Duran Construction Destroyed Alaska’s Wetlands for 12 Years While the EPA Watched

The Pattern

In June 2009, Duran Construction Company LLC purchased a 29-acre wetland complex in Juneau, Alaska called the S&S Ponds. The site sat between two salmon-bearing creeks in a tidal marsh that connected directly to Gastineau Channel and the Pacific Ocean. Under the Clean Water Act, any company that wants to fill wetlands must obtain a Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before doing any work.

Duran Construction never applied for one.

The company bought the property less than a year before the existing permit expired, knowing full well the permit required complete wetland restoration within that timeframe. When the permit expired in March 2010, the company did not restore anything. Instead, it began continuous mechanized excavation of sand and gravel from the ponds, discharging fill material into waters of the United States without authorization.

The Corps sent violation notices in April 2010 and August 2010 ordering Duran Construction to cease excavation work. The company ignored both letters. By November 2020, when EPA and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) inspectors finally executed an administrative warrant to access the site, they found ongoing industrial-scale gravel operations with stockpiles, equipment staging areas, and sediment runoff flowing directly into the ponds.

“The Section 404 Defendants have violated and continue to violate CWA Section 301(a) by their unauthorized discharges of dredged and/or fill material into waters of the United States at the S&S Ponds Site.”

At a second site, Vista del Sol, the pattern repeated with even more brazen disregard. Duran Construction received violation notices in 2002 for unpermitted wetland filling during subdivision development. The EPA issued two Administrative Compliance Orders. The company eventually paid $20,000 in compensatory fees in 2012.

Then in 2016, the company did something remarkable: it submitted a formal termination notice for its stormwater construction permit, certifying under penalty of law that all ground-disturbing activity was complete, final stabilization had been achieved, and all temporary erosion controls had been removed. Josette Duran, Vice President of Duran Construction, signed the certification personally.

It was a lie.

By December 2019, the company was back at Vista del Sol conducting large-scale earthmoving, rerouting an entire creek drainage, and dumping fill material into wetlands again. When ADEC issued another violation notice in January 2020, company president Marciano Duran responded that conditions prevented installing erosion controls, but that certain measures would be implemented “at thaw or during spring.” The company did not apply for permit coverage until October 2020, and even after obtaining it, inspectors documented repeated failures to comply with stormwater management requirements.

The Third Site

Vista del Mar represented the most aggressive expansion of the scheme. In December 2017, Duran Construction began constructing a “pioneer access road” through 113 acres of undeveloped forested wetlands adjacent to Tongass National Forest. The work required clearing first-order headwater streams and filling adjacent slope wetlands to create access for a planned housing subdivision.

The company never applied for a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit.

When local authorities alerted the Corps in April 2018 that fill material was being placed into wetlands, the Corps sent Marciano Duran a letter requesting site access for inspection. The company did not respond. The Corps sent another letter in August 2020 requesting information about the unauthorized work and giving the company ten days to respond. Duran Construction replied in October 2020, but refused to grant the Corps access to inspect the site.

By the time EPA obtained an administrative warrant and conducted an inspection in November 2020, the pioneer access road had already disturbed approximately 1.4 acres of wetlands and streams. Inspectors documented logs, branches, debris, soils, sediments, gravel, and rocks discharged below the ordinary high water mark of unnamed tributary streams that flowed directly to Auke Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The legal complaint filed by the United States and State of Alaska in December 2022 describes the Vista del Mar site as part of “a larger common development plan to construct a housing subdivision.” The implication is clear: the illegal pioneer road was the opening move in a much larger wetland-destruction project.

The Non-Financial Ledger

Salmon don’t read permit applications. They return to the streams where they were born, following chemical signatures in the water that guide them home. When those streams are rerouted, filled with sediment, or converted into gravel roads, the salmon don’t adapt. They die trying to reach spawning grounds that no longer exist.

The S&S Ponds site sits between Switzer Creek and Lemon Creek, both salmon-bearing tributaries to Gastineau Channel. Before S&S Development Company began gravel extraction in the 1970s, the entire 29-acre area was a tidal marsh regularly flooded by Pacific high tides. That marsh provided critical nutrient filtration, flood absorption, and juvenile salmon rearing habitat. When Duran Construction bought the property in 2009 and began continuous excavation, every cubic yard of gravel removed was another cubic yard of ecological function lost forever.

The Vista del Sol site supported a complex of forested wetlands abutting unnamed tributary creeks in the Fireweed Creek watershed. These wetlands were not empty space waiting to be developed. They were living filtration systems that cleaned stormwater runoff before it reached Gastineau Channel, buffered flooding during heavy rains, and provided irreplaceable habitat for amphibians, migratory birds, and aquatic insects that form the base of the food web.

