{"id":2676246,"date":"2026-10-05T08:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T12:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignfeds-defy-supreme-court-ban-on-labeling-every-puddle-a-protected-wetland\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T12:32:32","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignfeds-defy-supreme-court-ban-on-labeling-every-puddle-a-protected-wetland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignfeds-defy-supreme-court-ban-on-labeling-every-puddle-a-protected-wetland\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Defy SCOTUS Ban On Labeling Every Puddle A &#8216;Protected Wetland&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignfeds-defy-supreme-court-ban-on-labeling-every-puddle-a-protected-wetland%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2676246&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In Salt Lake City, a proposed advancement of 265 new single-family homes has faced a important setback due to a federal agency\u2019s claim of wetlands jurisdiction over a small drainage ditch on the property, halting construction plans.This controversy arises despite the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA, which limited the reach of federal authority over wetlands under the Clean Water act (CWA). the Army Corps of Engineers has continued to assert control over land features like small ditches and isolated wetlands, ignoring the court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n<p>The article discusses a past attempt by Utah developers Lew Swain and Brent Baily to develop land in Box Elder County, which was impeded by federal wetland regulations that interpreted &#8220;navigable waters&#8221; broadly-encompassing dry land features and small ditches-leading to costly legal battles. after the Sackett ruling, which clarified that only relatively permanent bodies of water like streams and lakes are federally regulated, the developers believed their project could proceed. However, in 2026, the corps denied their permit request, citing wetlands regulations that the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision had effectively limited.<\/p>\n<p>Critics argue that the Army Corps&#8217; ongoing overreach undermines the Supreme Court\u2019s decision and threatens landowners nationwide, especially since the land in question is far from any navigable water. The Biden management has proposed new regulations to align federal wetland definitions with the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, but public commentary continues. Meanwhile, developers have filed a lawsuit with the support of the pacific Legal Foundation, asserting that federal agencies cannot expand their authority beyond Congress\u2019s and the Court\u2019s limits. This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jd-vance-camp-unleashes-on-media-for-brazenly-lying-about-his-comments-on-georgia-school-shooting\/\" title=\"JD Vance Camp Unleashes on Media for &#039;Brazenly Lying&#039; About His Comments on Georgia School Shooting\">situation highlights ongoing tensions<\/a> between federal regulatory power and the constitutional limits established by recent judicial rulings.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>At a time of steep home prices and high mortgage rates, the prospect of 265 new, single-family houses going up in one of the nation\u2019s fastest-growing metropolitan areas provided a ray of hope to prospective homebuyers in Salt Lake City. <\/p>\n<p>But a federal agency\u2019s claim of wetlands jurisdiction over a small drainage ditch on the edge of the 142-acre parcel where the homes are to be constructed has brought the project to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 2023 ruling in <em>Sackett v. EPA<\/em> put clear limits on federal authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA), but the Army Corps of Engineers persists in throwing its weight around as if nothing had changed.\u00a0If the Corps\u2019 action on the property north of Salt Lake City is allowed to stand, there is nothing to keep the agency\u2019s bureaucrats from imposing similar restrictions on landowners elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n<p>About 20 years ago, longtime Utah residential real estate developer Lew Swain and his business partner Brent Baily eyed land just south of Willard in Box Elder County for development as a subdivision.\u00a0They established a company, Willard Land, bought the parcel, and gave their project a name, \u201cOld Farm Subdivision.\u201d\u00a0After acquiring assorted permits and agreeing to the construction of regional water and sewer lines connecting the subdivision and other properties to Willard City\u2019s public systems, things appeared to be going smoothly.\u00a0But that changed when Willard Land encountered an obstacle that had bedeviled rural landowners for decades. <\/p>\n<p>Under the CWA, the Corps and the Environmental Protection Agency share jurisdiction over discharges into \u201cnavigable waters.\u201d\u00a0But over time, the Pacific Legal Foundation <a href=\"https:\/\/pacificlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Willard-Land-LLC-v.-U.S.-Army-Corps-of-Engineers-Complaint-8.11.26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">points out<\/a>, EPA and the Corps \u201cinterpreted the term \u2018navigable waters\u2019 not as a <em>limitation<\/em> on their authority, but as a near limitless grant of authority to assert control over enormous areas of private land across the country,\u201d (emphasis in the original).