West Virginia landowner sues EPA for ignoring Supreme Court’s Sackett II ruling

Richmond, VA; March 13, 2025: A West Virginia property owner is appealing a district court order allowing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA and to unlawfully enforce the Clean Water Act. The district court’s order leaves him facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and mitigation fees.

“In Sackett II, the Supreme Court clearly defined how the federal government can enforce the Clean Water Act. But the EPA has continued to ignore those guardrails and drive straight off the cliff,” said Frank Garrison, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “The EPA must follow federal law, not make up the rules to pursue its own agenda. Our client is fighting to see that it does.” 

Ron Foster bought 90 acres of commercially zoned land near Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 2009 as a retirement investment.  

A year later, without permission, EPA inspectors barged onto his property and declared that he violated the Clean Water Act by filling four natural dips that occasionally channeled rain or snowmelt. After nearly 15 years of legal battles, a federal court ruled in favor of the EPA’s claims that these were streams covered by the Clean Water Act and ordered Ron to pay $800,000 in fines and mitigation costs.  

Shortly after, the Supreme Court ruled in Sackett v. EPA that the text of the Clean Water Act allows the EPA to regulate only tributaries that would be identifiable to a reasonable person, that have flowing or standing water most days of the year, and that have a continuous connection to a traditional navigable water (like a river or sea). The “streams” the EPA accused Ron of filling do not meet any part of that definition. 

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett II, the court revisited Foster’s case. The judge reversed the ruling on three of the alleged “waters” but still agreed with the EPA that one was a “navigable water.” And even despite reversing its ruling on the other three, the court left in place almost the entire civil and mitigation penalty that it had originally ordered.  

Ron is asking the Fourth Circuit to reverse this decision and apply the correct legal standard for identifying “waters of the United States.”  

The case is Foster Farms v. EPA, filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.