AUGUST 15, 2024 - ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLIANCE ORDER ON CONSENT
Beginning on or about March 2014 and thereafter, Respondent Deseret Ranches of North Florida, LLC, acquired property in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, and Gulf Counties, Florida, including the Site. Today, the Site is operated by Respondent AgReserves, Inc., for several purposes, including cattle ranching, pine silviculture, and wildlife management. At all times relevant to this AOC, Respondents were the owners and/or operators of the Site.
About 2015, to approximately February 2021, Respondents, and/or those acting on behalf of the Respondents, harvested plantation pine from the Site and developed cattle pastures and constructed stock ponds, which are currently used and will continue to be used for ranching. The Respondents? activities within the Discharge Area generally included removing stumps; roller chopping stumps and woody debris on the soil surface; using an agriculture and silviculture disk to prepare the soil surface for planting pasture grasses; planting of pasture grasses, including rolling; digging a number of ditches using v-blade ditching equipment pulled behind a tractor; and constructing stock ponds and side casting the excavated material. These activities resulted in the discharge of dredged and/or fill material into wetlands on the Site and within the Discharge Area without a permit under Section 404 of the CWA, 33 U.S.C. ? 1344.
EPA alleges that Respondents? unauthorized activities in the Disch