Boyd Farm LLC and its owner, Frazier T. Boyd III, were sentenced yesterday for criminally filling wetlands in Goochland and Louisa Counties, Virginia. Boyd Farm was fined $300,000 and will serve a year of probation for a felony violation of the Clean Water Act. Boyd was sentenced to 30 days of home confinement and a year of probation.
Between 2017 and 2019, Boyd and his company directed workers to use excavators and other earthmoving equipment to clear vegetation, remove stumps, and grade land at three sites in Virginia’s Piedmont region. The work resulted in piles of dirt, slash, and stumps. Operators hired by Boyd Farm then placed debris from those piles into wetlands and streams on the properties.
The Clean Water Act mandates permits for such discharges into covered wetlands and other waters of the United States. Unpermitted discharges can destroy habitats and degrade the pollution-cleaning functions of wetlands. While the United States does issue permits to fill wetlands under certain conditions, Boyd Farm and Boyd did not seek or obtain them for any of their properties despite knowing about this requirement. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had issued Boyd Farm an Administrative Order requiring compliance with the Clean Water Act and restoration of impacted wetlands and streams at another property in Goochland County where unpermitted discharges had occurred.
Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia made the announcement.
The EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division investigated the case with assistance from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Trial Attorney Elise Kent Bernanke of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Moore for the Eastern District of Virginia prosecuted the case.