DEP fines Teacher $12,000 for planting too close to Wetlands

NorthJersey.com ^ | 08.07.07 | BARBARA WILLIAMS

[Coleus]

Jeff White in the vegetable garden on his 7-acre West Milford property. The state claims part of the garden is too close to wetlands.

WEST MILFORD -- He hired experts, tested the soil, planted veggies and erected an electrified fence to keep out the bears. But what newbie farmer Jeff White didn't know was that he also had to shield his garden from red tape.  State officials say part of the 4,500-square-foot garden sits too close to wetlands. Specifically, it is on a "deed-restricted transition area" or buffer of wetlands, and the state wants it dismantled. The state also wants White to pay a $12,000 fine or go through a long, costly process to change his deed to reflect revisions on what's protected land and what's not.

White, now appealing the directive, says "I'd be lucky to find $12 in my house right now, much less get my hands on $12,000. I just don't know what we're going to do." The two-year fight between the Butler High School teacher and the Department of Environmental Protection is complicated. It fills three binders with correspondence. Now, it's down to a paperwork requirement -- and a disagreement on what was said during an April 2006 meeting between state officials and White, because nothing from the gathering at White's house on Lone Pine Lane was put down on paper.  The tale begins when White was notified in 2005 by state officials that part of his garden sits on a restricted area. White knew about the wetlands on his 7-acre tract when he bought it in 2002 and made sure he built his garden and house around the environmentally sensitive land. But White said he was unaware of the unbuildable transition area.

He said he asked state officials what he could do to compensate for disturbing the ground and was given some requirements. They included moving part of the garden and a fence, and designating another area for conservation. White made the changes and even designated 2,877 square feet for conservation instead of the necessary 2,500 square feet.   But he maintains he was never told to modify a deed restriction -- the portion of his deed saying where he cannot disturb the land or vegetation. So now he can attempt to make the paperwork change or he can pay the fine and tear down the garden.  But DEP regional supervisor Michael Nystrom said in an April 2007 letter that White was indeed told earlier that he needed to "lift" the deed restriction. Nystrom says in the letter that it's an "expensive and lengthy process and the outcome is not predictable."  State officials would not speak directly to White's case, but provided documents concerning the property. Nystrom said in his letter that White knew he built on the restricted area. He also said White was told at the 2006 meeting that lifting the deed restriction was needed to compensate for disturbing the transition area.

The DEP maintains a Web site listing of people or companies being investigated for violating environmental laws. White's case was given an initial status of "pending," and was switched to "satisfied" after he completed the changes recommended by Nystrom. The listing has since been reverted to "pending."  Nystrom's letter later said errors are made on the Web site, and the DEP "apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused."  But Nystrom would not speak to a reporter about White's case.  On the surface, it seems like a he-said, she-said dispute, given there is no written record of statements at the meeting in 2006. But a state agricultural official who also was at the meeting said White did all he was told to do by the DEP.  Glen Van Olden, a director with the Soil Conservation District, a subdivision of the state Department of Agriculture, said White made the changes directed by Nystrom.

Van Olden also commended White on his method of setting up both the garden and a small Christmas tree farm he started to supplement his salary and his wife's income as a nurse.  "Mr. White used professionals all the way and used best management practices," Van Olden said. "That is the best use for that land -- I think a lot of government time has been wasted in a useless and worthless way."  Kathleen Caren, administrator for the Passaic County Agriculture Development Board, also worked with White and Van Olden on the horticulture. Both Caren and Van Olden said White set it up appropriately, both in terms of agriculture and for the environment.  "How can the case be remediated and closed, then opened again?" she asked. "It's a scary scenario, to think you've been told you're in compliance and then someone from the same agency says you're not." She also noted that if White adheres to the DEP's directive to protect the environment, land will be stripped. Further complicating matters, White needs the blueberries, tomatoes, eggplants, raspberries and pumpkins he's growing to sell annually in order to keep his farmland assessment -- a lower tax assessment for farmers. He has sunk all his savings into home and horticulture and said he fears he and his wife and two toddler children will have to sell.  With two years worth of "jumping through hoops," White said he is at a loss for his next step. "I thought I crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's," he said. "I don't know what else I'm supposed to do."

[B4Ranch]

>Try voting Republican next time.<

Nixon was the one who created the EPA or didn’t you know that? Yes, Nixon was a Republican.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

A matching fourth posting would get even more attention than your three identical posts, 5 would get even more than 4, and so on......(/sarcasm)

Did I say something to you?

[Sacajaweau]

They went after a 90 year old man in our area. The property had been in the family for over 100 years. The WETLAND covered an old peach orchard and the area where the original house once stood. In other words, it never was a wetland.

The maps are ambiguous at best and these enviro people keep their jobs with this cr*p".

And yes, the big guys get away with stuff. It's still the old rule...It's who you know!!

