jelun

Muddying the Clean Water Act
Posted on June 23, 2015
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Kentucky Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell misrepresented cases involving the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Water Act.
Paul said a Mississippi man served “10 years” for “conspiracy to put dirt on his own land.” Robert Lucas was in fact convicted of numerous counts related to filling in protected wetlands on a 2,620-acre lot and selling housing units with deficient septic systems. He served about seven years.
In an op-ed, Paul and McConnell highlighted the case of Andy Johnson, “a farmer who built a stock pond on his eight-acre Wyoming farm” and is now threatened with fines by the EPA. Johnson actually dammed a creek considered a tributary to larger, “navigable” rivers, which requires a permit.
Paul and McConnell, along with many other lawmakers, have expressed concern that the new Clean Water Rule finalized by the EPA on May 27 extends regulation of waters to even puddles and backyard ditches. There is disagreement on what the new rule actually accomplishes; EPA has said that it clarifies existing rules on which waterways are included under the Clean Water Act, and does not drastically expand jurisdiction.
Paul, a 2016 p**********l candidate, says otherwise. To illustrate what he calls “government overreach,” Paul has cited examples of prosecution related to violations of the Clean Water Act.

He spoke about one such example recently at the Baltimore County Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner in Maryland:
Paul, June 9: Over 40 years, we now define pollutants as dirt and your backyard as a navigable stream. It would be funny if we weren’t putting people in jail for it. Guy named Robert Lucas, down at the southern part of Mississippi, 10 years ago was 70 years old. He was put in prison for 10 years. He just got out. Ten years without parole. Ten years without early release. He was convicted of a RICO conspiracy [under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act]. RICO’s supposed to be something you go after gangsters for. You know what his conspiracy was? Conspiracy to put dirt on his own land. We’ve gone crazy.

Actually, Lucas went to prison for far more than simply putting “dirt on his own land.” In fact, the EPA has called this case — which spanned three administrations — “the most significant criminal wetlands case in the history of the Clean Water Act.”
SciCHECKinsertIn 1994, Lucas began buying up land in Vancleave, Mississippi, and developing a 2,620-acre plot with low-cost housing. This included filling in wetlands. According to a 2004 Justice Department press release when Lucas and two others were indicted, the Army Corps of Engineers warned Lucas in 1996 and in subsequent years that the property contained protected “wetlands and could not be developed as home sites.” Lucas received a “long record of warnings” of the public health threat he and his partners were creating by installing septic systems in saturated soil, the Justice Department said. In spite of the warnings, he, along with his daughter Robbie Lucas Wrigley and an engineer, M. E. Thompson, Jr., continued to build on the wetlands and sold homes on this property to hundreds of families.
The area is subject to seasonal flooding, and predictably, residents thus suffered from “discharge of sewage from failing septic systems onto the ground around their homes,” the Justice Department said.
As a result, in 2004 Lucas and his associates were charged with 41 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, conspiracy, and fraud; there were no RICO charges. They were convicted on 40 counts after a trial in February 2005, according to a February 2008 Justice Department monthly bulletin on environmental crimes. Lucas remained free while he appealed the verdict — but continued to sell and lease homes at the development in question, and even continued filling in wetlands there and at one other site, according to the Justice Department. Further appeals were dismissed, and Lucas went to prison.

After mangling the facts that led Lucas to jail, Paul misstated the details of that incarceration. Lucas is currently 75 years old, meaning 10 years ago he was not 70, as Paul said. He began serving his 87-month sentence in 2008, and he was released after about seven years to “residential reentry management” — a halfway house. He is scheduled to remain there until November.
Dams and Tributaries

Though it is a less obvious twisting of the facts, McConnell and Paul’s June 16 op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader also mischaracterized an EPA enforcement case.
McConnell and Paul, June 16: A cautionary tale can be found in the story of Andy Johnson, a farmer who built a stock pond on his eight-acre Wyoming farm. He spent hours building it and filling it with fish, ducks and geese. Now the EPA is claiming that he violated the Clean Water Act by building the pond without a permit and is threatening to fine him $75,000 — a day.

This description sounds as though Johnson simply dug a hole and added water. In fact, the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA found that in order to create the pond, he constructed a dam on Six Mile Creek, a waterway deemed by the EPA to be a tributary of the B****s Fork River, which in turn is a tributary of the Green River, which is a “navigable, interstate water of the United States.”
Building the dam constituted a “discharge of pollutants” into “waters of the United States,” according to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, and thus required a permit that Johnson did not have, or seek. As with the Lucas case, EPA officials say that Johnson received multiple warnings before any enforcement actions were taken.
The EPA rules regarding discharging pollutants into waterways are based on a substantial body of evidence showing that water quality and flow in tributaries and wetlands can affect the water found downstream. In an extensive review of that evidence regarding connectivity of waterways, the EPA notes:
EPA, January 2015: The scientific literature unequivocally demonstrates that streams, individually or cumulatively, exert a strong influence on the integrity of downstream waters. All tributary streams, including perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral streams, are physically, chemically, and biologically connected to downstream rivers via channels and associated alluvial deposits where water and other materials are concentrated, mixed, t***sformed, and t***sported.

