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The Sacketts posted signs about their case.
(Photo by Keith Kinnaird, The Associated Press) |
"The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for a
n Idaho couple who have been in a four-year battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over the government’s claim that the land on which they plan to build a home contains sensitive wetlands," Robert Barnes reports for
The Washington Post. "The decision allows Mike and Chantell Sackett to go to court to challenge the agency’s order."
When the couple filled in a site for a home, EPA and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
ordered them to stop. "Months later, the agency sent the Sacketts a 'compliance
order' that said the land must be restored as a wetlands before the
couple could apply for a building permit," subject to fines of up to $75,000 a day, Barnes writes. "The question for the justices was whether the
couple had the right at that point to appear before a judge and contest
the agency’s contention that their land contained wetlands subject to
the Clean Water Act." The court's answer was yes. (
Read more)
UPDATE, March 30: The Sacketts,
left, said they didn't know that they had a wetland, but records unearthed by the
Natural Resources Defense Council too late to make the case record indicate that they "knew early on that their property probably
was a wetland. An expert they hired said so in May 2007, just after EPA
first visited the property but months before the agency issued the
compliance order," Lawrence Hurley reports for
Energy & Environment News. "Furthermore, on May 23, 2007, the Army Corps gave the Sacketts a permit application and asked them to complete it. Chantell Sackett's own notes also suggest she recognized the land
was a wetland, even if she contested EPA's authority to regulate it." (
Read more)
(Photo by Hurley)
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