Court Opinion

ID: 9477937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:35:15.241505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:08.059376
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I want to make an issue clear that the landowner at oral argument expressly declined to raise. I mention it simply to make it clear that we do not reach the issue.
The Clean Water Act does not mention “wetlands,” nor does it use any language which explicitly includes “wetlands.” Instead, it defines the pollution jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers as limited to “navigable waters,” see § 404 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1344.
In United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U.S. 121, 106 S.Ct. 455, 88 L.Ed.2d 419 (1985), the Supreme Court defined the “navigable waters” jurisdiction of the Corps to include “wetlands" adjacent to “navigable” or “open waters,” even though the wet area is not caused by flooding or ground water flowing from the adjacent waters. 106 S.Ct. at 462. The Supreme Court arrived at this expansive interpretation by pointing to the legislative history of § 404, which indicates, in a general way, a desire to adopt legislation for the “protection of aquatic ecosystems.” Id.
The Supreme Court’s actual holding in Riverside Bayview Homes is limited, however, by the important fact that the “wetlands” in question in that case were “located adjacent to a body of navigable water, since the area characterized by saturated soil conditions and wetland vegetation extended beyond the boundary of respondent’s property to Black Creek, a navigable waterway.” Id. at 461 (emphasis added). In footnote 8 of its opinion, the Supreme Court reserved the question of the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers under § 404 over “wetlands that are not adjacent to bodies of open water.” Id. at 461 (“[w]e do not express any opinion on that question”).
Had the landowners at oral argument not said that they do not raise the issue, this case would present the issue the Supreme Court reserved in Riverside Bay-view Homes. Obion Creek, so far as we can tell from the record before us, is a small nonnavigable creek or stream that empties into the Mississippi River many miles away. The land at issue in this case is adjacent to Obion Creek. The Corps of Engineers, as plaintiff, had the burden in this case of proving that the land in question is adjacent to a “body of open water,” the phrase used by the Supreme Court in footnote 8 of Riverside Bayview Homes.
If this is true, then the Corps has now expanded the definition of “navigable waters” to include any creek or stream or moist area. It has arrived at the precise point predicted in our earlier opinion in the Riverside Bayview Homes case, which the Supreme Court reversed. There we said: “Under such a construction [as proposed by the Corps of Engineers] low lying backyards miles from a navigable waterway would become wetlands.” United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 729 F.2d 391, 401 (6th Cir.1984), rev’d, 474 U.S. 121, 106 S.Ct. 455, 88 L.Ed.2d 419 (1985). The Corps’ definition has apparently detached and untied the “wetlands” jurisdiction of the Corps from any concept of “open waters” or navigable waters. A farmer’s low lying farmland or a homeowner’s low lying backyard — adjacent to a small stream or creek but many miles from any navigable waterway — has apparently been converted *194into government property no longer subject to control or improvement by the owner without government permission. A statute that does not mention “wetlands” has apparently been read to include simply “moist land adjacent to a creek.”
The framers of the Constitution were solicitous of the rights of landowners — especially small farmers struggling for survival — not to have land appropriated by the government. They therefore adopted the provision of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution prohibiting the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. Although the Supreme Court has stated that “[a] requirement that a person obtain a permit before engaging in a certain use of his or her property does not itself ‘take’ the property in any sense,” 106 S.Ct. at 459, the injunction the Corps has been granted in this case will force the Larkins to destroy the terracing work they have done on their land and to restore the land to its original nonagricultural use. Because farming appears to be the only economically viable use of the land in question, see Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 2141, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980), it is arguable that the Larkins could successfully assert a takings claim if they are not allowed to keep the work they have already done. See Riverside Bayview Homes, 106 S.Ct. at 460 n. 6 (“Because the Corps has now denied respondent a permit to fill its property, respondent may well have a ripe claim that a taking has occurred.”) It is arguable that the injunction issued in this case constitutes a taking without compensation. Since the landowner has not raised this issue and at oral argument expressly declined to raise any question about whether Obion Creek is navigable, or constitutes “open waters,” the Court’s opinion should not be read to decide this issue.