California Farmer Fights Government Claim That Dirt Is a Pollutant

I found this article hard to follow and had to read it several times due to its compactness and complexity.  But for sure, the one thing that stuck out of all of this was the  roughshod work of the Army Corp of Engineers.  They cast a wide net and dragged LaPLant in on this.

From what I could tell in this article, they most likely didn't do any due diligence to see if he even had any part in the supposed Clean Water Act violations.  It looks to me they just decided to let the courts sort it out.  And how much will this end up costing LaPlant because of the Corp's neglect in doing a proper check?  Thousands?  Hundreds of thousands?  Millions??

What’s particularly alarming to LaPant and other farmers familiar with his case is that in their view the Corps saw fit to modify the Clean Water Act without congressional approval, Francois said.

“There’s a pretty broad, clear statement in the Clean Water Act that you don’t need a permit for normal farming activities,” Francois said, adding:

This would include normal ranching, farming, forestry activities. But the Army has added multiple conditions that you have to meet for these protections [for such operations] to continue.

One of these conditions is that the property has to be tilled pretty regularly for this protection to continue. But there are many reasons why a farmer may suspend tilling. For example, cattle may have a higher price than wheat or corn, and so the land might be used for grazing for a period of time.

The Army has definitely added hurdles and obstacles to a pretty clear and simple statement of the Clean Water Act that you don’t need a permit for normal farming activities. In our view, what they’ve done is to change the policy decision Congress made.