You wouldn’t think that building a stock pond on your own property would be something that requires the approval of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would you? One unsuspecting family in Wyoming found out just how far the EPA was willing to go in an effort to “protect the environment.” According to a recent article by FoxNews, the Johnson family, in Fort Bridger, Wyoming, built a small stock pond on their farm in order to support their small herd of livestock. The Johnson’s obtained state and local permits for the pond. After the pond was built, the EPA sent the family threatening letters and slapped them with a fine of more than sixteen million dollars, (i.e., $37,500 per day from the time the pond was built), for not having obtained permission from the EPA to build the pond on the their property. The EPA even demanded the stock pond be deconstructed.
Allegations of a Violation of the Clean Water Act
The EPA claimed it had authority to issue the fine because the Johnson’s pond is fed by a natural stream, and under the federal Clean Water Act, the EPA believed that the Johnson family should have obtained federal approval to build the pond and should have gotten a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. According to the EPA, the Johnson pond was build by creating a dam on a creek and the act of building a dam on a natural waterway requires an Army Corps permit. The EPA also claimed that material from the Johnson’s pond was washing into other waterways. No other environmental problems with the pond were identified by the EPA.
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