The Company That Bought 1,500 Acres From Duarte Nursery Paid $5.3 Million Over Wetlands. Its Lawsuit Says the Nursery Didn’t Disclose the Land’s Environmental Restrictions.

In 2012, Duarte Nursery sold about 1,500 acres near the Sacramento River in Tehama County to Goose Pond Ag, a Florida company, for $8.7 million. The property adjoins the land at the center of Duarte Nursery’s own Clean Water Act case.

After the purchase, Goose Pond and its farm management company did extensive deep ripping on the land. In September 2018, the Justice Department announced that the two companies would pay $5.3 million in civil penalties and mitigation and permanently preserve streams, wetlands, and buffer zones. Officials called it one of the largest settlements ever in a case involving unpermitted filling of streams and wetlands. The penalties were for Goose Pond’s and its manager’s own work, not for anything Duarte Nursery did.

The settlement carried a lasting cost. According to Goose Pond’s later lawsuit, it requires more than 600 of the 1,500 acres to be kept as a conservation preserve that can never be farmed.

In December 2019, Goose Pond sued Duarte Nursery in federal court in Sacramento, alleging that the nursery failed to disclose material facts about the property’s environmental restrictions before the sale. Those are allegations, not court findings. We have not confirmed how the lawsuit ended.

Alexandra Duarte, a Republican, is running for California State Senate District 4 on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. She is married to former Rep. John Duarte, who has served as the nursery’s president.