A Federal Judge Ruled Duarte Nursery Broke the Clean Water Act by Tearing Up Protected Wetlands. It Paid $1.1 Million to Settle.

Vernal pools are temporary wetlands that fill with rain and later dry out. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife calls them “some of the most ecologically important and distinctive areas in California.” It estimates that close to 90 percent or more of the vernal pool habitat in the Central Valley has been lost, and that the pools that remain support rare plants and animals, many listed as threatened or endangered.

In 2012, Duarte Nursery bought about 450 acres of grassland south of Red Bluff in Tehama County. The property held vernal pools, seasonal wetlands, and streams that feed the Sacramento River, waters the court later found were covered by the federal Clean Water Act. According to the Justice Department, the company’s own environmental consultant warned that ripping the land without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers could bring significant penalties. Ripping breaks up soil with shanks pulled behind a tractor. The company then hired a contractor to rip the entire property, including its streams and wetlands, to plant wheat, the department said. In February 2013, the Corps ordered the work stopped.

The court case

Duarte Nursery responded by suing the Corps, arguing it had been denied due process. The government countersued under the Clean Water Act. In June 2016, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller ruled for the government. She found the work did not qualify for the act’s exemption for ongoing farming, because the land had been used only for grazing from 1988 until 2012.

That ruling settled whether the company had broken the law; a trial was still needed to decide how much it would pay. The government sought $2.8 million in penalties. In August 2017, before that trial, the company settled. It agreed to pay a $330,000 civil penalty and buy $770,000 in vernal pool mitigation credits, $1.1 million in all, to account for 22 acres of disturbed streams and wetlands, and to permanently protect creeks on the property. Like many settlements, the agreement did not include an admission of liability, even though the judge had already ruled against the company.

John Duarte’s fight

John Duarte fought the case in public. In a June 2017 interview with KRCR-TV, he said the work was typical wheat farming, and the station reported that he called the case baseless. “These guys are a carload of idiots and they’re evil and they’re destroying jobs and destroying lives,” he said. That year, according to The Lever, Duarte Nursery paid an outside firm $30,000 to lobby on “issues relating to the Clean Water Act.”

As a congressman, Duarte cosponsored the Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act, H.R. 7023, which The Lever reported would shorten the window for challenging dredge-and-fill permits and limit when courts can revoke them.

The candidate

Alexandra Duarte, a Republican, is running for California State Senate District 4 on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. She is married to John Duarte, who has served as the nursery’s president. She was not a party to the case.

Before the June primary, her campaign website addressed water and the environment. Under “Water,” it said: “Farmers are the lifeblood of our community, but the radical left politicians continue to demonize them in the name of extreme environmentalism.” Its homepage said she would “stop radical environmentalists from letting our forests burn.” Neither appears in the text of her website today, though the second still appears in the description her Issues page gives search engines. See how her campaign’s message changed after the primary.