black over the Glades, mothers bring children indoors. That should tell you all you need to know.
As sugar growers torch acre after acre to facilitate each harvest, month after month, residents know to avoid the soot that descends upon their streets, sidewalks, playgrounds and yards. They fear bouts of coughing, asthma and other lung ailments.
A joint investigation by The Palm Beach Post and nonprofit newsroom ProPublica has shown how, in pursuit of profits, Florida’s sugar giants have snowed this ash upon the state’s poorest residents, year after year, insisting that it causes no harm.