Family faces fines of $75,000/day for building pond.

[MitchM]

Hey, what the heck are you guys doing down there anyways?...
He got a permit and followed the rules!


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-pond-on-his-own-property/?intcmp=latestnews#



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[sissy]

that's why we pay our taxes so they can waste our money with stupid things like telling people what they can do with there own land .

 

[MitchM]

I've heard that your EPA is heavy handed, but this is silly.

 

[addy1]

unreal!

 

[Waterbug]

The dude says he followed the rules as reported by Fox News. That isn't exactly the same as actually following the rules. And Fox News isn't known for letting facts get in the way of bashing government.

The citizens of the US own a lot of land in Wyoming, water rights. This dude has neighbors who are affected by changes to the water shed. We created the government to protect our rights from morons who think they're not harming anyone by doing whatever the heck they want. I'm sure this moron has no idea the kind of damage he's done because he's a moron.

I had a piece of property in Mt Shasta CA that had 2 creeks on it. I worked with many government agencies to allow pulling water for electric generation. It did take a bit of time, but the agencies were all very helpful. Most came out and looked over the site and made suggestions that improved the project.

Dude next door decides he wants a trout pond so he dams one of these creeks. He's a genius so he don't need any of those dumb gov boys telling him what to do. He makes concrete forms and pours what had to be 10 yards of concrete...form blows out at the base. No problem, he pours more. This thing is like 10' high and 3-4' thick thanks to the blown out forms. A real mess. Now genius dude knows nothing about dams, so he didn't dig down at all, just pours on the gravel bed and soil sides. Water erodes under the dam in less than a day, eating into the soil banks and washing tons of soil down stream. A stream that had been a pretty good trout stream.

First good rain water is going to back up behind that crap dam and eventually let loose and probably wash out someone's house down stream.

I get that there is a big movement in America to allow Yahoos to do anything they like in the name of freedom. But what about the rest of us who have to live with this crap? We already tried that system for more than 100 years. We didn't like it one bit. We (as in real people) passed laws to stop people from destroying crap that didn't own and had no right to.

The really unfortunate thing is it's very unlikely this dude will pay any fines at all. I was talking to the Fish & Game officer about the dam deal and he said his job was to try and reduce future damage as much as possible by getting the owner to do a few things. The piece of crap eye sore dam is still there. There's no point fining these dudes $75k a day because they're never going to be able to pay it. They do the damage but never can pay the bill.

 

[adavisus]

Nope, no credibility to anything that Fox publishes

Scurrilous despicable nazi sentiments, much of it to stir up insurrection.

Just too many damn liars making bucks for B/S

 

[MitchM]

I wish there more facts reported, but the article did say that he had a letter from the state saying to proceed.
If that's the truth he'll probably never have to pay.
Who knows.

So why is Fox so popular down there?
I know what you guys are saying.

 

[adavisus]

The media is bending over backwards to take money from right wing corporate interests, e.g. $400,000,000 from the Koch brothers and will run any Goebbels type of propaganda to try to pig out at that trough. Many of the worst 'editorialising' is debunked on snopes but still circulates as urban legends. Heckuva lot of nasty misleading stories to whip up bigots and gullible folk

 

[Catfishnut]

Hey, what the heck are you guys doing down there anyways?...
He got a permit and followed the rules!

I wish there more facts reported, but the article did say that he had a letter from the state saying to proceed.
If that's the truth he'll probably never have to pay.

Mitch,

The error in the situation is that the guy was granted the permit to construct a pond (watering hole) but in the end, he actually constructed a dam on a creek. He didn't have a permit to construct the dam under the guise as a farm pond. This would be somewhat akin to what Waterbug mentioned his neighbor did and the results could be detrimental to the ecosystem of the stream and the safety of other people's property downstream.

Now, there may be more to this story then we are aware of. It could be that the county or state inspector or whomever issued the man the permit knew all about the dam as being part of the creation of the pond and erroneously signed off on it. If that be the case, then that person or agency should be liable for their error and all the costs to correct it.

Gordy

 

[MitchM]

Hi Gordy.

I know news stories sometimes leave some critical details out, so my posting of this was a bit of tongue-in-cheek.
Especially Fox news. I'm surprised there was no tie-in of Benghazi or Obamacare or our own Ted Cruz from Calgary.

Sometimes as well, when people go public they later wish they didn't because all the facts eventually get out and it suddenly doesn't quite look as black and white as they wanted it portrayed.

The property we're on has a 10 foot deep 1 acre pond on it as a result of someone building a berm and damming a stream. I'm guessing it was done in the 50's or 60's in an effort to draw more wildlife for hunting season. There's a crumbling hunting lookout shack and fallen down cabin right beside it. A couple of old stove parts as well. Pretty neat.
The stream has found a way around the berm, within our property lines. I'm concerned about erosion and the berm failing so I'm constantly checking and thinking about what I can do to keep it stable.

 

[addy1]

When my late hubby and I had a house in colorado we were in a valley at 8000 feet. Four rivers ran through the valley, two major rivers, two streams. Which flowed into a watershed lake. The homeowners would dam the streams to have stream ponds on their property. Totally against corp of engineering rules. Well one heavy snow wet spring, snow melt = floods, all those little dammed areas backed up the streams flooded a ton of houses (we had sold ours before this happened)
The COE came in with machines and tore down every one of those home made dams.

 

[MitchM]

I think your EPA down there is a lot more heavy handed than our EPA up here.

 

[HARO]

I think your EPA down there is a lot more heavy handed than our EPA up here.

Yeah, THEY send in SWAT teams!!!
John

 

[koiguy1969]

THAT link didnt work for me but heres a copy and paste of the story...not FOX news.lol

When Wyoming welder and farmer Andy Johnson and his wife built a fish pond on their eight-acre farm, they didn’t think it was a big deal – until they received a notice from the Environmental Protection Agency:
The government says he violated the Clean Water Act by building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. Further, the EPA claims that material from his pond is being discharged into other waterways. Johnson says he built a stock pond — a man-made pond meant to attract wildlife — which is exempt from Clean Water Act regulations.
The property owner says he followed the state rules for a stock pond when he built it in 2012 and has an April 4-dated letter from the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office to prove it.
But the EPA isn’t backing down and argues they have final say over the issue. They also say Johnson needs to restore the land or face the fines.
If Johnson doesn’t comply — and he hasn’t so far — he’s subject to $37,500 per day in civil penalties as well as another $37,500 per day in fines for statutory violations.
Johnson plans to fight the EPA’s claim, stating that he followed the rules for building the pond and that the federal government has no right to control what he does on his own land in the first place.
Wyoming’s senators – John Barrasso and Mike Enzi – as well as Louisiana Sen. David Vitter are backing him up, recently stating in a letter to the EPA that they are “troubled” by its demands and calling upon it to withdraw the order. The EPA is currently reviewing the letter and discussing Johnson’s situation

 

[Waterbug]

I think your EPA down there is a lot more heavy handed than our EPA up here.

We just have more people complaining about stuff, real and imagined, louder and more often. No one cares much about what's true, only about manipulating opinion. Making up stuff just works a lot better.