U.S. Supreme Court to Water Resource Managers: Be Careful What You Ask For

摘要

With last year's 5-4 ruling in Koontz v. Saint Johns River Water Management District, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it harder for state and local water resource managers to protect the public's interest in wetlands and floodplains. While the Court recognizes the legitimate role of compensatory mitigation in offsetting aquatic functions lost due to permitted development, Koontz now imposes an increased burden on resource managers to demonstrate the "essential nexus" and "rough proportionality" between permitted development impacts and permit conditions requiring mitigation. An important lesson from this decision is that: (1) resource managers must be careful what they ask for as compensatory mitigation; and (2) in some cases, their most prudent option may be to just say no.