Thanks for posting this information. As is so often the case, all this will be subject to complex interpretation, bureaucracy, and judicial rulings.
Personally, I'd love for this to go to the current Supreme Court, which I strongly suspect will be more sympathetic to private property rights than some previous SC.
Even if the worst fears aren't realized about this power grab, it will serve to deter future landowners from creating ponds. A true shame.
I think that is the ultimate goal, to increase control over the individuals rights. trying to infringe on them more and more every day.
While government agents can do whatever they want, here locally on the MO river, a couple years ago the conservation dept cut a channel across a sharp bend in the river to accommodate spawning for the Pallid Sturgeon, yet when an individual does a little work in the buffer zone of a small un-named creek they face huge fines. in another instance the MO dept of conservation literally dumped sever hundred truck loads of topsoil into the MO river to try to create some kind of spawning site for Sturgeon, which immediatle washed straight down the river, probably wound up in New Orleans. an fined a small local company 40,000.00 because where they piled some dirt, they think maybe at least a shovel full may or may not have washed into a little un-named creek in a huge rain event.
