Posted on 12/10/2002 8:02:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:46:44 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON(AP) - Supreme Court justices found themselves Tuesday in the "guck" - in one justice's word - of trying to determine whether a farmer's plowing can be regulated.
Legal arguments shared court time with a discussion of farming implements in the case of a California farmer who is challenging $500,000 in fines and an order to restore four acres of wetlands.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
In areas that have vernal pools these local ponds are usually created by a thin (or thick) layer of clay just beneath the surface. The clay layer prevents even small amounts of water from seeping down into the underground. This water remains on the surface and creates a small pond or "wetland".
Ripping breaks up the clay layer and allows the water to quickly disappear underground.
This case is not about polluting the pond but preventing its formation. The pollution issue is being raised by the greenies because it fits the federal law, not the circumstances of this case.
This poor sad sack is just part of the creeping oppressiveness that is happening in our country's government. He's never heard of subsoiling and the fact that in order to make some land capable of bearing crops, you have to allow it to drain.
Just part of the same madness of letting the government rule every aspect of societal activity. We don't need wetlands, anyway, unless it is for more mosquito breeding grounds.
That is how they are going about it. They have set up a system in which the "environment" is the property of the people (and by proxy, the US gubment) and whenever a private property owner, by modifying his land, "damages" the environment he is actually damaging the peoples property. Kinda slick when you think about it. They have negated all property rights (excepth their own of course) without setting foot on actual property rights.
The ESA must be eliminated.
EBUCK
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