The high point on one of these jobs was talking to a Colonel with the Army Corps of Engineers. At the end of the conversation AND winning the discussion, I said: "Thanks Milton". It was a good day.

[taxesareforever]

It’s all about confiscation and control of private property. It is despicable and criminal.

[Sacajaweau]

These “restrictions” were added to subdivisions as they were going through the process. Our fore fathers were correct in what they did....make the water flow...get rid of the wet areas. A lot of these wetland plants cause allergies and are “dirty” plants.

[holyscroller]

The last thing you want on your property is a wetland! Get a list of all "wetland weeds" in your county, and pull and dispose of them (off site) at night. Also, slowly start filling in that pond. In my state, we have 150-200 foot setbacks from wetlands and ponds. They can end up stopping you from using your entire property.

It's similar to finding a spotted owl has taken up residence in one of your trees. You can kiss any property and property rights good bye.

[I still care]

I have an old National Geographic from the 60’s. In it they talk about a logging company finding a very old, very large tree. The owner marked it off to leave it untouched, and built a fence around it. He also brought it to the attention of the forest service.

Nowadays I bet the first person to find such a tree would get it down asap, before anyone saw it because of the tyrannical environmental laws.

They leave nothing up to the goodness of men anymore. As a result, they get more and more tyrannical and people get more and more lawless.

[shhrubbery!]

You pay for these assholes, New Jersey. You vote those who keep this slime in business into office.

You're half right. We do pay for them.

We don't vote for them, however -- not those of us who live in northwest New Jersey, where West Milford is. Northwest NJ is solidly Republican.

Problem is, our votes can't stack up against all the dead people voting Democrat in Newark and Camden.

[Tammy8]

I think you were wise. I remember a rancher many years ago that cooperated with the government in setting up a wilderness area on his ranch. He thought he was doing a good thing- after his cattle grazing rights were cut to nothing he went broke and lost his ranch. Then the government starting creating more wilderness areas on his neighbors. From what I hear some of these wilderness areas are now popular places for drug farmers to plant their marijuana.

I don’t know all the details but am told some ranchers in my area have signed away their water rights to an environmental protection group, since this is the desert I can imagine what the end result of that will be.

[BenLurkin]

"Government is not the solution to people's problems, government IS the problem"

Bump that!

[Ferris]

WTF country is this?!?!?

Astounding.

You won't care about any freedom you had, until you have to fight to get it back.

Only then will it mean anything...

[Stegall Tx]

I wish I could do something to stop what seems inevitable. However, the "pond" is just the lowest part of the section that the farm is in. To fill it in, I'd have to haul in enough fill to cover a square mile of land roughly 20' deep.

Come to think of it, since the low spot roughly straddles our fence, I could start dragging out a little dirt from the neighbor's land over to my side of the fence ... .

[Exton1]

This guy should start crying about civil rights, or better yet Constitutional rights. The government is stealing his property without compensation. This will be the future for all of us should the Hildabeast or other socialist get elected. It is just one more step toward a totalitarian government.

[nathanbedford]

After savoring the delicious irony of a bureaucrat schoolteacher being undone by other bureaucrats, we ought to pause and consider that there is a deeper cause for our teacher's dilemma: The pressure of land use has accelerated geometrically with explosive growth of population in America. Under this pressure, conservatism has no fighting chance to preserve its values. Here some posts along these lines:

U.S. population may hit 400 million by 2043

I first posted this a couple of years ago. Alas it is only more drearily true today:

THE POPULATION OF AMERICA HAS DOUBLED IN MY LIFETIME

If you have lost control of your local school system and you believe it is because liberalism is triumphing over conservatism, you are right but you have identified the symptom and not the cause: The population of America has doubled in my lifetime.

If you have lost control over your own real property, if your rights to manage, improve, and develop your property have passed over to bureaucrats, if you can no longer choose whom to rent to or whom to sell to, if you have lost confidence that your deed in fee simple absolute will protect you against a venal government or one wholly given over to interest groups, and for all of this you blame liberalism, you have identified the symptom but not the cause: The population of America has doubled in my lifetime.

If you are a rancher who has lost his rights to graze his cattle upon lands licensed to his family for generations, if you're a fox hunter who has been deprived of his sport, if you must wait three hours for a tee time, if you have given up taking the family to the Jersey shore because the travel time now exceeds three hours, if, after hours of travail, you finally arrive at the Jersey shore with your family and you find your neighbors to close, too numerous, polyglot, and uncongenial, know this;The population of America has doubled in my lifetime.

If you look at Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida as-miracle of the jet age-suburbs of New York City, and you watch helplessly as the politics of these counties veer ever farther left potentially dragging all Florida and, with Florida, the soul of the Republican Party in America with them, be advised: The population of America has doubled in my lifetime.

