A Georgia man took excavators and bulldozers to a public waterway, buried it under fill material to build private ponds on his property, left it that way for over three years, and the United States federal government settled the whole thing for $15,000 (less than most Americans pay in annual rent).

$15,000 for Destroying a River

This is the story of what happens when the legal system meant to protect public waterways meets a private landowner who wanted ponds. The answer, it turns out, is a fine that amounts to a rounding error. The waterway — a tributary of Tiger Creek connected to the Tennessee River system — belonged to no single person. It existed for fish, for downstream communities, for the ecosystem. Robert Chase treated it like a construction obstacle.

The EPA’s own documents confirm that unauthorized fill material remains in the waters of the United States to this day of the settlement filing. Chase started the destruction in November 2021. The Final Order was filed June 11, 2025. That is over three years during which a federally protected waterway sat buried under private fill material, and the penalty issued was less than the cost of the machinery Chase used to bury it.

He Buried the Creek. The EPA Called It a “Discharge.”

Starting in or around November 2021, Robert Chase directed the use of excavators and bulldozers on his property located off Chattanooga Road NW, west of Cohutta, in Whitfield County, Georgia. The goal was to construct two private impoundments — essentially private ponds. The method was to dig into the adjacent wetlands and tributary, then use the excavated material to fill the surrounding protected wetland area.

The federal government’s own documents describe the impacted area: approximately 475 linear feet of an unnamed relatively permanent tributary of Tiger Creek and approximately 1.2 acres of jurisdictional wetlands with a continuous surface connection to Tiger Creek. Tiger Creek connects to South Chickamauga Creek. South Chickamauga Creek connects to the Tennessee River — a traditional navigable water that serves communities across multiple states.

Chase did not have a Section 404 permit. He did not apply for one before construction. The Clean Water Act is unambiguous: discharging fill material into waters of the United States without a permit is illegal. Full stop.

He Told the EPA What He Did — In Writing

On July 7, 2022, the EPA sent Chase an Information Request Letter asking him to explain what happened at the site. He responded on July 18, 2022. In that response, Chase confirmed that excavators and bulldozers were used to excavate the ponds, that the wetlands were filled, and that the fill material came directly from the excavated pond areas. He described his own violation in his own words, in a formal letter to federal regulators.

Then, on October 19, 2023 — over a year later — Chase submitted a Water Needs Assessment and Farm Pond Exemption Package, asking the EPA to retroactively exempt his construction under a provision for agricultural farm ponds. The EPA conducted a site inspection on November 16, 2023. Inspectors documented the unauthorized discharges and confirmed the violation was real and ongoing.

A restoration plan was eventually developed with Chase’s consultant, CTI Engineers, Inc. The conceptual plan was approved on August 6, 2024. The final plan was submitted on September 4, 2024. Chase signed a separate Administrative Compliance Order on Consent on December 1, 2024, committing to restore the wetlands and reconnect the tributary. The penalty settlement came months later, in June 2025.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What Money Cannot Replace

Wetlands are not empty land waiting to be useful. They are among the most biologically productive ecosystems on Earth. The 1.2 acres of jurisdictional wetlands that Chase filled and buried are not an abstract measurement in a legal document. They represented a living filter system for surface and groundwater, a flood buffer for surrounding communities, a nursery habitat for fish and amphibians, and a carbon sink. When you bury a wetland under excavated fill dirt to build a private pond, you do not repurpose it. You kill it.

The 475 linear feet of tributary that Chase buried was not a ditch. It was a stream with “a continuous surface connection to Tiger Creek,” which connects to South Chickamauga Creek, which connects to the Tennessee River. Every inch of a waterway system is connected. Blocking and filling 475 feet of a tributary does not just affect that stretch of creek; it disrupts the hydrology of everything downstream. Fish migration routes are severed. Water chemistry changes. Sediment loads increase in downstream waters. The ecological debt of this kind of destruction is paid over decades, not months.

The federal documents confirm that the fill material Chase deposited remains in the waters of the United States as of the settlement. That means the waterway was not a minor inconvenience that healed itself. It sat buried and broken for over three years. A restoration plan exists, and Chase signed a separate compliance order to implement it — but a plan is a promise, and promises are not the same as restored wetlands. The living organisms, the sediment structure, the root systems, and the hydrological connectivity that were destroyed in November 2021 do not reassemble themselves on the schedule of a legal agreement.

The people who live downstream from Tiger Creek, South Chickamauga Creek, and ultimately the Tennessee River did not receive notice before Chase sent bulldozers into their shared watershed. They were not consulted. They do not appear in this document except as the implicit beneficiaries of a law that one man chose to ignore. The Clean Water Act exists precisely because individual landowners, left unchecked, will treat public water as a private resource to be engineered, diverted, buried, and reshaped for personal benefit. The law failed them here — not because the violation was undetected, but because the consequence was so trivial that it functions more as a fee schedule than a deterrent.

