Hawkes Co., Inc. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
782 F.3d 994 (2015)
Hawkes Company (plaintiff) wanted to mine peat on wetlands it owned, which required a permit under the Clean Water Act if the wetlands counted as "waters of the United States." While Hawkes's permit application was pending, the Army Corps of Engineers (defendant) issued a Jurisdictional Determination (JD) finding that the wetlands were federally regulated waters, and signaled the permit would likely be denied. Hawkes sued to challenge the JD directly rather than complete the costly permitting process or risk penalties by mining anyway. The Corps argued the JD was not yet a final, reviewable agency action, and the district court agreed and dismissed the suit.
Whether a federal agency's jurisdictional determination is a final agency action subject to judicial review when it does not itself impose a penalty but forecloses a party's lawful use of its property without a lengthy permitting process.