Bought a new L3560, state shut down the project. Sell or keep?

[groundcover]

And if you find someone from the state snooping around your property you'll want that bigger backhoe !

 

[hornett22]

What bugs me is more often than not our plans would show silt fence surrounding the entire project. On the low side I get it but it would even be on the high side, last I checked water doesn’t run up hill. Some of this stuff is a good idea to keep silt out of our streams but as usual our government requires us to go overboard.

Yet they do the bare minimum.

 

[Surshot]

Best idea is to say yes sir to the Corps of Engineers, been there. Their badge and gun section carries a gold US Marshal badge. I have seen those too. If they show up, someone is going to jail. You have a nice honcho, otherwise it is always, they pay a contractor to restore and you get the bills, plus the profit margin as allowed. Just lucky they did not seize your equipment on their property. A guy and his son, near me gave them a hard time, 5 years in the federal pen, each.

 

[Rock Crawler]

Update, I talked to the state yesterday. We are done. Appears that he stopped recently and looked around, he is closing the case and sending me a letter stating so much.
So this coming spring I am going to start the process of getting a permit to go left into the side field another 40-50 feet. To do that I will also need to vertically extend my septic clean outs as high as I will be filling, so around 30' of vertical extension at the lower end.

 

[deezler]

What bugs me is more often than not our plans would show silt fence surrounding the entire project. On the low side I get it but it would even be on the high side, last I checked water doesn’t run up hill. Some of this stuff is a good idea to keep silt out of our streams but as usual our government requires us to go overboard.

And then why is silt fence removal never a part of commercial or large residential construction? At least half of the time it just gets left in place to rot. Direct pollution of the soil by low quality plastic sheeting, and ugly to look at.

 

[ctgoldwing]

Sad story. I almost had the same thing happen. When I had my last tractor, an L3400 w/BH, I was going to modify the low area of our land. There was a small 'wetlands' area adjacent to it and a 'dry water course' that I wanted to dig out and create a small pond, maybe 100 X 60. I just started when the neighbor on the street below told me there was a town official that had stopped by. . .
I went to the building department to ask was there a problem. Oh yeah
They told me in no uncertain terms not to disturb anything there even if the entrance and exit of the dry water course remained the same. I would have to restore the land to its undisturbed condition.
Wasn't important enough for me to fight.

 

[kthompson]

NOT pretending to be any kind of expert on wetlands but have been told you are allowed to dig a water hole for your livestock. Not a pond but a water hole. No idea what size a water hole can be. Will agree with those who have said don't push your luck there. They can easily pull the info on that land from years ago to know what has been done to it. We had a home site we were allowed here to build up with NO permit but did not affect any water flow due to it was considered a "yard". It was less than an acre. It might be worth paying someone who works with wetlands for advice on what can be done if anything. I have never been one that had regulators want to tell you what your options are, well not very often any way. Think they are trained to tell you how you messed up.

Along that line, there is a tract of about 100 acres the developer is cutting the high are by as much as 5' and moving the dirt to the "low" area (read wetlands) to build that up to build houses on. We have seen that too many times in our county. Then the buyers don't understand why the survey does not show it as wetland and it flood s several feet.

As to the tractor, if it were me, I would look to see if there is any way to use the tractor for hire, now that your time is free. lol Get necessary insurance if you do this. Kubota might let someone take over the loan, you would have to ask. The other part is for me, once you own a tractor, you will keep finding needs for it.

 

[orezok]

Before I retired as a Fcilities Manager for a school district, we had an older High school which we tore down and replaced with a new one ($100 million plus). Adjacent to the project was a major storm channel that only flowed water during heavy storms. Our onsite drainage system flowed to the channel just as other properties did. After all, it was a storm drainage channel!

The channel was dirt bottom with reinforced levies. The water district who owned the channel cleared any ventilation that grew in the channel each year to keep the flow going with no permits. Perhaps they were grandfathered.

The new school plan upsized our storm drain outlet per approved plan. We started work and the Corp came in and gave us a stop notice for working in a “wetlands” without a permit. The “wetlands” were created by the housing project just upstream of us by draining their excessive landscape water to the channel. This resulted in some weed growth next to our property.

We had to jump through hoops for months to get permits. Ended up having to fund pulling “weeds” from a different wetland miles away for 2 years.

Had out timing been different, the water district would have come through, plowed under the weeds and there would not have been a wetlands!

The Corp will even screw other government agencies for their fantasies.

 

[swines]

Find a civil engineer and get some help in meeting all of the local, state, and federal requirements. If you turn in a set of drawings with a PE stamp on the package that will go a long way toward making sure you don't have more problems. Professional engineers carry liability insurance and they don't want to use it - meaning, they're conservative in their approach to a project, but you won't have much of a hassle with inspectors.

 

[bdhsfz6]

What galls me is the way the EPA treats the little guy compared to the corporate giants.

Our development maintains a bridge over a small creek. it's in poor shape and requires a lot of work. Every time we spill a shovel full of dirt in the stream, the EPA shows up threatening fines and equipment seizure. Walmart built a new store about a mile upstream and it ran brown for months. All they got was a slap on the wrist!