Lynn Moses will be locked up in federal prison next Wednesday. His crime? Protecting the city of Driggs, Idaho from flooding. Posted on 08/04/2008 4:13:34 PM PDT by average american student
Lynn Moses will be locked up in federal prison next Wednesday. His crime? Protecting the city of Driggs, Idaho from flooding.
When Mr. Moses began to develop a subdivision along Teton Creek in 1980, Teton County required him to implement an engineer’s plan to modify the Teton Creek stream bed to prevent the flooding of subdivision property, caused by the buildup of gravel bars and downed trees, during high water flows in the spring.
In fact, the county would not allow him even to record the plat for the subdivision until the modification work had been done, and only allowed the development after requiring the homeowner’s association to maintain the flood control channel year after year.
Teton Creek used to be a flowing stream, but irrigation diversion over 100 years ago dewatered the Creek and left the stream bed dry for all but two months a year at the most. Water only fills the stream bed when irrigators have more water than they can use. (Note: this means there is no “aquatic environment” here, nor any “wetland.”)
Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were invited to a planning meeting with the county and Mr. Moses in 1980, but they soon left the meeting after informing county officials that they had “classified the stream as intermittent and therefore outside their jurisdiction.”
So working on plans developed by an engineer and approved – in fact, required – by the county, Mr. Moses got to work and cleared the channel of gravel bars and downed cottonwood trees to ensure that the channel would serve as a flood control structure.
For years he has walked the entire length of the creek to evaluate conditions and then remove gravel bars, sand, logs ...
(Excerpt) Read more at stiffrightjab.com ...
This needs to be spread far and wide till it's on every internet website and talk radio show in the country.
Just curious though, since we are dealing with the EPA, an executive agency, is this another example of what a certain presidential candidate promised back in 2000 ... when he said that he was a "different kind of environmentalist."
... I'm still searching for some solid, down to earth, honest to goodness, proof.
I've just contacted Bryan Fischer of Idaho Values Alliance, and things look dim, with no public defense pulled together on such short notice, but with one possible long shot legal response.
I'd like to think this could be reversed with the right kind of public pressure.
If anything, just to expose these rascals and keep them from sticking the screws to yet another and another and another ... but hopefully to help out Mr. Moser as well.
The only real chance for attention is for a member of Congress to get involved.
I’m not from Idaho, but I imagine contacting this guy’s representative along with the senators may be the best path to freeing him.
Wow, this IS a travesty of justice.
The jury was the problem, they were there to check the Government and instead the did not do their duty in a serious manner.
This is the type of tyranny that causes a man to roll up his sleeves and start slitting throats, beginning with the pissant (on offense to Freeper pissant) federal bureaucrat and going on to the pissant federal judge.
How can we help?
This is as clear an example of judicial overreach as any I’ve seen in recent memory. For the judge to instruct the jury to disregard the history of this issue is tantamount to directing the verdict.
Yeah? So what are you going to do about it?
NOTHING The Government does is unjust.
All of this shit under George W. Bush. When you voted in 2000 you only replaced the President and a handful of folks. Clinton Communists continue to infest the government, and Bush did absolutely nothing to get rid of them.
Well, he’s brought to our attention. One man can’t do it all. Some blood needs to be spilled (figuratively speaking).
Natch, figuratively speaking, of course...
Ah yes. Wetlands.. formerly known as swamps.
The EPA is worse than the NAZI’S.
everyone must submit to the omnipotent state.
don't let your social worker hear that, or you'll be classified as a "suspect."
And of course the judge didn't say the jury could simply nullify the law and hand down a "not guilty" verdict anyway.
So much for the charity of the legal community........
Govt.: Bad,
Mr. Moses: the poor victim.,
his attorneys: Cha ching, cha ching, cha ching......!!!
Yea, I do hate attorneys! They're one of the largest sections in the yellow pages and over the past 35 years have probably been the fastest growing industry in this country......
You vs. me? You're screwed, I'm screwed and the attorney is taking Wednesday off to golf or go boating........
Last couple of times I got called for jury duty the judges said they would not tolerate any of this jury nullification nonsense in their courts.
Even though we don't have anyone running for President that thrills us, the Supreme Court is essential to stopping this kind of government game-playing. Private ownership and control of the means of production, ie property, is essential to capitalism and to freedom. I don't want to be outraged anymore, I want the government to JUST STOP interfering with property owners like this!
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