Some of the fallout from a weekend meeting of Everglades activists in Miami Beach has landed on tomato fields in rural Collier County.

The Sierra Club announced at the meeting of the Everglades Coalition that it is pulling its support for the $8.4 billion plan to restore the Everglades, saying the administrations of Gov. Jeb Bush and President Bush have twisted the plan to supply water to cities and farms.

In laying out its argument, the Sierra Club takes a swipe at Ave Maria University, a new Catholic university planned to open in 2006 south of Immokalee along with a new town.

The attention signals a possible rocky road ahead for the project, which has escaped harsh criticism from local environmentalists who favor the new county growth plan under which the project is proceeding.

Backed by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, the university formed a joint venture with Barron Collier Cos. to develop the town. The first phase of the university and town is planned for 950 acres. The university and town eventually could take in 4,300 acres.

The university and town "threaten the Everglades ecosystem," the Sierra Club said in materials distributed at the Miami Beach meeting.

On Monday, the Sierra Club's top man in Florida said that while the group has not "adopted a plan of action to oppose Ave Maria University, we have not been happy with it."

"We are frightened by the prospect that this area will be converted not just to a small town but a massive new subdivision," said Frank Jackalone, staff director in the group's St. Petersburg office.

The Sierra Club has been talking to its attorneys about whether "this is an issue we might jump on," but club officials haven't made any decisions about that, Jackalone said.

Ave Maria is discussed in part of the group's announcement, saying the Bush administrations are permitting development in areas needed for Everglades restoration.

Neither the university nor the town has received any permits from state or federal agencies. It also needs approval from Collier County government and is seeking an OK from the state Department of Community Affairs to start construction on the first phase before undergoing more stringent review as a Development of Regional Impact.

As evidence of state support for Ave Maria, Jackalone pointed to Gov. Bush's appearance by videotape at the 2002 unveiling ceremony for the university and town.

Bush lauded the university's academic standards and emphasis on "religious and moral values" and mused that Ave Maria might someday make Florida home to another nationally ranked football team.

Jackalone said he's worried about Ave Maria chipping into the home range for the endangered Florida panther and spurring sprawl, including the widening of State Road 29.

The university and town are planned for the edge of the Camp Keais Strand, a flow-way that serves as a water connection between the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed project and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Big Cypress National Preserve.

A spokesman for the Ave Maria joint venture took issue Monday with the Sierra Club's geography.

"I just don't know where the western Everglades are that everybody refers to," said Tom Jones, director of government affairs and environmental resources for Barron Collier Partnership.

He said the university and town is planned for "the least impactive place we could find to put it" and that it complies with the anti-sprawl provisions of the county's new rural growth plan.

The plan, written by a coalition of large landowners that includes Barron Collier Cos., gives developers the option of setting aside land for preservation in return for getting additional development rights on less sensitive land.

Ave Maria is using the new plan, proposing to give up most of its development rights on 5,300 acres, including 850 acres in the Camp Keais Strand.

A Collier County-based environment advocate said she disagreed with the Sierra Club's sprawl prediction.

"The community is very active to make sure the plan is properly implemented," said Nancy Payton, field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation.

Jackalone said the county's rural growth plan sounds like a rehash of old-style mitigation that results in a net loss to the environment.

"I'm not convinced that area should be developed at all," he said.