Wetlands Legal Saga Reaches Ninth Circuit Again, a Decade Later

The EPA faced tough questioning Thursday as federal appeals judges weighed the latest phase in a long-running wetlands enforcement clash that once reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is considering whether to reverse a lower court’s ruling last year that Chantell and Michael Sackett’s Idaho property contained wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act. The appeals court issued its first decision on related issues in the case a decade ago, only to have the Supreme Court reverse it.

The Environmental Protection Agency has since withdrawn the compliance order that prompted the original ...