Over a three-year period beginning in 2008, Bobby Wolford Trucking & Salvage, Inc. (BWT) contracted with Mr. Eric Klock to deliver fill material to the property owned by Karl Frederick Klock Pacific Bison, LLC (Klock) and to provide earth-moving work. The property is located in Snohomish County approximately 3 miles east of Monroe, Washington. As part of the agreement, in which BWT provided fill material to Klock in exchange for a place to dispose of it, BWT dumped, and charged others to dump, more than 54,000 cubic yards of fill material into an oxbow of the Skykomish River, wetlands that abut the oxbow, a perennial stream that flows into the oxbow, and wetlands that abut that perennial stream. BWT also used backhoes, dozers, and other heavy machinery to distribute fill material throughout the oxbow and wetlands. Neither Klock nor BWT obtained the required Clean Water Act permits.
Klock's and BWT's unauthorized actions, which directly impacted a minimum of 2.934 acres of wetlands and 2,021 linear feet of streams, completely filled and destroyed some wetlands and caused significant damage to others. The destruction of and damage to wetlands caused significant and direct impacts to the structure and functioning of the floodplain, secondary and tertiary river channels, and floodplain refuge habitats for listed threatened species that depend on the Skykomish River ecosystem, including Steelhead, Chum, Coho and Pink salmon, as well as Chinook salmon and Bull Trout, for w