Posted on 01/09/2012 2:51:18 PM PST by IbJensen
(CNSNews.com) – In 2005, Michael and Chantell Sackett were working toward what many American families work toward, their own home on their own land, until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) halted their plans by declaring it a “wetland.”
On Monday, Jan. 9, the Sacketts and their attorneys will ask the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to not only restore the right to use their own land – but to break the absolute power the EPA has over protected wetlands.
The Sacketts, small business owners in Idaho, located a lot in the northern part of the state in a town called Priest Lake. According to court documents, the lot is less than an acre and is just 500 feet from Priest Lake on its west side. It is separated from the lake by a house and a road and has no standing water or any hydrologic connection to Lake Priest or any other body of water.
There are houses to the north and south of the lot.
The lot is located in an established residential area – a platted subdivision – with the required water and sewer hookups.
In 2005, after performing the necessary due diligence, the Sacketts purchased the lot for $23,000. They sought and obtained the needed permits to begin building their new home.
According to the Sacketts, shortly after they began laying gravel for construction, the EPA came onto the property and issued a compliance order without any notice, telling them that the land had been declared a “wetland,” and ordered them to restore the land to EPA’s liking or face $37,500 per day in fines.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law firm representing the Sacketts, says the couple asked the EPA numerous times for a written statement describing what they had done that was in violation of EPA regulations. Finally, after seven months, the Sacketts received a letter detailing the violation that the EPA claims they committed.They say they were unable to locate their property on the EPA’s online wetland inventory.
Following the EPA “compliance” order, the Sacketts hired a private engineer who, following an inspection of the property, provided a report stating that the property is not wetlands.The EPA did not relent.
The Sacketts filed suit in 2008 seeking to establish that EPA “wetlands” designations are subject to judicial review. Both the federal district court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the EPA.
The court held that the Sacketts could not seek judicial review of the EPA “wetlands” designation until after they had restored the land to its original status and had applied for and had been denied a wetland permit.
The wetland permit application is much more expensive and time consuming than local permits.
On Monday, the issue will go before the Supreme Court.
“Should EPA be a law unto itself, without having to answer to the courts and the Constitution?” Pacific Legal senior staff attorney Damien M. Schiff asked. “We believe the answer is, clearly, no.”
But according to the Justice Department’s filings in the case, once the EPA has designated a piece of property as being protected “wetlands,” the Clean Water Act requires that a wetland permit be obtained before a “new use” of the wetland is allowed.
Because the order “imposed no new legal obligations beyond those to which petitioners were already subject under the (Clean Water Act),” the Justice Department argues that the order “is not subject to immediate pre-enforcement review” because the law already provides for “adequate procedural safeguards and review.”
Oral arguments on the case are set for Jan. 9.
This frustration being felt by ordinary Americans is a result of the Liberal mental disorder started 100 years ago by the Socialist's entre to American politics via the insipid Progressives. This infection is killing us.
I just caught this story on Fox News. The couple was telling how the yhad to put plants in their gmint imposed wetland that were not even native to the area.
ok...where’s my blood-pressure medicine? Un-freaking-believable!
I have a friend who owns 150 acres in Maryland and wanted to add a road and bridge so that she could do some events. Well it has been in progress and almost done but it has taken about 10 years because of all the regulations and various permits that are mandatory. And don’t even get me started on how she had to deal with the county with regards to inspectors. They can be nasty to say the least. It was a big job but the government in the way added YEARS to the project. Oh and of course more money for her to pay.
I don’t think they need a private contractor. They need a private investigator to find out which adjoining neighbor has an in with the EPA so they property remains “God’s little halfacre.” This one smells of someone with contact. Talk to the neighbors.
Along with the EPA, there needs to be a serious castration at the Army Corps of Engineers. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area they act like the Gestapo. Some folks a couple of years ago were told that the stock pond that they had put in on their pastureland for their cows was now a “wetland” and that some planned development of their property could not now go forward. Someone just needs to tell me, particularly in view of our military budget constraints, just what the hell the Army Corps of Engineers is doing in the environmental movement. You don’t hear the Seabees doing this stuff.
The EPA has to be one of the largest problems in this country. It needs to be wiped out of the government. No government agency should ever be able to wield the kind of power these thugs do.
I agree. Probably some leftist greenie who bought their lakefront property some time ago and didn't want any rednecks building in their backyard.
That’s because the Seabees are MEN, rather than a pack of enviro-yentas.
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