Government colluding with Government and using blatant extortion to annihilate any semblance of these American's property rights.
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Posted on 09/19/2011 5:55:12 PM PDT by WilliamIII
PRIEST LAKE, Idaho -- Sitting unobtrusively across the road from a pristine lake in the northern Idaho panhandle, the half-acre lot covered with weeds and piles of gravel isn't much to look at.
And yet, in a few months' time, the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will decide its fate.
For four years the land has sat idle while its owners, Mike and Chantell Sackett, have been locked in a fight with U.S. EPA.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The EPA is a beard for numerous greenie so-called nonprofits.
The Corps. (corpse Obama?) of Engineers can drag things on for decades. It wastes our money like crazy and can have not only private property owners swimming in molasses for years it does the same with local governments.
In our local community you can see the same kind of garbage where Planning and Zoning will nuke a project because someone knows someone in city hall and they don’t want a property developed because it might kill trees or the project might compete with the interests of some old money in town. At least that is the way it was until some of us conservatives got other conservatives elected and we replaced the nuts on P&Z. We also straightened out the code enforcement folks and continue to restructure and clarify city ordinances,
The best kind of federal entity such as the EPA, the DOE and others like the Dept of education are ones that don’t exist. Those three need to be scaled back 95% or shut down!
“......Those three need to be scaled back 95% or shut down!....”
Agreed
Hey, let's throw in the Dept of Agric where they have more bureaucrats than there are farmers.
The Dept of Educ is nothing more than a cabinet seat at the president's table for the NEA . . . can't find a difference.
This is a perfect example of bureaucracy gone wild. No unelected bureaucrat should be allowed to make any decision that is binding with the force of law. When the EPA thinks a law should be made to protect the environment, they should write up legislation and submit it to our legislature for passing. That’s why we elect people.
How about every 25 ?
A friend sold them the site for $23,000. By 2007, having obtained building permits from the county, the Sacketts began the building process by spreading fill material over the lot.
Then, one day, three people showed up: two from EPA and one from the Army Corps of Engineers.
OK I am a bit perplexed.
What does the Army Corps of Engineers have to do with this property?
It is private property and it is not on the lake. They have building permits from the county. The ACE should pound sand and go home.
I think they have a federal regulatory function concerning wetlands and drainage. Unfortunately, they are getting the squeeze between a county that permitted them to build and the feds that find "wetlands" in some pretty amazing places.
If it was classified as a wetland, spreading the fill without a CoE permit would have been a violation.
Yep, I went to the link. That's what happened. And an excavation contractor should have known better. It's not like the law is new - I learned about it the hard way back in the mid-1980s.
And it appears that the case is going up on due process grounds, rather than a dispute as to the merits. If the contractor wins, he still has to get a permit from the CoE.
The Army CE should have nothing to do with it, any more than they had the right to tell our town that the Corp of E had to approve before the town could move a couple of steel statues 10 yards from one spot to another more spot that was made especially for them. It’s crazy. It took two years to get approval to move two free-standing statues.
Its all part of a greater plan...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkcsdObf-94&feature=player_embedded
Then they order them to restore the property before they will even consider talking to them about whether the property is a wet land or not.
This agency is in desperate need of defunding.
See video in post 12....
The date of classification wasn't clear in what I read
and after they have obtained permits and begun construction.
Except that pesky CoE permit.
Then they order them to restore the property before they will even consider talking to them about whether the property is a wet land or not.
If they are trying to get it re-classified, they might as well bounce off a brick wall. If they want to build a house, they need to apply for a permit - the classification of the property wouldn't change.
This agency is in desperate need of defunding.
There is benefit to that, but are you going to defund the US Army as well? Because that who isn't giving them the permit.
There's a thing called FINAL AGENCY DECISION ~ and once that's issued if you don't like it you can go to federal district court ~ if it hasn't been issued the courts will tell you to go back to the Executive branch and get a final decision. Without it Due Process of Law has not been completed.
It seems to me this deal between the Corps of Engineers and EPA is a tad weird. Once EPA makes a decision, that should be the end of it ~ and the property owner could take the question to court.
What's going on here is the Corps of Engineers has been assigned the responsibility for issuing Final Agency Decision, but the trick is they can't act until any deficiency cited by EPA has been cleared.
Basically EPA, and the Corps, are playing a flim flam game that probably should result in some lawyers for both agencies being disbarred, tried for conspiring against the courts, and then tossed into prison for life.
That's for starters.
I really do know the type of bureaucrat who would come up with a structure like this, and they are not nice, nor are they normal. I spent many years making sure infernal machinery was REMOVED from processes, yet, you'll find them sticking it in the most obscure spots ~ it's like they're possessed.
I'm guessing that even the Diesel Dyke on the Court is going to find this process defective in the extreme.
All this coulda been avoided if they woulda just ask-ed for a bit-o-honey from my bros, ummm... friends of little consequence over in Hayden Lake.
What has happened is that the Supreme Court has twice told the EPA and Army Corp of Engineers that it has overstepped its jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. First in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Engineers where the Supreme Court invalidated the Corp’s Migratory Bird Rule. That is if migratory water fowl would land on your property it was considered a wetland. Second was Rapanos v. United States where the the Corp and EPA tried to convince the Supreme Court that “Navigable Waters” included underground conduits. Scalia wrote a scathing opinion, but Kennedy wrote a wishy washy concurrence.
This latest issue is the EPA and Corp’s “work around” those two opinions. They declare it a wetland and set forth bureaucratic hoops which the plaintiffs must go through before they challenge the designation of a wetland. I think the Supreme Court has seen this for what it is; namely the EPA and the Corp thumbing their noses at the court.
If I had to bet, I would say this will be strike three for the Corp and EPA
The COE should have been separated from the army decades ago. It serves no useful function within the active army and is a civil engineering function. It’s functions probably should be with the Commerce Dept. and only advisory when two or more states are involved in a disagreement.
My Dad had a college buddy who owned a very small cabin on the northern reaches of Priest Lake. No electricity (propane refrigerator and stove, kerosene lamps) and no road to the cabin (boat only). It was a beautiful retreat. I always wonder what happened to that place. I figure the EPA probably took it away from him for encroaching on the lake shore.
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