Theft at the Public Till
its enforcers have been treating wetland regulation as an environmental crisis. Maybe someone should tell them the crisis is over, before they do any more damage.” Their story continued, “in the normally quiet little Gulf Coast town of Port Bolivar, Texas, federal bureaucrats are threatening to throw an old man in jail because he wanted to spend his last few years by the sea. Part of the story is told by a humiliating bill board - 10 feet high, 20 feet across - that he is now forced to post in front of his house. It announces to the world that he has sinned against the Army Corps of Engineers by depositing ‘illegal fill material’ on his property and that he must now remove it, and ‘restore’ the property, at his own expense. The incident began when Marinus Van Leuzen, a 73-year-old immigrant from Holland, decided to build his re- tirement home on a bit of property he had owned for more than 20 years. Unfortunately for Mr. Van Leuzen, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency had other ideas. They considered his land wetlands and hauled Mr. Van Leuzen into court for violating Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.” “Section 404, which the Corps cites as the authority to regulate wet- lands, actually does not mention the word ‘wetland.’ It simply requires that a person obtain a permit before filling in a navigable water of the U.S. This, however, has not stopped the Corps from harassing Mr. Van Leuzen and hundreds of other Americans whose property is not a navigable wa- ter. Twenty years of vigorous agency action, coupled with a spate of court decisions, have completely changed the original meaning of the statute. The federal wetlands regulatory program has taken on a life of its own. As part of the court order against Mr. Van Leuzen, not only must he post the billboard (‘six feet off the ground... facing Highway 87’), he must also put $350 a month into a special account for eight years. At the end of this eight years the money will be used to move his house. In effect, the government is forcing Mr. Van Leuzen to pay rent on a house that he already owns so that it can be relocated. In addition, during the intervening years Mr. Van Leuzen must spend a significant portion of his life savings to restore the land to its pre-adulterated condition. Perhaps this punishment could be justified
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