Duarte Nursery, Inc. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers

ORDER

Plaintiffs own the property that is the subject of this action, and operate it as a *1015 nursery growing and selling nursery stock to farmers and others. Complaint (ECF No. 1) ¶ 7.

On February 25, 2013, defendant U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) wrote to plaintiff, stating that it had “determined that you have discharged dredged or fill material into ... waters of the United States, without a [required] Department of the Army (DA) permit,” in violation of Section 404, 33 U.S.C. § 1344 , of the Clean Water Act (“the Act”). See Exhibit A (ECF No. 1-1) of the Complaint. 1 The Corps “directed” plaintiff to “cease and desist all work in waters of the United States until this violation is resolved.” Exh. A at 2.

The Corps went on to warn plaintiffs of the “[p]otential enforcement actions” that could ensue, and attached an “extract of the law” as an Appendix. Id.; Id., Appendix A (ECF No. 1-1) at 4. Two of the enforcement actions the Corps warned of were “fines” and “imprisonment.” Exh. A at 2. In apparent support of these warnings, the Corps cited, in its “extract of the law,” 33 U.S.C. § 1319 (c)(1)(A) and (c)(2)(A), both of which refer to “fine[s]” and “imprisonment”…