Duran Construction did not see a food web. They saw subdivisions.

The Vista del Mar site was even more ecologically sensitive. The unnamed slope wetlands and first-order headwater streams that the company bulldozed and filled were embedded in a pristine forested area adjacent to Tongass National Forest. First-order streams are the smallest tributaries in a watershed, the capillaries of the hydrological system. They’re also the most vulnerable to disturbance. When you fill a first-order stream, you don’t just eliminate that stream. You eliminate the downstream water quality, temperature regulation, and sediment control that stream provided to every larger waterway it fed.

The people living downstream from these sites don’t experience environmental damage as an abstraction. They experience it as discolored tap water after heavy rains. As flood warnings that didn’t exist ten years ago. As the slow, irreversible realization that the watershed they depend on is being converted into a subdivision one permit violation at a time.

And here’s the thing that makes this case so infuriating: Duran Construction knew all of this. Marciano Duran held Alaska Certified Erosion and Sediment Control Lead (AK-CESCL) certification, which requires passing a two-day course covering erosion processes, regulatory requirements, stormwater pollution prevention, and best management practices. Josette Duran also held AK-CESCL certification by June 2021. These were not unsophisticated actors stumbling through complex regulations. They were trained professionals who understood exactly what the law required and chose to ignore it.

Legal Receipts

“The April 2000 permit specified that all restoration must be completed by the time the ten-year term of the permit expired, and further provided that, in the event of the sale of this site, the new owner must assume the permit terms and conditions.”

“The Corps notified Duran Construction by letters in April 2010 and August 2010 that the company was not authorized to conduct excavation work at the Site without a CWA Section 404 permit, and that the company was required to cease excavation work until it obtained such a permit.”

“The April 30, 2016, termination notice stated that final stabilization had been achieved on all portions of the Vista Del Sol Site for which Duran Construction was responsible, that all ground-disturbing construction activity or use of support activities was completed, and that all temporary BMPs had been removed. Josette Duran, Vice President of Duran Construction, certified under penalty of law that the notice was prepared under her direction and that the information in the notice was true, accurate, and complete.”

“On December 10, 2019, in response to a public complaint regarding the deposition of sediment from a construction project, ADEC and the ADF&G performed a joint inspection of the Vista del Sol Site. They observed conditions, including inadequate sediment and erosion and source controls, that would have violated the CGP if the Storm Water Defendants had obtained such permit coverage.”

“During the same period that Duran Construction requested and obtained these extensions from the Corps, Duran Construction began excavating the earthen pad and discharging dredged and/or fill material into the S&S Ponds Site without authorization under CWA Section 404.”

“After local authorities alerted the Corps that Duran Construction was placing fill material into wetlands at the Vista del Mar Site for the construction of the pioneer access road, the Corps issued Marciano Duran a letter in April 2018 that requested permission to access and inspect the Vista del Mar Site. The Corps’ letter requested a response within ten days. Duran Construction did not respond to the letter.”

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

The cumulative impact of Duran Construction’s violations spans three major watershed systems in the Juneau area. At S&S Ponds, continuous excavation since 2009 has permanently altered 29 acres of former tidal marsh. The site’s connection to Lemon Creek and Switzer Creek means sediment from gravel operations flows directly into salmon spawning habitat. The original 1977 Corps permit recognized the site as jurisdictional waters of the United States, but decades of industrial extraction have converted ecologically productive wetlands into a commercial gravel pit.

Vista del Sol’s impacts extend across multiple phases of development spanning from 2001 to 2021. The complaint alleges the subdivision construction “highly modified the unnamed tributaries and adjacent wetlands, including by, among other things, extensively rerouting the creeks and filling the wetlands.” Prior to development, the property supported a complex of forested wetlands in the Fireweed Creek watershed. That entire ecosystem has been replaced with roads, houses, and stormwater infrastructure that, even when permitted, represents a permanent conversion of wetland function into impervious surface.

Vista del Mar presents the most immediate ongoing threat. The 113-acre property adjacent to Tongass National Forest was undeveloped as of 2017. The complaint describes it as sitting “on an unnamed slope, forested wetland/tributary complex” containing “several ‘first order’ headwater streams.” First-order streams are the origin points of watershed systems. Destroying them eliminates the foundational hydrology that supports all downstream aquatic life. The 1.4 acres already cleared for the pioneer access road represent only the initial disturbance. If the larger subdivision proceeds without proper permitting and mitigation, the ecological damage will expand proportionally.

