Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site WY pond-builder faces $75,000/day in EPA fines

Not sure if this story was previously reported, but it sure causes pause to ponder the power wielded by the EPA.

Wyoming welder faces $75,000 a day in EPA fines for building pond on his property

Excerpt: All Andy Johnson wanted to do was build a stock pond on his sprawling eight-acre Wyoming farm. He and his wife Katie spent hours constructing it, filling it with crystal-clear water, and bringing in brook and brown trout, ducks and geese. It was a place where his horses could drink and graze, and a private playground for his three children.

But instead of enjoying the fruits of his labor, the Wyoming welder says he was harangued by the federal government, stuck in what he calls a petty power play by the Environmental Protection Agency. He claims the agency is now threatening him with civil and criminal penalties – including the threat of a $75,000-a-day fine.

“I have not paid them a dime nor will I,” a defiant Johnson told FoxNews.com. “I will go bankrupt if I have to fighting it. My wife and I built [the pond] together. We put our blood, sweat and tears into it. It was our dream.”

The government says he violated the Clean Water Act by building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. Further, the EPA claims that material from his pond is being discharged into other waterways. Johnson says he built a stock pond -- a man-made pond meant to attract wildlife -- which is exempt from Clean Water Act regulations.

Kelly, I read that same article yesterday. I won't comment on it other than to say the cats hid under the bed as I screamed while I read it.

My neighbor to the north raises show horses, and moved here after similar issues with one of the western states. He was putting a road culvert in a small dry arroyo, and the process and dollars spent in permits was mind boggling. He got it done, but it took 6 months to get all the various state agency's to agree to it.

How ridiculous and over the top! OTOH I would have said we all know you can't just damn up a creek but in this case the state said it was fine!

Sounds to me like the EPA has too much time on it's hands. OTOH we have fenced in Amish farm lots here that are built right on feeder streams to our lakes here, and no one does anything about it. I reported them to our IDEM and they blew me off.

I was also told by the head of our county health department, who is an avid environmentalist, that he's reported the digging of wetlands and was told if it was under 25 acres they corps didn't want to be bothered.

Amazing the wide range of responses isn't it -- depending on your location?

I hesitated to post that story last night and passed it on up To Bob to decide.

To me, it looks like a test run on a new power grab by the EPA and a new tactic to steal control over every drop of water above or below the ground. Plans to meter and tax water used in private wells, regulate "any" rain run-off and other "ideas" have been tried by the EPA in the past decade...

It's interesting how the EPA was created to regulate "massive" polluters and now tries to stop a small pond....equally as interesting how the Army Corp of Engineers was given control to improve, stabilize, and maintain major "navigable" rivers, and now claims authority over seasonal drainage creeks on a whim....

As I've posted here before my state of Indiana that typically has a hands off approach to individual rights is talking about "studying" water use in the state and coming up with sone kind of "plan." Irrigation via ground water had increased exponentially due to a few droughts and summer temps that far exceeded average. I just hope it's not a knee jerk reaction and their decisions are based on facts. I'm already seeing some ignorance about drilling test wells when they already exist and are well marked (no pun intended). Looks like a waste of money to me.

It would be nice to hear the whole story but I don't know that we have any unbiased news sources in this country

B
Yes that's pretty much impossible these days.

Good point. I'm not sure if you if you could even call some of them "news sources."