Farmer facing massive fines for … plowing his own field

a reply to: butcherguy

But most farmers don't use bulldozer mounted rippers for planting wheat. Those babies are for ripping rock.

You beat me to it.

That's yellow iron, used for construction. The blades are designed to bust up soft rock so a trachoe can come along and scoop it out. I've seen them used a lot on asphalt to demolish roads for resurfacing back in the day. Today, though, the road construction crews around here at least use more specialized equipment that lets them recover and recycle the old asphalt.

I think they're still used some for rocky soil removal.

The giveaway is the track drive. Those are not used for farming, because tracks compact the soil much more than tractor tires.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

I think they're still used some for rocky soil removal.

Yes, they still use them on construction sites where rock outcrops are above the final grade level. If the areas are large in surface area or of sufficient depth, 'drilling and shooting' (boring holes and using explosives) is used to break up the rock for removal.

a reply to: ketsuko

he attempted to work his fields without permission from the several hundred desk jockeys who's livelyhood could be decimated by hooligan activities such as this. fill out the right forms next time

a reply to: 38181

nope that's why you sell your 356 acre farm in california and move out of state and buy elsewhere where you can do what you want on your own property. Commufornia is getting too bad to stay...

Jaden

originally posted by: 38181
Would he be in this mess if he had followed the rules by getting the permit in the first place? There's more to this story I'm sure.

I think there's more to this story also. For example did the previous owner receive checks for keeping the wetlands intact, perhaps even receiving money to reintroduce the native plants? My family did the same on our property for the ducks and geese sw flyover in Texas, there are lots of restrictions once you do this and there was an option of signing it over to the State. Perhaps this is what the previous owner did? If so, was it disclosed in the closing on the property when this guy purchased it?

STM

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yes it's used in civil construction.

I was just clarifying what I call a ripper.

Because it sounds like it may be something different across the pond

a reply to: Chadwickus

I found a pic of one used with a three-point hitch.



They make larger pull-behinds with wheels, but the teeth are essentially the same. Instead of turning the soil, it just breaks it up underneath to let plants grow roots easier... otherwise known as aerating the soil. It destroys nothing but barrenness. Neither plants nor animals (worms, insects, etc.) can grow in compacted soil.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Chadwickus
a reply to: TheRedneck

Yes it's used in civil construction.

I was just clarifying what I call a ripper.

Because it sounds like it may be something different across the pond

The link that I provided has photos of a ripper that is used in farming and a what a field looks like after the ripper has been through it. I wish someone would have bothered to click the link.
A ripper used in farming is quite different than the one used for removing rock at a construction site.

In the end, if a developer greases all the right palms, a mall could be built on the same field that the farmer was fined for growing wheat on.... fairy shrimp be damned.

originally posted by: 38181
Would he be in this mess if he had followed the rules by getting the permit in the first place? There's more to this story I'm sure.

No permit is needed for plowing. There is no permit.

In the winter of 2012, a project manager from the local office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer, which is responsible for enforcing the Clean Water Act, happened to drive by Duarte's field as it was being plowed. He decided that the land was being tilled too deeply. What he observed did not count as plowing, he concluded. It was "deep ripping," which is not allowed, as it can destroy wetlands. The Corps sent Duarte a cease-and-desist letter.

Duarte contends that the project manager was simply mistaken. He and his attorneys say that rather than admit the mistake, the government has doubled down, leading to multiple lawsuits (by Duarte against the feds; by the feds against Duarte), millions of dollars in legal costs and, of course, lost wheat revenue.

The case has resulted in some spectacularly absurd contortions on the part of the Corps:

The agency claimed that the cease-and-desist order, which raised the specter of fines and even imprisonment, was merely a suggestion, not a command. No one forced Duarte to stop working his wheat field, government lawyers said. That was simply his own choice.

The federal judge hearing the case found the claim mind-boggling — like holding a gun to Duarte's head, he wrote, then claiming Duarte should have known the weapon wasn't loaded.

www.latimes.com...

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

That is even more disturbing. One person, from a distance, decided the man's equipment was set too deep? I'd like to see what his qualifications to make that decision are. How much experience does he have farming? How much knowledge of the soil conditions did he have available?

A massive amount of the art of farming is estimation of what's needed. No two farmers tend their land identically.

The very idea that the farmer stopped voluntarily instead of being forced to stop is beyond laughable. He voluntarily stopped under direct threat of legal action! Just making that argument should add a zero to any award he receives and require the immediate resignation of any official complicent in that argument, IMO.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

But the legal cease and desist letter was not supposed to thought as a cease and desist letter, just an opinion.

a reply to: butcherguy

In the end, if a developer greases all the right palms, a mall could be built on the same field that the farmer was fined for growing wheat on.... fairy shrimp be damned.

I know this nightmare too well, and too personally.

There are no grater evils in America than the ones that hide under the guise of Envioronmental Protection and Code Enforcement.

It is a tool used by those with money and power to steal from the common person and the struggling land owner.

a reply to: ketsuko

the EPA has been a pain to land owners for a long time. a friend of my fathers paid thousands of dollars and spent a couple years in prison because he filled part of thel and dredged out ditch that was dug on some propriety he bought next to a bay. the EPA claimed it was wetlands.

Skirmishes Carry Over Into Courtroom

That distinction belongs to Ocie Mills, 57, of Navarre, Fla., and his son, Carey, 33, who completed 21-month prisons terms in November of 1990 and were fined a total of $10,000. The Millses are appealing the fine. The elder Mills planned to build a home for his son on some land he owned. After dumping 19 loads of sand with the State of Florida`s permission on a quarter-acre lot near a bay, the pair were arrested and subsequently convicted by a federal jury in 1989 for illegally filling in wetlands. Ocie Mills claims his arrest was in retaliation for speaking out against environmental officials. ``If going to prison and serving the 21 months has added anything back to the validity of our Bill of Rights, then I assume our Founding Fathers would have believed it was worth it,`` he said.

This Land Is My Land — Isn't It?

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

That's the point... a legal cease and desist letter, until it gets to court... then it's a suggestion?

Some EPA tree-hugger needs to sit in a jail cell and contemplate the meaning of the words cease and desist for thirty years or so for even suggesting that kind of bunk.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

I just want someone to disboey a cease and desist from them, and then bring to court the transcript of this case proving their cease and desist letters do not have to be followed.

a reply to: gladtobehere

Get rid of this and every other agency. Send the power/responsibility to the states. Scum bag bureaucrats making rules which have the power of law. And worse are the scum bag politicians who gave them this authority.

Yes carry on regardless in the face of huge habitat loss and mass extinction.. The dude sounds like an idiot..

a reply to: purplemer

What habitat loss and mass extinction happened here?

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: purplemer

What habitat loss and mass extinction happened here?

If you plow a wetland area you destory habitat. Change soil compostiton etc.. These rules are here to manage land. It is being destroyed the world over.. Bit by bit..

a reply to: purplemer

Awesome. You didn't answer, which means I have to assume you know nothing was lost here.

a reply to: purplemer
Yet it only seems to be a problem when a tiny struggling land owner does it.

All those rules disappear when a group of developers get together, build a new city, and put up 30,000 new homes, a shopping mall or an arena.