Legal Receipts: The Documents Speak for Themselves

The Violation — In Their Own Words

“Commencing on or about November 2021, Respondent, and/or those acting on behalf of the Respondent, discharged dredged and/or fill material into jurisdictional waters within the Discharge Area using earth moving machinery including, but not limited to, excavators and bulldozers, during unauthorized activities associated with the construction of two impoundments. Currently, the unauthorized dredged and/or fill material remains in waters of the United States.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact ¶16

“Respondent stated in their July 18, 2022, response to the Information Request that earth moving machinery, such as excavators and bulldozers, was used to excavate the ponds and fill the adjacent wetlands to construct the impoundments at the Site. Respondent also stated in their response that the fill material used in the wetlands came directly from the excavated ponds.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact ¶19

The Waterway and Its Connection to Public Waters

“Respondent’s unauthorized activities in the Discharge Area impacted approximately 475 linear feet of an unnamed relatively permanent tributary of Tiger Creek and approximately 1.2 acres of wetlands that have a continuous surface connection to Tiger Creek. Tiger Creek is a relatively permanent tributary of South Chickamauga Creek. South Chickamauga Creek is a relatively permanent tributary of the Tennessee River, a traditional navigable water.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact ¶17

The Permit That Never Existed

“At no time during the discharge of dredged and/or fill material at the Discharge Area from November 2021 to the present, did the Respondent possess a permit under Section 404 of the CWA, 33 U.S.C. § 1344, authorizing the activities performed by Respondent.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section V, Alleged Violation ¶30

Every Day Was a Separate Violation — And the Penalty Was Still $15,000

“Each day the material discharged by the Respondent remains in waters of the United States without the required permit under Section 404 of the CWA, 33 U.S.C. § 1344, constitutes a day of violation of Section 301(a) of the CWA, 33 U.S.C. § 1311(a).” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section V, Alleged Violation ¶32

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

The 1.2 acres of wetlands destroyed by Chase sat at the intersection of a tributary and Tiger Creek — a position that made them ecologically critical. Wetlands at stream confluences act as natural filters, trapping sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus before they enter larger water bodies. When Chase filled those wetlands with excavated pond material, he did not just damage a local ecosystem. He removed a biological water treatment system serving the Tiger Creek and South Chickamauga Creek corridor.

The 475 linear feet of filled tributary represents a permanent severing of stream connectivity until restoration is fully completed and verified. Stream connectivity is how fish move, how nutrients cycle, and how flood pulses travel through a watershed. The EPA’s own definition of a “relatively permanent tributary” acknowledges these streams carry water year-round and support biological communities dependent on continuous flow. Burying that flow under private fill material for three-plus years causes cascading harm that a signed compliance order does not automatically reverse.

The fill material itself — excavated from Chase’s pond construction — remains on-site as documented. The legal documents confirm it had not been removed as of the settlement date. Restoration plans exist, but plans are not restoration. The ecological clock on these wetlands and this tributary has been running backward since November 2021, and the pace of legal accountability has been far slower than the pace of destruction.

Public Health

South Chickamauga Creek and the Tennessee River downstream from this site are not abstract geography. The Tennessee River provides drinking water to communities across Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. Any degradation to the watershed’s tributary systems — including increased sediment loads, disrupted filtration, and altered hydrology caused by illegal fill operations — contributes cumulative pressure to systems that communities downstream rely on for safe water. The Clean Water Act’s protections for tributaries exist precisely because harm at the headwaters becomes everyone’s problem downstream.

Wetland destruction also increases flood risk for surrounding landowners and communities. Wetlands adjacent to streams absorb and slow floodwaters during storm events. Filling 1.2 acres of wetland and blocking 475 feet of tributary reduces that buffering capacity. In a region that has experienced significant flood events — the Chattanooga area sits downstream of the South Chickamauga watershed — every acre of destroyed wetland is a measurable reduction in community flood resilience.

Economic Inequality

The $15,000 (about the cost of a used Honda Civic) penalty represents something beyond a legal number. It represents the price the system has placed on the right to destroy public waterways for private benefit. Robert Chase’s email is in the court record: rob@chaseplumbing.us. His address is listed as 1012 Bryant Road, Cohutta, Georgia 30710. This is a private individual who used private heavy machinery to reshape publicly protected waters, and the financial consequence was roughly equivalent to a month’s wages for a median Georgia worker.

The law theoretically allows daily fines for every day fill material remains in protected waters without a permit. The documents explicitly state this. From November 2021 to June 2025 is approximately 1,300 days. At even a modest per-day fine, the total liability could have been enormous. Instead, the EPA settled for a flat $15,000 (enough to cover maybe two months of average American rent). The people downstream — the communities who depend on South Chickamauga Creek and the Tennessee River for drinking water, recreation, and flood protection — received no compensation and had no formal seat at this table.

The Cost of Destruction: By the Numbers

What Now: Who Answers for This

The People Involved

• Robert Chase — Respondent. Private landowner, Whitfield County, Georgia. Operator of Chase Plumbing (rob@chaseplumbing.us). Signed the compliance order December 1, 2024. Owes $15,000 in civil penalties.
• Keriema Newman — Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 4. Signed the Consent Agreement June 10, 2025.
• Joel Strange — EPA Region 4 Enforcement Officer. Primary contact on this case.
• Paula Feldmeier — EPA Region 4 Assistant Regional Counsel. Legal lead on this enforcement action.

The Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. EPA Region 4 (Atlanta) — Responsible for Clean Water Act enforcement in Georgia. Contact: 61 Forsyth Street S.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) — Issues Section 404 permits for fill material in navigable waters. Parallel enforcement authority to EPA.
• Georgia Environmental Protection Division (Georgia EPD) — State-level water quality enforcement. The EPA consulted with the State of Georgia prior to this settlement.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division — Can pursue criminal sanctions for CWA violations independent of civil penalties.

What You Can Do

The restoration plan for this site is now a matter of public record. Demand accountability on its implementation. Contact EPA Region 4 directly and ask for status updates on the Administrative Compliance Order. File public comments whenever EPA posts a proposed consent agreement — the right to comment is written into the process and documented in this very settlement. Connect with watershed protection groups active on the Tennessee River and South Chickamauga Creek corridor. Underfunded environmental enforcement does not fix itself; it gets fixed when communities refuse to let it be quiet.