Opinion ID: 741847
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jurisdictional Wetlands

Text: 12 Banks also disputes that his lots qualify as jurisdictional wetlands. Wetlands are those areas inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. 33 C.F.R. § 328.3(b). A wetland under the CWA must meet the three criteria set out in the Corps' 1987 Wetlands Delineation Manual: 7 (1) a prevalence of hydrophytic plants, (2) hydrological conditions suited to such plants, and (3) the presence of hydric soils. 13 Banks specifically contests the district court's finding that his lots meet the hydric soil criterion; he cites the report of one of the government's experts, Dr. Kruczynski, who was the Environmental Protection Agency's leading regional wetlands biologist. In his report, Dr. Kruczynski concluded: There is little or no soil at this location ... Caprock limestone wetlands are described in the [1989 Corps Delineation Manual] as a Problem Area ... and meet the criteria despite the lack of hydric soils when wetland hydrology is present. 8 In the light of other evidence presented at trial, however, we find that the district court's conclusion about the hydric soil criterion was not clearly erroneous. 14 First, Dr. Kruczynski explained in testimony that he did not spend a lot of time analyzing the soils on Banks' lots for his report: the soils present were clearly hydric and the quantity of soil was not critical in the 1989 Manual, under which he was properly operating at the time. He also testified that he would have classified Banks' lots as wetlands under the 1987 Manual. 15 The government also presented other expert testimony about soil conditions on Banks' land. For example, Dr. Wade Hurt, a soil scientist who formerly headed the Florida office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service, testified that Banks' lots, before his clearing and filling, would have been approximately 30 percent exposed rock, 15 percent non-hydric soils and 55 percent hydric soils. Dr. Ronald Jones, a professor of environmental sciences, and Curtis Kruer, a former Corps employee and biologist with special expertise in water level monitoring and aerial photography interpretation, also testified that Banks' lands were wetlands under the 1987 Manual's criteria. 16 If the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); see also United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U.S. 121, 106 S.Ct. 455, 88 L.Ed.2d 419 (1985) (applying clearly erroneous standard to district court's determination that respondent's property met wetlands criteria). Sufficient plausible evidence supports the district court's decision.