CHEYENNE – A southwest Wyoming farmer is taking the Environmental Protection Agency to court for what he says is an illegal overreach of its authority. According to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Andy Johnson of Fort Bridger, Wyoming has been unable to work our a settlement with the EPA, and now he has decided to fight back through the federal courts.
Johnson has been locked in a battle of wills with the EPA since 2013, when he built a stock pond on his property to provide a watering hole for his cattle. Not long after the pond was built, however, the EPA informed Johnson that the pond, which is connected to Six Mile Creek south of Fort Bridger, was in violation of the Clean Water Act and informed Johnson that he needed to destroy the stock pond or he would start accruing $37,000 per day in fines.
Johnson has retained the services of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a California-based public interest law firm and self-described watchdog organization that specializes in arguing for limited government, property rights, individual rights and “a balanced approach to environmental protection,” according to its website.
Jonathan Wood, a staff attorney for PLF, said Thursday that his firm filed a lawsuit that morning on Johnson's behalf in U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming. The lawsuit claims that Johnson's stock pond is exempt from the Clean Water Act, and it is seeking to have the EPA's compliance order declared null and void for that reason.
“The Clean Water Act expressly exempts stock ponds from its reach; the EPA has no business regulating it,” Wood said. “In the year and a half (Johnson has) spent trying to explain to them that they've overreached, his fines are already approaching $20 million.”
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Source: Wyoming Tribune Eagle
