Search our site!  

WYOMING ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS

NEWS RELEASE

View the Settlement Agreement Here

Contact: Bobbie Frank
2304 E. 13^th Street
Cheyenne, WY 82001
307/632-5716 phone/ 307/638-4099 fax
waocd@trib.com

For Immediate Release

Cheyenne - “After three years, closure has been reached on the lawsuit brought against the former Administration Clean Water Action Plan published in February 1998,” said Bobbie Frank, Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts executive director. "We are quite pleased with our settlement agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and believe the settlement accomplished what we claimed all along – that several of the actions identified in the Clean Water Action Plan were not law and could not be enforced," Frank added.

Settlement negotiations were initiated after the Court denied the government’s motion to dismiss with respect to the plaintiffs’ claim that the Clean Water Action Plan should have been scrutinized under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The settlement was reached on October 31.  The settlement, based on correspondence issued by the EPA, states, “…the Clean Water Action Plan did not impose any legally enforceable obligations and was not itself a source of substantive authority for the listed agency actions; nor did it waive or supercede any substantive or procedural requirements.”

Marc Stimpert, Budd-Falen Law Offices indicated that the plaintiffs in the case can consider the settlement to be a major victory. "Without this lawsuit, the EPA most certainly would not have issued this statement," said Stimpert.

The Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts brought the lawsuit in June 1998. The WACD, joined by 67 other plaintiffs from 17 different states including several fellow state associations, filed the suit due to several deficiencies on how the plan was developed, including the previous Administration’s complete failure to seek public input and comment on the more than 100 actions included in the plan. WACD strongly believed that if the plan were implemented it would have had serious repercussions to water quality efforts, infringe on property rights including water rights, and result in top down regulations that had little to no input from local people

-END-