Opinion ID: 2336245
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Discharge Without a Permit

Text: Defendant next contends the evidence failed to support the court's finding of a violation of 10 V.S.A. § 1259 (discharge into waters of state without a permit). Defendant asserts that he did not intend a discharge into Bartlett Brook, and that the discharge resulted from the Agency's stopwork order which prevented him from completing the ditch. The claims are unpersuasive. Although the law requires that any person who intends to discharge waste into state waters must obtain a permit, see 10 V.S.A. § 1263, there is no requirement that the State prove intent to establish a violation of § 1259, which simply provides that, No person shall discharge any waste, substance, or material into waters of the state. . . without first obtaining a permit . . . . Furthermore, the record showed that Catherine O'Brien, the assistant wetlands coordinator for the Agency, visited the site in April, one month before the stop-work order, and observed significant erosion of silt and sediments from the ditch into Bartlett Brook. Accordingly, the court's finding of a violation of § 1259 was not clearly erroneous. See Agency of Natural Resources v. Bean, 164 Vt. 438, 443, 672 A.2d 469, 472 (1995) (findings of trial court are not clearly erroneous and will stand if there is any credible evidence to support them).