John Duarte, a California farmer who gained national attention after the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE or Army Corps) sued him for plowing his Tehama County wheat field, will defend himself in a federal courthouse in Sacramento on Tuesday, August 15. “Agriculture is at a very dire crossroads right now,” said Duarte, imploring all farming stakeholders and food consumers across the country “to get loud with their Senators, Representatives and USACE. And if you know how to get ahold of President Trump, give him a call.” In February 2013, with no warning or opportunity to discuss the matter, USACE sent Duarte a cease and desist letter to suspend farming operations, claiming that he had illegally filled wetlands on his wheat field simply by plowing it. “I am being prosecuted for planting wheat in a wheat field during a global food crisis,” Duarte said. “They’re claiming I should have pulled a [Clean Water Act] permit that nobody has ever pulled and conducted practices that nobody has ever conducted to grow wheat.” Duarte who is also the owner of Duarte Nursery, argues that the Army Corps violated his constitutional right to due process. He said the agency came down on him hard and never gave him an opportunity to defend himself against the accusations before levying the fine. Duarte now faces $2.8 million in government fines. “The Army Corps of Engineers is prosecuting us,” Duarte said, “and the Army Corps does not even have subject matter jurisdiction to conduct this prosecution.” In a June 14, 2017, news release, Tony Francois, senior attorney for Pacific Legal Foundation, explained, “Prosecutors and bureaucrats are seeking to establish, for the first time, that farmers with seasonal puddles need a federal wetlands permit in order to plow their own private land—even though plowing is exempt from Clean Water Act (CWA) coverage.” Duarte believes if he were to lose the upcoming trial, it would change the way farmers in America farm. “This battle may never be resurrected in court. Taking this battle to the Supreme Court on several fronts is the only way to give farmers the long-term security they need, the right to farm and property rights protections, to deliver food security to America.”...more
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I walked the neighboring parcels to the north of Duarte's in 2010, when looking to buy, and remember seeing cattle grazing on Duarte's.
First, this parcel and Duarte's were previously going to be covered by 3,500 homes - no CWA concerns over that.
The CWA exemptions include ranching and rotation of crops - forage for grazing is a crop - so being that Duarte's land was grazed since the last time a crop was grown
(1985, I think), it qualifies as an on-going farm use.
-- the neighboring parcel also has only been grazed for that same time period, timeline photos will show back as far as 1998.
-- the cattle owner also told me of the same farming history when I was there.
-- Also, Duarte plowed 4"-7" deep for wheat - if he deep-ripped, the seedlings would never see the light of day.
-- The neighboring parcel has way more vernal pools than Duarte's, yet was allowed to deep-rip without a permit.
-- the neighbor's deep-ripping is highly visible on Google Earth's 2013 photo (Paskenta Rd & Ohm Rd. & Rawson Ave., Red Bluff, CA).
-- also highly visible, is the much greater number of vernal pools of the neighbor's parcels, which show in 2015 & 2010 photos, compared to Duarte's to the south.
-- the neighbor's land is higher in elevation, (about 30 ft), than Duarte's, so any release of 'soil contaminants' are more likely to come from the deep-ripping of neighbor's land.
-- Neighbor also has a seasonal creek that was deep-ripped and goes from north of Ohm Rd., and joins Coyote Creek east of Duarte's parcel, then on through 11 miles of farmland to the Sacramento River - the neighbor's 'deep-ripped creek' can be seen in 2013 photo.
-- in contrast, there were no permits taken by the Rainbow family for the 18"-36" deep potty holes they dug at Malheur forest, nor were they fined for CWA violations, and with 13,00 attendees, they not taken the required permit for groups over 75.
-----and Malheur Nat, Forest has now declared it a health hazard area.
-- Duarte was told that the fifth amendment rights don't apply, unless the government waives impunity.
That would mean all constitutional rights are null and void, unless the government chooses to waive impunity - which it does only for the enviros by cowering down and handing them a check via the EAJA.
-- ironic that the EAJA, created to help individual citizens financially when fighting gov. overreach, has resulted in increased gov. overreach while financially ruining individual citizens.
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