We talk about it often—whether warning clients about worst-case scenarios like fines or stop-work orders, or justifying our own time, effort, and cost in doing things right—but it’s relatively rare to see it happen. In Iowa recently, it did, costing a construction company upward of $60,000.
What happened was a civil penalty for work done without a permit. In 2009, the company, Manatt’s Inc. of Brooklyn, Iowa, was hired by the Iowa Department of Transportation to work on a section of Interstate 35 in Clarke County. During the course of the work, the company sought and received permission from a private landowner to use material from the construction site to fill a tributary of White Beast Creek. The work affected the stream and three acres of wetlands, although the US Army Corps of Engineers had not issued a permit for the work to either Manatt’s or to the landowner.
The situation was discovered during an inspection by the Corps of Engineers in July 2009, and in December of that year EPA Region 7 issued an administrative compliance order, which required the company had to come up with a plan for restoring the site.