September 30, 2011 – Petitioners Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased a residential lot in a residential neighborhood, zoned and permitted by local authorities for construction of their home. After they began earthwork preparatory to such construction, they received a Compliance Order from the EPA effectively ruling that moving around dry earth and fill materials on their residential lot to begin their homebuilding project somehow involved discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States in violation of the Clean Water Act. The Sacketts were denied any hearing to contest the Compliance Order by the EPA and by the lower federal courts. In late March, the ACRU filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of their Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, which was granted. On September 30, 2011, the ACRU filed an amicus curiae brief in their support with the U.S. Supreme Court on the merits, arguing that the denial of any hearing at all to the Sacketts to contest the patently erroneous EPA Compliance Order was an unconstitutional denial of Due Process, and the decisions of the courts below should consequently be reversed.

READ THE AMICUS BRIEF HERE. (PDF)