Here is another along the same lines:

A few posts back one can read an article about a neighborhood uproar over the conversion of a horse ranch into a an upscale housing development. The author and the posters lament the loss of open green spaces. No one apart from me, your humble reactionary, sought to connect our feverish conversion of open spaces into more modern and admittedly upscale Levittowns with our quarter century policy of virtually open immigration.

How many tens of millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, have come to America in the last quarter century? How many millions of children have they brought into our society? Presumably there were all housed. The earlier generations, financially better established no doubt, do what Americans have always done as an immigrant wave occupies the cities, they move out to the burbs and seek higher quality housing, especially housing with cul-de-sacs.

The greater issue here is not cul-de-sacs, nor preservation of horse farms discussed on the earlier thread, but who gets to decide how we control our land-use. If you are a conservative you ought to consider that your freedom to use your land is you see fit, to build on a cul-de-sac or to maintain horses, or even dogs, is much less in a society with 300 million people than it was in a society of only 140 million people which was our population at the time of my birth. Your individual property rights must inevitably give way to the sheer weight of numbers.

If you are a conservative who values your property rights, you should be as aggressive in fighting immigration, both legal and illegal (although not limited legal immigration based on skills), as you all are in defense of a Second Amendment right to bear arms.

And a final post:

Have you ever heard me claim that we could not feed the teeming billions? The question, of course, is rhetorical and the answer is no. I am no Malthusian. However, the population of US has doubled in my lifetime and I do complain about the absence of parking spaces, free driving lanes, open beaches, and open spaces.

But I do not complain about intrusive government trying to regulate conflicting claims of private property vs. public use while I stand silent on the issue of population growth. If you condone such growth please do not trouble the rest of us with rantings about intrusive government because government will inevitably become intrusive as your growing tribe by its very presence circumscribes my freedom.

As a conservative, I know from the Goldwater days what it is like to fight hopeless fights. Guess what, the era of big government is not over. It is not just our growing addiction to the teat which makes conservative concepts like states rights and limited government quaint, it is a rapacious and burgeoning population whose claims for more and more cannot be resisted by resort to old conservative truisms. And so it goes with land use controls. What are you going to do about traffic problems? More government controls. Do you really think your rights to use your private property will enable you long to operate a plant with noxious effluents when mothers downstream have the vote, even if the mothers are conservatives? Do you really believe that a few thousand ranchers in Wyoming can long dictate the use of federal lands against the claims of teeming millions in the cities who have engaged lobbyists like the Sierra Club to get the feds to regulate its own lands for their benefit?

Our problem as conservatives is hopeless if we permit ourselves to be washed away by a tsunami of clamoring demands from a population literally growing out of control.

[dr_lew]

Be afraid, be very afraid

[CometBaby]

I have a very good friend who bought 60 acres of land in northern CA years ago. He loved it there until the day he got a letter in the mail from the EPA saying they would like to have permission to come onto his land to "inspect" it.

He fired off a letter saying "no" but knew the handwriting was on the wall. They were going to create protected areas on his land. He put it up for sale. Sold it and moved to AZ. He hated to part with his beloved home, but he knew that they were going to make his life miserable.

It's a sad state of affairs the power they have been given.

[tina07]

I used to live in West Milford, grew up there, graduated from high school there. I was curious about whether Passaic County was republican or democrat, having thought it leaned democrat. I looked it up, seems a bit of both:

The state’s Democratic strongholds include Mercer County around Trenton and Princeton; Essex County and Hudson County, the state’s two most urban counties, around the state’s two largest cities, Newark and Jersey City; Camden County and most of the other urban communities just outside of Philadelphia and New York; and more suburban northern counties in New York’s orbit, such as Union County and Middlesex County.

The more suburban northwestern and southeastern counties of the state are reliably Republican: Republicans have backing along the coast in Ocean County and in the mountainous northwestern part of the state, especially Sussex County, Morris County, and Warren County. Somerset County and Hunterdon County, other suburban counties in the region, are also Republican in local elections but can be competitive in national races. In the 2004 General Election, President Bush received about 52% in Somerset and 60% in Hunterdon, while up in rural Republican Sussex County, Bush won with 64% of the vote.

****About half of the counties in New Jersey, however, are considered swing counties, but some go more one way than others. For an example, Bergen County, which leans Republican in the northern half of the county, is mostly Democratic in the more populated southern parts, causing it to usually vote slightly Democratic (same with Passaic County, with a highly populated Hispanic Democratic south and a rural, Republican north), other “swing” counties like Cape May County tend to go Republican, as they also have population in conservative areas.****

[tina07]

oh, and I live in Sussex County for 19 yrs. now..more to my liking politically, but planning to exit NJ in the next 6 months due to the highest taxes in the land!

[DB]

This is closer to the reason why bridges are old and fall down in America. Huge amounts of resources are spent producing nothing but piles of worthless paper.