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Page Number: 9

6 

WEYERHAEUSER CO. v. UNITED STATES FISH AND 
WILDLIFE SERV.
 
Opinion of the Court 

owners  have  already  invested  in  plans  to  more  profitably 
develop the site.  App. 80–83.  The report recognized that 
anyone  developing  the  area  may  need  to  obtain  Clean
Water  Act  permits  from  the  Army  Corps  of  Engineers 
before filling any wetlands on Unit 1.  33 U. S. C. §1344(a).  
Because Unit 1 is designated as critical habitat, Section 7
of  the  ESA  would  require  the  Corps  to  consult  with  the 
Service before issuing any permits. 

According to the report, that consultation process could
result  in  one  of  three  outcomes.    First,  it  could  turn  out 
that  the  wetlands  in  Unit  1  are  not  subject  to  the  Clean 
Water  Act  permitting  requirements,  in  which  case  the 
landowners  could  proceed  with  their  plans  unimpeded. 
Second,  the  Service  could  ask  the  Corps  not  to  issue  per-
mits to the landowners to fill some of the wetlands on the 
site,  in  effect  prohibiting  development  on  60%  of  Unit  1. 
The  report  estimated  that  this  would  deprive  the  owners
of  $20.4  million  in  development  value.    Third,  by  asking 
the  Corps  to  deny  even  more  of  the  permit  requests,  the
Service  could  bar  all  development  of  Unit  1,  costing  the 
owners  $33.9  million.    The  Service  concluded  that  those 
potential  costs  were  not  “disproportionate”  to  the  conser-
vation  benefits  of  designation.  “Consequently,”  the  Ser-
vice  announced,  it  would  not  “exercis[e]  [its]  discretion  to
exclude” Unit 1 from the dusky gopher frog’s critical habi-
tat.  App. 188–190. 

C 
Weyerhaeuser  and  the  family  landowners  sought  to 
vacate  the  designation  in  Federal  District  Court.    They
contended that Unit 1 could not be critical habitat for the 
dusky  gopher  frog  because  the  frog  could  not  survive 
there: Survival would  require replacing the closed-canopy
timber  plantation  encircling  the  ponds  with  an  open-
canopy  longleaf  pine  forest.    The  District  Court  nonethe-
less  upheld  the  designation.    Markle  Interests,  LLC  v.