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A little more than a month after the nearly $200 million deal between Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sugar Corp. closed, the tooth-and-nail battle the deal spawned may be in its final throes.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling Thursday that said the South Florida Water Management District could use certificates of participation (COPs), a type of bond, to purchase land from U.S. Sugar. But the high court overturned part of the ruling that would have allowed the district to finance an option to buy much more land from the sugar giant using COPs.

Over the past 2 1/2 years, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians and the state's other two large sugar companies -- Florida Crystals Corp. and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida -- have been fighting against the deal saying it took money away from restoration projects already on the books. Several citizens, many of whom were organized as part of the tea party movement, also vocalized their opposition, calling the deal a corporate bailout at taxpayers' expense.

"We have over 11 percent unemployment," said Gaston Cantens, a senior executive at Florida Crystals Corp. "Instead of building projects and creating jobs, the governor is going out and spending money on land he doesn't even know what we're going to do with."

In mid-October, the deal for the district to pay more than $197 million for nearly 27,000 acres of land was finalized and the money transferred. But that deal, paid in full with all the district's cash reserves, was not the same deal the Supreme Court ruled on. SFWMD and U.S. Sugar wrangled last-minute negotiations to avoid COPs altogether. But that final deal was also significantly hacked down from the agreement U.S. Sugar originally wanted.

In the summer of 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist announced a sweeping $1.75 billion deal to buy out U.S. Sugar in the name of Everglades restoration -- $2.2 billion with interest and fees added. By April 2009, the deal had been downsized. With the worsening recession, the district chopped it to $650 million to purchase nearly 73,000 acres.

Finally, the two parties settled on a cash-only agreement to buy 27,000 acres.

Dexter Lehtinen, an individual plaintiff in the case against SFWMD, and former lead Miccosukee attorney, sees this as a victory.

"Two-and-a-half years ago, they were going for $2.2 billion in the bond market. But the lawsuits slowed them down, got them into a little more fiscal responsibility," said Lehtinen. "I'm hopeful we will, in fact, have won this."

A "win" for Lehtinen is somewhat nuanced. While he's happy the "cronyism bailout" is a lot smaller than it was, the district still has an option to buy roughly 46,000 acres from U.S. Sugar. Lehtinen says preventing that from happening would make it even better.