In Missouri, when corn farmer Rick McGown repaired a sunken levee on his property, he was accused of illegally filling a wetland after an Army Corps official found a "cattail" growing on the land. McGown pointed out that the plant is a strain of sorghum he planted. If the corps wins its suit, the farmer will have to give the government one-third of his farm and pay a $7,500 fine.
After a normal spring thaw, the Idaho transportation department wanted to get rid of the mud-and-gravel mixture that collects on the sides of snowplowed dirt roads. Farmer Bud Koster allowed the department to dump this muck onto a part of his pasture. The Corps later ruled that Koster had illegally filled a wetland and told him to convert other property to a wetland, remove the dirt, or pay a fine.
In Nevada, a rancher who repaired irrigation ditches dug 75 years ago has been accused of "redirecting streams."
Farmers in North Dakota have been charged with illegally destroying habitats for migratory birds when they drained potholes in their fields.
Bernard Goode, the Corps of Engineers' representative while the agency tightened wetlands regulations in 1989, counts the following as "wetlands": corn, wheat, and alfalfa fields in active production; abandoned or fallow farm fields and pastures; dry woods above the 100-year floodplain; weed-covered vacant lots; depressions in sanitary landfills; dredged material disposal areas; moist tundra; pine-palmetto flatlands, and dry desert swashes. The National Law Journal adds, "woody areas, dry desert furrows, corn fields that were once marshy ... prairie potholes ... pools of spring rain or melting snow ... [and] Arctic tundra are wetlands." Under federal wetlands regulations, as much as 60 percent of the total U.S. land area is "wet," as is 40 percent of the state of California and 90 percent of Alaska. An area as small as a coffee table and dry for all but one week out of the year can be declared a wetland.
An Army Corps of Engineers ruling warns property owners that if, in dragging a tree stump from their land, chunks of moist dirt should fall off, that might constitute filling a wetland.
