In 2007, an Idaho couple began building a home near Priest Lake; EPA ordered them to restore the property or risk fines exceeding $40,000 a day, beginning a 16-year Supreme Court battle

A plan to build a home near Priest Lake, Idaho, turned into a legal dispute that lasted about 16 years and reached the US Supreme Court twice. In 2004, Michael and Chantell Sackett purchased property near Priest Lake in Bonner County, Idaho. In 2007, they started filling the land with dirt in order to construct a house. The Environmental Protection Agency later informed the Sacketts that their property contained wetlands and that the backfilling violated the Clean Water Act. The agency ordered them to restore the site and, according to the Supreme Court’s 2023 opinion, threatened penalties of more than $40,000 per day.

The entire case hinged on whether the wetlands of the Sacketts’ land were within the “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act.

Why the EPA Ordered the Sacketts to Restore the Property

According to the Supreme Court’s 2023 opinion, the EPA determined that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property were “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act. The agency’s compliance order said the Sacketts had violated the law by backfilling the property and required them to restore the site.


The EPA’s position relied in part on the wetlands’ connection to nearby waters. The wetlands were separated from an unnamed tributary by a 30-foot road. That tributary flowed into a non-navigable creek, which in turn flowed into Priest Lake, a navigable, intrastate lake.

That connection became central to the legal dispute over whether the Clean Water Act applied to the Sacketts’ property.

The Sacketts Took the EPA Dispute to Court

The Sacketts challenged the EPA’s compliance order, arguing that the agency lacked jurisdiction because the wetlands on their property were not “waters of the United States.”

The Supreme Court first considered the case in 2012 and ruled that the Sacketts could challenge the EPA’s compliance order under the Administrative Procedure Act. After seven years of additional proceedings, the district court entered summary judgment for the EPA, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court later agreed to hear the case again to determine the proper test for deciding whether wetlands qualify as “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act.

Supreme Court Ruled for the Sacketts in 2023

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on October 3, 2022, and issued its decision on May 25, 2023. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded the case.

The Court held that the Clean Water Act covers certain adjacent wetlands when the wetland has a continuous surface connection with a covered body of water, making it difficult to determine where the “water” ends and the “wetland” begins.

The ruling rejected the broader “significant nexus” approach that the Ninth Circuit had applied when determining whether the Sacketts’ wetlands were covered by the Clean Water Act.

A Legal Dispute Dating Back to 2007

The controversy began in 2007, when the Sacketts started filling their land by the Priest Lake in order to build a house on it. It took several years of legal proceedings, and even two rulings by the Supreme Court, for the Court to reach its ruling in 2023.

The case of "Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency" was concerned with the interpretation of the Clean Water Act and determining whether neighboring wetlands are considered "waters of the United States."