Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Supremes Solidly Whack EPA

article here

Basically, the EPA had a neat scam going: They had set people up for huge fines that could not be challenged in court. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the practice, and in favor of an Idaho couple accused of trying to build a house on "wetlands" that did not appear on the EPA's master list of protected wetlands.

Great news! I've been following that story and I'm glad they got smacked. Those guys make me nuts. I had one in my office the other day because some puzzy employee complained about fumes aboard one of our patrol boats. Spent the whole day here only to find out it's hard to smell engine fumes on an outboard motor doing thirty knots. Idiot even got seasick . He then spots a bottle (2 oz!!!)of Whiteout and cites us because we did dot have it under the MSDS Hazmat schedule. This is what it's come down to.

this is a constant fight down here, where they say everything is a damn wetland.

BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Yes indeed the EPA deserved to be whacked on this one and I'm glad it was unanimous.

Although, if you read it correctly, it seems that the EPA cannot fine w/o a means of challenge.. I.e., if they provide (therefore) a means to challenge then the fines could continue...

Am I wrong in this assessment?

The Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix used to have carpet covered blocks of wood, and pieces of carpet for mats available on its ranges. A few weeks ago they disappeared abruptly, with terse signs announcing it.

When I inquired I was told that the EPA showed up one day and took them away because they were contaminated with lead. Can you believe that, lead on a firing range? Whodda thunk it?

Hey, benchresters, look out for your expensive precision adjustable front pedestals. The feds are coming.

Paul

Hey, 10K acres of the High Sonora have just been declared "Wetlands" .

Link: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/k-a...6b63d2c-47f8-588f-adf1-b9b9a2c67175.html

10K acres set aside for threatened frog


Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:00 am

This Chiricahua leopard frog was photographed on the east slope of the Santa Rita Mountains, within the newly designated leopard frog habitat.

The federal government will designate more than 10,000 acres in Arizona and New Mexico as prime habitat for the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog.

More than a dozen streams and many livestock watering tanks across Southern and Central Arizona were picked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as critical habitat for the frog, a threatened species.

The Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, Florida Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains, Pe�a Blanca Lake near Nogales, Sycamore Canyon in the Atascosa Mountains and Ramsey and Brown canyons in the Huachuca Mountains are among the critical habitat sites.

But other areas near the proposed Rosemont Mine site in the Santa Ritas that have had leopard frogs were left out because the frogs aren't known to breed there now - largely because there's less water there than there was several decades ago.

The decision means one less legal issue for the mine, since lands designated critical habitat can't be destroyed or seriously modified by projects that need U.S. permits.

Last year, mine opponents with the Center for Biological Diversity and Pima County recommended six livestock watering tank sites on Forest Service and private land in the mine area as prime frog habitat. The Wildlife Service rejected them in its decision this week and chose six other tanks farther away, within two or three miles of the mine site. In recent years, such tanks have become key areas for the leopard frog.

Mary Richardson, a wildlife service supervisory biologist, said the agency determined the Rosemont sites didn't meet critical habitat criteria. First, there is no indication that frogs breed there. Leopard frogs can travel as far as five miles, spending time in one area and breeding in another.

Frog researchers Philip Rosen, of the University of Arizona, and Dennis Caldwell, a private researcher, said the Rosemont-area sites are worth protecting, and that breeding could be restored there. But they agreed that the areas don't meet the feds' critical-habitat standards without breeding populations.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said that overall, the group is pleased by the habitat decision. But it was disappointed that the Rosemont-area tanks weren't picked.

Robinson said the mine could obliterate frogs on its land and could destroy their ability to survive nearby due to dust, toxic chemicals, blasting sounds and truck traffic.

Julia Fonseca, Pima County's environmental planning manager, wrote the Wildlife Service in 2011 that leopard frogs were reported as "abundant" in the Rosemont area in the 1970s by private biologists. While the surveyors didn't note whether they were Chiricahua or lowland leopard frogs, the Arizona Game and Fish Department concluded in the 1990s they were Chiricahua frogs.

Surveys by Rosemont Copper consulting firm Westland Resources found those frogs in the six Rosemont-area water tank sites in a 2008 survey, but they weren't breeding.

Still, the frogs' presence throughout the Santa Ritas suggests the area contains a regional group of connected populations whose habitat needs protection, said Fonseca and Robinson.

