## Facts

- Michael and Chantell Sackett owned a residential lot near Priest Lake, Idaho and placed fill on the property to prepare for home construction.
- The Environmental Protection Agency asserted the lot contained wetlands regulated under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and treated those wetlands as “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) based on proximity to a ditch draining to a creek that flowed to Priest Lake.
- The dispute continued after earlier litigation over EPA enforcement procedures, focusing on whether the Sacketts’ wetlands were federally regulated “adjacent wetlands” under the CWA.
- The district court entered summary judgment for EPA, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed using a “significant nexus” standard tying wetlands to navigable waters through ecological or hydrological connections.

## Issues

1. What test governs whether wetlands are “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act.
2. Whether wetlands lacking a continuous surface connection to a relatively permanent water body can be regulated as “adjacent wetlands.”
3. Whether the Ninth Circuit’s “significant nexus” test is consistent with the Clean Water Act’s text.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit.
- The Court rejected the “significant nexus” test.
- The Court held the CWA reaches only those wetlands that are, as a practical matter, indistinguishable from WOTUS because they share a continuous surface connection with a relatively permanent water body.
- Applying that rule, the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property were not covered by the CWA.

## Legal Principles

- “Waters of the United States” refers to relatively permanent bodies of water described in ordinary terms as streams, rivers, lakes, and similar features.
- Wetlands are federally regulated under the CWA only when they have a continuous surface connection to covered waters, making it difficult to determine where the water ends and the wetland begins.
- A wetlands test that turns on broader ecological or hydrological effects (“significant nexus”) exceeds the statute’s textual focus on “waters” and is not the governing standard.

## Conclusion

The Court narrowed federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over wetlands by requiring a continuous surface connection to relatively permanent covered waters and by disapproving the significant nexus approach used by EPA and the Ninth Circuit.


Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. 651 (2023)