Public Health

Stormwater violations at construction sites are not aesthetic problems. They are public health hazards. When construction sites lack proper erosion controls, sediment loads in stormwater runoff increase dramatically. That sediment carries absorbed pollutants including petroleum products, heavy metals from equipment, and nutrients from disturbed soils. All of it flows into the same waterways that provide drinking water sources and support subsistence fisheries.

The complaint documents specific stormwater violations at Vista del Sol including “spills and leaks of pollutants and placement of material stockpiles adjacent to the S&S Ponds” that violated permit conditions even after the company finally obtained coverage. At Vista del Mar, inspectors observed conditions showing “unauthorized discharge of storm water associated with industrial activity, including, without limitation, storm water associated with construction activity” with no permit coverage whatsoever.

Juneau’s population depends on surface water and groundwater sources that are directly connected to the watersheds Duran Construction has been systematically degrading. Increased sediment loads reduce water clarity, increase treatment costs, and elevate the risk of waterborne contamination. For Alaska Native communities that rely on traditional subsistence fishing, the stakes are even higher. Salmon don’t just represent food security; they represent cultural continuity. When salmon runs collapse because spawning habitat has been filled and paved, the loss is not merely economic. It is existential.

Economic Inequality

Duran Construction’s business model externalizes environmental costs onto the public while privatizing profits from real estate development. Every dollar saved by skipping permit fees, avoiding engineering studies, and ignoring erosion control requirements is a dollar that increases the company’s profit margin on subdivision sales. Every dollar the public spends on watershed restoration, increased water treatment costs, and lost fishery productivity is a dollar transferred from the commons to private wealth.

This is not abstract economic theory. The complaint seeks to “require Defendants, at their own expense and at the direction of EPA and ADEC, to restore and/or mitigate the damages caused by their unlawful activities.” Translation: even if the government wins, taxpayers will spend years monitoring compliance while Duran Construction pays consultants to design restoration plans that can never fully replace mature forested wetlands. The ecological debt is permanent. The financial arrangements are just accounting.

The housing units built on Vista del Sol’s destroyed wetlands are now owned by individual families who had no part in the underlying permit violations. Those homeowners are living on land that was developed through systematic lawbreaking, in a watershed that has been permanently degraded. When the next major storm overwhelms the insufficient stormwater infrastructure, those homeowners will bear the flood risk. When property values decline due to increased environmental hazards, those homeowners will absorb the loss. Duran Construction already extracted the profit.

What Now?

As of December 2022, the case is active litigation. The United States and State of Alaska are seeking permanent injunctions, mandatory restoration at defendants’ expense, and civil penalties under 33 U.S.C. § 1319(d) and AS 46.03.760(e). The maximum federal penalty is $59,973 per day per violation for violations occurring after November 2, 2015. Given that the complaint alleges continuous violations spanning over a decade across three sites, the potential penalty exposure is substantial.

But penalties are not restoration. Even if the government wins everything it asks for, the first-order streams at Vista del Mar that were filled with woody debris and gravel in 2017 are not coming back. The tidal marsh functions that S&S Ponds provided before becoming a gravel pit are not coming back. The forested wetlands at Vista del Sol that filtered stormwater and provided wildlife habitat are not coming back.

Ecological restoration can establish new wetlands. It cannot restore mature ecosystem functions that took centuries to develop.

The specific corporate officers named in the complaint are:

• Marciano Duran, President of Duran Construction Company LLC, individually named as a defendant for having “knowledge of, decision-making and/or approval authority over, and planned, supervised, and/or directed the unauthorized construction activities.”
• Josette Duran, Vice President of Duran Construction Company LLC, individually named as a defendant for the same operational control and for personally certifying false permit termination documents.

Regulatory oversight is provided by:

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10 (EPA)
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps)
• Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC)
• Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G)

Duran Construction Company LLC remains an active business entity in Alaska. As of this writing, there is no public indication the company has ceased operations at any of the three sites.

For residents of Juneau and surrounding communities, the most effective form of resistance is to treat every new subdivision proposal as a threat until proven otherwise. Attend public comment periods for land use permits. Demand that local authorities verify Clean Water Act compliance before approving projects. Support organizations like Alaska Wilderness League and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council that provide legal and scientific expertise the average citizen cannot access alone.

And when developers promise that this time will be different, that they’ll follow the rules, that they’ve learned from past mistakes, remember that Duran Construction received violation notices in 2002, 2010, 2019, and 2020, and kept filling wetlands until the federal government finally sued in 2022.

Believing corporate promises is how you lose your watershed one permit violation at a time.