The Regulatory State Takes on the California Farmer

On a rainy afternoon in late November 2012, Matthew Kelley, a project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, pulled his truck over to the side of a road in Tehama County in northern California.He'd seen something he found disturbing: a tractor parked in an open field. Fields and tractors are common in this rural region halfway between Sacramento and the Oregon border. The area is known for its almond and walnut orchards. What Kelley found so alarming was that this tractor was in a 450-acre field that he knew contained dozens of vernal pools. These are small depressions that can fill with rainwater seasonally, but environmental regulators consider them to be part of nearby Coyote Creek.Kelley was the Army Corps's lone representative in Tehama County, and nobody had asked him for a permit to plow. In an email to his superiors, Kelley wrote, I think this is going to be a big violation.