John Duarte, a Northern California farmer, has agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty to settle a years-long case that started in 2012, after he bought and tilled fallow land within a federally protected wetland.
“The California farmer’s case had been spotlighted by farm groups, including those concerned about what had been an Obama administration project to more clearly define what wetlands and waterways fall under the protection of existing clean-water laws,” says the LA Times. “The American Farm Bureau Federation lauded Duarte for standing up to federal environmental regulators.”
Duarte’s lawyers contended that he was simply a farmer prepping a field for his wheat crop and that he didn’t do lasting damage to the wetland. They say he decided to settle because the federal government could have sought tens of millions of dollars in the case’s penalty phase.