Take it or leave it. That's essentially the choice water managers face next month when they meet to consider Florida's $1.34 billion bid to buy 181,000 acres of U.S. Sugar's fields for Everglades restoration.

The state said Tuesday that negotiations had ended in a complex land deal that has changed only slightly since Gov. Charlie Crist announced it two weeks ago -- and not on the bottom line, despite subsequent questions about the price tags and costs of cleaning up agricultural pollution.

One newly revealed clause sets a Dec. 16 deadline for U.S. Sugar's board of directors and the South Florida Water Management District's governing board to OK the 60-page contract, which was posted on the district's website. The eight-member water district board -- all but one appointed by Crist -- will meet Dec. 2, 15 and 16 to discuss the deal, with no real options for tweaking it.

''The vote is yea or nay,'' said Eric Buermann, a Miami attorney who chairs the district board. ``There is no maybe or send it back to the table.''

A board rejection could potentially reopen talks, but there is the risk that U.S. Sugar officials would not sit down for another round of negotiations. If the water district board approves, the state must obtain financing -- which is not certain in the shaky credit market -- and close the deal by Sept. 25, 2009, or the agreement would be nullified.

Another key change would give U.S. Sugar -- which would keep its mill, citrus plant and rail lines -- free use of farmland for a year under a seven-year lease that also would keep most of the acreage off-limits to Everglades restoration projects for its duration.

The deal, announced by Buermann and Mike Sole, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, would let U.S. Sugar lease back almost all its land at $50 an acre for six years and at no cost in the final year.

The state, with a year's notice, could request 10,000 acres for restoration immediately and 30,000 additional acres after six years. The state also would bankroll most of the costs of cleaning up residual agrochemicals, with estimates ranging from $18 million to $119 million. The company would maintain a $10 million escrow fund for undiscovered problems.

Sole praised the deal as a great one for the state, saying a district financial consultant's ''fairness opinion'' that priced the land at some $400 million less and a $600 million takeover proposal of U.S. Sugar were not accurate reflections of the deal's value.

''This is a real opportunity for reviving Everglades restoration,'' Sole said.

The Lawrence Group, a Tennessee-based agricultural business that has twice made unsuccessful bids for U.S. Sugar, issued a statement that it still intended to move forward with a formal takeover proposal.

''It is our belief that this is far from a done deal,'' spokesman Todd Templin said.

Kirk Fordham, chief executive officer of the Everglades Foundation, an environmental group that has pushed the deal, said the land was too important to the Everglades project for the state to pass it up. ''We either buy the critical lands today or we pay tens of billions more in the future,'' he said.

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