Opinion of the Court
dirt and rocks. A few months later, the EPA sent the Sacketts a compliance order informing them that their backfilling violated the CWA because their property contained protected wetlands. The EPA demanded that the Sacketts immediately “ ‘undertake activities to restore the Site’ ” pursuant to a “ ‘Restoration Work Plan’ ” that it provided. Sackett v. EPA, 566 U. S. 120, 125 (2012). The order threatened the Sacketts with penalties of over $40,000 per day if they did not comply.
At the time, the EPA interpreted “the waters of the United States” to include “[a]ll … waters” that “could affect interstate or foreign commerce,” as well as “[w]etlands adjacent” to those waters. 40 CFR §§230.3(s)(3), (7) (2008). “[A]djacent” was defined to mean not just “bordering” or “contiguous,” but also “neighboring.” §230.3(b). Agency guidance instructed officials to assert jurisdiction over wetlands “adjacent” to non-navigable tributaries when those wetlands had “a significant nexus to a traditional navigable water.”[1] A “significant nexus” was said to exist when “ ‘wetlands, either alone or in combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity’ ” of those waters. 2007 Guidance 8 (emphasis added). In looking for evidence of a “significant nexus,” field agents were told to consider a wide range of open-ended hydrological and ecological factors. See id., at 7.
According to the EPA, the “wetlands” on the Sacketts’ lot are “adjacent to” (in the sense that they are in the same neighborhood as) what it described as an “unnamed tributary” on the other side of a 30-foot road. App. 33. That tributary feeds into a non-navigable creek, which, in turn, feeds into Priest Lake, an intrastate body of water that the
- ↑ EPA & Corps, Clean Water Act Jurisdiction Following the U. S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Rapanos v. United States & Carabell v. United States 7–11 (2007) (2007 Guidance).
