A legal team asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in an Idaho controversy is warning landowners that under the compliance order procedures being used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency virtually anyone could be told to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees – or face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties – over ordinary home construction work.
A petition for certiorari has been submitted to the court by Pacific Legal, an organization working on behalf of the Sackett family of Idaho.
They own a half-acre lot in a residential area near Priest Lake and wanted to build a home. But after excavation work was begun the EPA "swooped in" with a "compliance order" that requires them to undo the excavation and restore the "wetlands," and then leave it for three years at which point they could seek a "permit" that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Or they could wait for the EPA to prosecute the alleged Clean Water Act violations, which could result in penalties of $25,000-plus per day.
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