Per The Clarion-Ledger, a federal Judge in Mississippi imposed multi-year sentences on a real estate developer, his daughter (a real estate agent) and an engineer after the three were convicted by a jury for, among other things, violating the Clean Water Act. Per the newspaper:
The defendants sold lots to 67 families in [a]... mobile home park, all or part of which turned out to be federally protected wetlands, and installed cheap septic systems that likely would fail and contaminate the drinking water.
Authorities received complaints from residents about sewage, stomach illnesses and well water with a bad odor, color and taste.
The Judge also imposed $1.4 million in fines on the three defendants. Ouch.
This case stands in sharp contrast to the Rapanos case (see "WETLANDS" under "CATEGORIES" on the right-hand side of this page), wherein a Michigan federal Judge was of the view that the government was overreaching in its Clean Water Act prosecution of Mr. Rapanos for filling in alleged wetlands on his own property (the wetlands were remote from any navigable waters). The Judge refused to send Mr. Rapanos to jail. Of course, in Mr. Rapanos' case, he was not deceptively selling wetlands to third parties.
As reported in previous Posts/this Blog, the Rapanos case is presently before the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's ruling in the case will provide key guidance in the interpretation of the CWA.
Is this white flower a lilly.Thank you all for the Mother's day card,I had a woneurfdl day. Pops took me out for dinner and the rest of the family here joined us. We all went to the Outback steakhouse, the meal great.Love, Nana :)
Posted by: Dimank | October 26, 2012 at 10:37 PM
Most of the oil is not being sucked up .Why don't they use Kevin Costner's mahcines???Separating oil from water.There seems to be something fishy about, the leak being ignored and only settling for sucking up partial of the oil.Is this another 911 conspiracy, is someone trying to break the back of our country??why all these solutions already talked about and none of them tried..BP will only change their name, the rest of the people will pay with their livelihood.
Posted by: Lisa | May 03, 2012 at 12:42 AM
Wonderful blogs, but about the last two paragraphs (mean I don't really understand. Can you explain it?
Posted by: cheap jordans | November 01, 2010 at 06:18 PM
Well this law didn't help us in Long Beach CA, a landowner broke this act along with several others and should have received jail time. Owner even unearthed on an old landfill...next to a river very close to the pacific ocean. Our LB wetlands actually faces many battles. See www.caopenspace.org/loscerritoswetlands.html
Posted by: Cindy | August 30, 2009 at 11:00 PM
After all this he is still selling wet lands
Posted by: | February 16, 2006 at 01:49 PM