The Regulation That Drastically Infringes Landowners’ Rights

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The Regulation That Drastically Infringes Landowners’ Rights


The regulations themselves stretch the imagination in terms of what constitutes a “wetland.” Just consider some of the more absurd scenarios that have been litigated over the years.

In 1987, a Hungarian immigrant named John Pozsgai bought property that had formerly been an illegal auto dump. His efforts to clean up the dump were halted by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who claimed the property as a wetland. Poszgai was sentenced to three years in prison for “discharging pollutants into waters of the United States,” was fined $200,000, and was under supervised probation for five years. The family later went bankrupt and lost the property.

More recently, the Supreme Court heard the case of Mike and Chantelle Sackett, who were slapped with $75,000-a-day fines and no legal recourse simply for trying to build a house on a dry tract of property among homes that already existed there. The permit they required the Sacketts to obtain cost more than the value of their land. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sacketts could challenge the EPA’s decision in court.

Finally, in 2012, the Corps of Engineers and the EPA ended a 22-year, $5.5 million fight with an 80-year-old Massachusetts cranberry farmer and Korean War veteran, Charles Johnson. Johnson wanted to expand his cranberry farm. It turns out that he can do so—but only after he pays a $75,000 fine.
 
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