\u00a0Eventually, the agencies\u2019 interpretation of \u201cnavigable waters\u201d came to include \u201csmall ditches, isolated wetlands, and all manner of otherwise dry land features.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a result, in the decades following the CWA\u2019s enactment in 1972, farmers, ranchers, and other landowners contemplating even small construction projects on their property had to hire lawyers and consultants to protect themselves from stiff fines imposed by power-hungry wetlands regulators in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, in 2023, the steady expansion of federal authority was brought to a definitive halt (or so it seemed) with the Supreme Court\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/598\/21-454\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Sackett<\/em> decision<\/a> that determined that the agencies\u2019 CWA authority can expand no further than \u201cwaters\u201d and can include only \u201cthose relatively permanent, standing, or continuously flowing bodies of water\u201d forming geographical features that are described in ordinary parlance as \u201cstreams, oceans, rivers, and lakes.\u201d   <\/p>\n<p>By any reasonable standard, the Old Farm property, with its drainage ditch and nearby 2.74-acre damp area, does not meet the post-<em>Sackett<\/em> criteria of \u201cwaters\u201d subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act.\u00a0The parcel is located nearly nine miles from the nearest navigable water, the Great Salt Lake, nor is there a hydraulic connection between the prospective homesites and the lake.\u00a0Separating the Old Farm parcel from the Great Salt Lake is an upland area, the Union Pacific Railroad, Interstate 15, and the Willard Bay reservoir.<\/p>\n<p>After years of battling federal red tape, the developers of Old Farm had good reason to believe that the Supreme Court\u2019s <em>Sackett <\/em>decision would at last allow them to move forward with their homesites.\u00a0Not so.\u00a0On April 8, 2026, the Corps withdrew (and thus effectively denied) the developers\u2019 CWA permit request, effectively killing the project.<\/p>\n<p>Such a move might have been expected under the Biden administration, which rarely missed an opportunity to assert federal power over the benighted rubes out in the sticks.\u00a0That this kind of decision could be handed down by an agency headed by Trump appointees raises serious questions about who\u2019s in charge at the Corps. <\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has made significant progress in rolling back the administrative regulatory state. But the Corps\u2019 latest wetlands overreach shows that the beast is still roaming the countryside.\u00a0Administration officials need to reverse the Corps\u2019 action immediately.<\/p>\n<p>Entrenched bureaucrats aside, Administrator Lee Zeldin\u2019s EPA has posted a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalregister.gov\/documents\/2026\/09\/09\/2026-18317\/updated-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">proposed rule<\/a> to the Federal Register designed to provide certainty to landowners and bring the government\u2019s interpretation of what constitutes a regulable wetland into compliance with <em>Sackett v. EPA<\/em>.\u00a0 Under the proposed rule, such wetlands must have a \u201ccontinuous surface connection\u201d to a covered relatively permanent body of water, a standard not met by the Corps in Utah.\u00a0Public comments on the proposed rule must be submitted to EPA by Oct. 9. <\/p>\n<p>For their part, the developers have enlisted the pro bono services of the Pacific Legal Foundation in a lawsuit, <em>Willard Land v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<\/em>, filed Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court in Utah.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Clean Water Act gives the Army Corps of Engineers limited authority to regulate navigable waters \u2014 not total control over every drainage ditch and damp parcel of land in the country,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/pacificlegal.org\/case\/willard-swain-irrigation-ditch-clean-water-act\/?utm_source=docket&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=willard-land&#038;utm_content=enr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> Charles Yates, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation.\u00a0\u201cFederal agencies cannot expand their authority beyond the limits Congress set and the Supreme Court has enforced.\u00a0 When the Court and Congress draw a line, lower courts and agencies must follow it.\u201d  <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph.D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal wetlands claim halts Salt Lake housing project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3344,"featured_media":2676247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-01-at-11.11.14-AM-1024x572.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[36279,69558,38118,58157,86718],"class_list":["post-2676246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-environmental-policy","tag-federal-regulation","tag-legal-controversy","tag-scotus-ruling","tag-wetlands-protection"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-01-at-11.11.14-AM-1024x572.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2676250,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676246\/revisions\/2676250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2676247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}