Editor’s Note: SciCheck is made possible by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.
– Dave Levitan
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/06/muddying-the-clean-water-act/?utm_source=FactCheck.org&utm_campaign=94755c70e4-FactCheck_Newsletter_6_26_20156_26_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3294bba774-94755c70e4-47875581

docwill

Ten years, served seven for, "...significant wetlands case..."(?!)

Let the re-education camps be built and filled. The gov't's purchase of a billion rounds will find its uses as well...

jelun

The man sold new homes with deficient septic systems to other citizens.
It is not difficult to understand the problem with that.
What happens when septic systems don't work properly?
I bet that given 5 minutes you could think of ten reasons not to allow human waste to seep into the water supply.
Then there is the expense that the buyers must undergo due to this man's greed.

Your paranoia about the purchase of ammunition is duly noted.
You do know that RIF are simply explorations not an actual purchase, right?
If you have PROOF that purchases took place I would love to see it. I have not been able to find any purchase orders.

plainlogic

Your Point?

Theo Loc: Within 1000 miles of Tampa, Florida

2,620 acres is not a "lot." Acres are subdivided into lots. There are even "lots" comprised of a few acres, but they are not the norm.

jelun

Seriously?
The point would be that elected representatives,one of whom is a p**********l candidate, who have supported cutbacks at EPA have lied to the American people about the EPA's "persectution" of citizens.
Sunshine is a great disinfectant, isn't it? On the other hand, cholera is great fun!

plainlogic

Yeah, really. If your pointing the misrepresentations, lets compare Paul & McConnell to Obamas.

jelun

I haven't seen any statements from the only elected Obama about these cases.
Why don't you address the possibility of cholera in the area this dipstick built those inadequate systems?

plainlogic

We're not talking about, just this case, we're talking about the misrepresentations of Paul, McConnell compared with the misrepresentations of Obama and his appointees. Throughout the past 7 1/2 yrs. The lie from Rand and McConnell on this case can't even compare with the lies, that Obama and his whole administration has perpetrated.

jelun

We?
You won't talk about the lies about the EPA because you have no facts to dispute the realities.
Rather than throwing out red herrings why not discuss this here and attend to discussion about the allegations of President Obama's lies on the multiple threads dedicated to that.
This thread has barely started.

plainlogic

Oh PLEASE!!!

3jack

Plainstupid

Phoenix23002 Loc: the Southeast

Here are a few solicitations for bids for ammo. I guess these won't convince you of our government's intentions when it comes to ammo purchases?

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=311eb3ee003671285de8db1036b2b255
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=94034530e947269f2603ada738cbbdb1&tab=core&_cview=0
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=2f1797093c18ff14a2cb4c2186c83677&_cview=0
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"The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month. Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years in America.

Add to this perplexing outré purchase of ammo, DHS now is showing off its acquisition of heavily armored personnel carriers, repatriated from the Iraqi and Afghani theaters of operation. As observed by “paramilblogger” Ken Jorgustin last September:
“[T]he Department of Homeland Security is apparently taking delivery (apparently through the Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico VA, via the manufacturer – Navistar Defense LLC) of an undetermined number of the recently retrofitted 2,717 ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ MaxxPro MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.”

These MRAP’s ARE BEING SEEN ON U.S. STREETS all across America by verified observers with photos, videos, and descriptions.”

Regardless of the exact number of MRAP’s being delivered to DHS (and evidently some to POLICE via DHS, as has been observed), why would they need such over-the-top vehicles on U.S. streets to withstand IEDs, mine blasts, and 50 caliber hits to bullet-proof glass? In a war zone… yes, definitely. Let’s protect our men and women. On the streets of America… ?”
“They all have gun ports… Gun Ports? In the theater of war, yes. On the streets of America…?
Seriously, why would DHS need such a vehicle on our streets?”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
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docwill

Well, tell that to my farmer friends who were addressed by an officious, overbearing EPA official who informed them that EPA can come on their properties without warrants and levy fines "administratively." EPA had a new rule and fines around idling farm equipment Their actions and fines were not defendable before judges. "Our authority extends to wherever there is air."

You L*****ts love weaponized bureaucracies.

Phoenix23002 Loc: the Southeast

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