Cranberry farmers to restore wetlands they illegally altered

A Massachusetts cranberry farming family is paying for violating the Clean Water Act by restoring 26 acres of wetland and a stream in addition to paying a $75,000 penalty. Charles Johnson, Francis Johnson and their family graded, filled and altered wetlands at two sites on their cranberry farm between 1979 and 1999 without first receiving a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers as mandated in the Clean Water Act. They also expanded a local stream to facilitate another cranberry bog.

The Johnsons will restore three existing cranberry bogs in Carver, Mass that encompass 21 acres of forested and scrub wetlands, meadows and open waters. The location of the sites where the illegal alterations took place affected the Weweantic River estuary, which is on the Massachusetts list of impaired waters.

Read more at enterprisenews.com