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

[accadacca]

Interesting story...busted on his own property.

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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

[Sun Dance]

Our government is way out of its role.

[Scott P]

I've worked many years in the civil engineering field and know that building a real dam without a Corps of Engineers Permit is considered a big no no. Stock ponds are however, exempt.

The original laws were made with good intentions. A poorly made dam that breaks can easily kill anyone down stream. Much of the laws made were because of a 1972 dam failure that killed 125 people in West Virginia. No one (regardless of political affiliation) is going to want their neighbor to build an unsafe dam upstream from them.

Also, water laws allocate water usage between different individuals, communities, states, etc. Upstream land owners still only own a portion of the water that flows through their land. Otherwise, Colorado, for example, could use 100% of the water in the Colorado River and leave Utah dry even if the towns on the Utah side were settled first.

Discharging a large amount of non-agricultural sediment (agriculture is held to a much lower thresh hold as everyone else) into streams is also not consider legal. This is because it alters the streams downstream and because in many cases (a highway or construction project, for example), runoff contains pollutants. Most people downsteam (regardless of political affiliation) don't want upstream land owners to pollute the waterways that they use.

An incorrectly made dam can pose a danger to people living downstream (if present) or can discharge, rather than collect (which is what most big concrete dams do) sediment.

The argument is going to come down as to if the dam is really a stock pond or if it is actually for non-agricultural uses and can pose a danger to those living downstream or discharge too much sediment and alter the stream to users below.

Unfortunately though, some in the government can overstep their boundaries too far and on the other hand some people can build an unsafe or sediment discharging dam upstream of someone who doesn't like it.

As far as private property rights go, land owners want to do anything they see fit on their land, but on the other hand I'm sure any property owner out there doesn't want to live below a breech-able or sediment discharging dam that their neighbor built.

Too bad the article didn't post photographs of the dam (yes I am experienced in inspecting dams, but through the private industry) so we can look at it and see what kind of dam it is and what is going on with it.

[Sombeech]

I wonder how they magically came up with that dollar amount in fines.

[Deathcricket]

Yeah kinda on the EPA's side on this, depending on how big the pond is. But really I would need to know how big the body of water is to make a call. A poorly constructed dam could seriously flood and damage the people downstream. Really what is needed is to just say ponds over xxxx size need an engineer and smaller ponds below xxxx size don't pose a significant threat to those downstream and are fine to do without an engineer. I think a balance can be achieved where he can have a decent reservoir for wildlife and not pose a danger constructing it himself.

[Sombeech]

I wonder how big the pond is. If it's just a small Stillwater ditch being dammed up, I could see they might have a complaint about stagnant bodies of water attracting certain bugs, but then again the ditch would already be doing that.

Here's a question, what if Beavers built the dam on his property, the dam breaks causing damage downstream, is the landowner to blame?

[Sun Dance]

Yeah kinda on the EPA's side on this, depending on how big the pond is. But really I would need to know how big the body of water is to make a call. A poorly constructed dam could seriously flood and damage the people downstream.

OK fine. But if his "dam" breaks and damages property downstream, he's going to be liable for damages there, on top of the $75K x2 per day "fine" from the EPA. Instead of having the typical government mentality of "beat it with a hammer, even better, two hammers, when a screwdriver is the only thing that will do the job properly," let's use a little bit of critical thinking skills here and make the conclusion that a guy with perhaps a small pond that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be in breach of the law, depending on semantics, MIGHT flood his neighbor's field with a few thousand gallons of water. It's not like he's building his own Lake Powell. Instead of fining him more than heroin dealers, why not look into the situation a bit more and see if a 150K per day fine actually fits the crime being committed. Government is so black and white because they lack the brains, desire, resources, or all three to critically evaluate a situation and apply an appropriate remedy. Judges and especially DAs use this skill all the time and are granted huge leeway. Why can't other government employees do the same?

[erial]

photo of pond from the foxnews story

[Sun Dance]

If that's a grove of trees in the center, that's a fairly sizeable lake.

[Sombeech]

I would assume it's a sagebrush or tumbleweed in the center.