High court says couple can seek court relief from EPA 'compliance order' to restore alleged wetland

The Sacketts posted signs about their case.
(Photo by Keith Kinnaird, The Associated Press)

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for an 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)