Yep, I have to agree with that assessment...
Glad to see that today's Sacketts know how to deal with those low-down, filthy conniving EPA skunks, just like the Sacketts dealt with bad guys in the old days.
Posted on 01/18/2012 7:57:18 PM PST by WilliamIII
The EPA has 17,000 full time employees and approximately a $8.4 billion budget. It also has a fondness for hunting bullfrogs with a shotgun.
Case in point: Mike and Chantell Sackett began building on waterfront property at Priest Lake, Idaho, in 2007. Their lot was less than a single acre (.63) and bordered by other residential properties. As they were laying gravel and grading the property, EPA officials arrived, claimed they were acting on an anonymous tip, and declared the location a “wetland without a federal permit.” Essentially, EPA issued a compliance order directing the Sacketts to restore the site to its previous condition.
The order demanded they “remove all fill, replace any lost vegetation, and monitor the fenced-off site for three years,” or else face “great cost” and a “threat of civil fines of tens of thousands of dollars per day, as well as possible criminal penalties.” The fines in the Sackett case ranged up to $37,500 per day.
For average Americans, EPA compliance orders carry the weight of law because options are, well, extremely limited. The lucky recipients of a compliance order basically have two choices: (1) They can obey the EPA and comply. In the Sackett case, the cost of cleanup and restoration would have exceeded the $23,000 they had originally paid for the property. (2) The other choice is to force the EPA’s hand and wait for a suit. This option comes with a kicker for the property owner — the daily EPA fine meter ticks on until the court date comes.
If the landowners choose door No. 2, the EPA can bleed them dry: ... (The Sacketts currently owe the EPA close to $40 million.)
(Excerpt) Read more at deltafarmpress.com ...
I had one run-in with the EPA. I bought a property of 18 acres, half of which was high and dry. There was an intermittent stream on the north end of the property which had been dammed to create a reservoir in the winter for ice-cutting which made a couple hundred feet of swail even though the dam was breached for years. Also, the railroad came through about that time and altered the drainage. In the 20th century, one state road and one federal were built, further entombing my property and trapping more water. Voila! Suddenly the EPA decreed most of my property to be sacred and forevermore inviolable wetlands, even though their wetness was entirely the product of entirely legal human activity in previous eras. I had intended to retire on that property and run a nice little gentleman’s farm, but once it was designated wetland I couldn’t even dig a ditch or create a driveway through the Joe Pye weed. The ridiculous restrictions the EPA placed on my use of my property reduced the resale value of my property after having made the property useless to me. However, I was in no position to challenge the EPA, not being a politically connected entity within the spiders web of the greenies. My personal recommendation is for congress to eliminate the EPA, firing everyone in it, relinquishing all of its property and assets, and waiting ten years before considering another such green gestapo. And forbidding the new agency from employing anyone who worked for the current EPA.
I had one run-in with the EPA. I bought a property of 18 acres, half of which was high and dry. There was an intermittent stream on the north end of the property which had been dammed to create a reservoir in the winter for ice-cutting which made a couple hundred feet of swail even though the dam was breached for years. Also, the railroad came through about that time and altered the drainage. In the 20th century, one state road and one federal were built, further entombing my property and trapping more water. Voila! Suddenly the EPA decreed most of my property to be sacred and forevermore inviolable wetlands, even though their wetness was entirely the product of entirely legal human activity in previous eras. I had intended to retire on that property and run a nice little gentleman’s farm, but once it was designated wetland I couldn’t even dig a ditch or create a driveway through the Joe Pye weed. The ridiculous restrictions the EPA placed on my use of my property reduced the resale value of my property after having made the property useless to me. However, I was in no position to challenge the EPA, not being a politically connected entity within the spiders web of the greenies. My personal recommendation is for congress to eliminate the EPA, firing everyone in it, relinquishing all of its property and assets, and waiting ten years before considering another such green gestapo. And forbidding the new agency from employing anyone who worked for the current EPA.
So you don’t have $37,500 or $40 million or whatever. Well, consider this. The federal court could then expect you to sell all your assets (and give them the money) and live on the street as a homeless person. You still could work—but you could procure food only to the extent that so doing pleases the court or bureaucracy or other federal official. If you should perish, whether of starvation, exposure, hard labor, disability, or whatever else, then your heirs would inherit your debt to society. Ultimately, someone will pay.
And that’s after your 30 years incarceration at hard labor (if you survive that long; otherwise, your heirs inherit and serve the remaining sentence) during which the fine accumulates interest and penalties, which may include incarceration at hard labor for a term of years. So don’t harm your great-grandchildren: obey federal law.
Yep, I have to agree with that assessment...
Glad to see that today's Sacketts know how to deal with those low-down, filthy conniving EPA skunks, just like the Sacketts dealt with bad guys in the old days.
The EPA has gone amok. The land cost less than $30,000 for criminy sake.
We bought land in Evergreen, Colorado years ago. When we began building upon it, we were socked with a very hefty "Readiness to Serve" water bill (there was no water readily available on the raw land at the time). Greed takes many forms and the EPA appears to have it down pat.
Some time later a second road was run through the seasonal swamp farther away from the shore and the outlet of the inland swamp redirected. The Sackett property just hadn't been filled before the wetland inventory was done unlike all of their neighbor's properties. It is indeed separated from the larger inland swamp by the second road and it's filled roadbed and ditches.
Some neighbor had it in for them. The local gov'ts were completely useless in helping to point this out well before the development of the Sackett property began and should be defendants too.
Nobody should be a “defendant”. The Sacketts’ 3-bedroom home plans don’t threaten anybody, least of all the environment. This isn’t nuclear waster, fer chrisake. The federal bureaucrats should be the “defendants” for butting in where there’s no need and they don’t belong.
The EPA should be in the docket along with the local and state governments. Especially all of the bureaucrats involved should be held personally responsible for Civil Rights violations, RICO and extortion. It wouldn't hurt to have some discovery to ID the neighbor snitch.
$8.4 billion budget to put people out of work and destroy the economy.
I suspect that much of the lake shore development was done before the EPA was formed and subsequently subverted into generating disease ridden, malarial mosquito preserves.
What did the local gov’t do wrong? They issued a building permit. Why is that wrong? Land use is a local issue. EPA wants to make it a federal matter, and stomp all over local governments. The Founding Fathers would be appalled.
Add to that, roll back every rule it has ever written.
The EPA isn't the only government agency that needs to go away, but it should be the first one to go away. Getting rid of the EPA and its regulations would do wonders for our economy.
How is their property any different than their neighbors? It would seem that if all the land was a wet land then even their neighbors would be in violation too.
you are probably correct and i am not an attorney, but it seems to me the epa ha a great deal of latitude how to mess with.
They decide and little (up until now) can be done about it.
“your heirs inherit and serve the remaining sentence”
Specific citations, please.
nonsense, the fines would go unpaid and I wouldn't go hungry nor would my heirs inherit any part of the problem. Sometimes irrational fear of the government forces people to do things they otherwise wouldn't. I have no irrational fear of the government.
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