Rosemont Copper official Kathy Arnold said based on the company's surveys for frogs and other species, the Wildlife Service findings met Rosemont's expectations.

"Rosemont works with Arizona Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of Arizona and the U.S. Forest Service, as do other ranches and property owners in the area," Arnold, Rosemont's vice president for environmental and regulatory affairs, added in a written statement.

"Contributions besides the survey work include providing water to habitat during dry periods, assisting with stormwater controls to control sediments entering ponds, and managing and providing access to habitat," she said.

I don't know if this would be the same thing or not, but I had the labor board on me about independent contractor status, I said I had 145 independent contractors, they said they were employees. They threatened almost $400k in fines and penalties if I challenged it and lost, I had one of the biggest labor law firms in Sacramento representing me pro bono because the founding partner Aubrey Hubbert wanted the state supreme court ruling under his belt and thought he could win it. I caved because of the down side risk being damn near half a million bucks.

My point here is that these agencies sometimes bring on the threat of fines and penalties and dangle the carrot of compliance as an out. It seems perhaps like sort of the same dynamics being set with the opportunity to challenge EPA?

That seems a lot better than an iron fisted agency that can't be challenged at all. Seems to me like it might give an opportunity for settling that wasn't there before. Under a court challenge fines would not continue, they are on hold, but they do have a tendency to threaten a worse scenario if you challenge and lose.

In my situation I caved because compliance meant no fines or penalties at all. Had they been going to fine me anyway I'd have had no choice but to challenge them in court.

It sounds like it was a good court decision though.

How is this solidly whacking the EPA? http://news.findlaw.com/apnews/9541aa32a8604852b25a7eec115c34a3

"'Compliance orders will remain an effective means of securing prompt voluntary compliance in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity,' Scalia said."

All the court found was in this case there is a substantial basis for challenging the EPA's compliance order, and that the couple is entitled to their day in court to determine if their property is covered under the Clean Water Act.

"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a separate opinion that the only issue decided by the court Wednesday is the Sacketts' ability to contest the EPA finding that their property is subject to the Clean Water Act. The court did not decide largers issues, Ginsburg said."

The court did not find that the couple has the right to resume construction. The court turned it into a due process case rather than a property rights case the headline suggests.

The compliance threat is really just backed by the cost to fight them in court. Few people can afford the lawyers necessary to do that.

These people are liable to be dead before they get to build their house.

It's a solid whack because the EPA was saying nobody could challenge them until the EPA issued an order. But once the order was issued, it was too late to challenge them.

EPA just went from being unable to be challenged to now having to back up their claims in court. No more royal edicts coming down.

Yes, people still have to challenge an EPA finding. But the EPA should be slower to issue stupid ones if they will probably have to defend it.

Let's go blow a few holes into the dikes and see what happens...

Lotsa dikes would love to have their holes blown..


Um, er, ah, never mind..





Truly tasteless and crude.. My bad..

He is wrong unless you have someone using whiteout all day long.

That falls under the HAZCOM standard of 29 CFR 1910.1200, paragraph b(6) (ix)) talks about This section does not apply to:

(ix) Any consumer product or hazardous substance, as those terms are defined in Consumer Product Safety Act (15 USC 2051)......, where the employer can show that it is used in a workplace for the purpose intended by the chemical manufacturer or importer of the product, and the use results in a duration and frequency of exposure which is not greater than the range of exposures that could be reasonably experienced by consumers when used for the purpose intended.

that means unless your secretary is incompetant and using it all day long and not occasionally, White out is not required to be on the required inventory and not required to have a MSDS.

That very example (Whiteout) is used to train safety personnel by OSHA who enforces the MSDS standard and the HAZCOM program.

Fight the citation by quoting this paragraph.

Same standards and act applies to EPA!!!!

That's the short, sweet version as I understand it.



You just have to love a man like that... full article here.

What he seems to have opened is a path toward "void for vagueness".

My family is a victimof ther drive by wetlands designations, we have 100 acres with about 10 of them wetland, they say it is 70% wetland, this is a big win for us,

Agencies that believe they wont be held accountable are always tyranical.they do sloppy work and can not be held accoountable.

It is great news because this decission was unanoumous, and it will put other agencies in check too.

I'm trying to catch up!!