Holley - Back some 20 years or so ago, the Department of Environmental Regulations (DER) -- now classified as the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) -- was one of those obscure governmental agencies with little to no recognition. Back then, a handful of people, at best, could probably define its purpose and duties. Now, largely in part of the ongoing battle between a South Santa Rosa County man and the powerful icon of bureaucracy, the three-initial agency is a household name.

The first introduction to the DER came in the mid-1970s for Holley resident and self-proclaimed property rights activist, Ocie Mills. “I’ll never forget the day that DER agent came onto my property,” Mills said. “At that time, I was in the process of clearing land on East Bay Blvd. in order to build my house. The man had been driving down the highway and decided to check things out when he saw the backhoe sitting in my undeveloped lot.

“He told me who he was with and then proceeded to tell me that I couldn’t clear my property because of the wetlands regulations,” Mills recalls. “The man and I had some heated words and I told him he was trespassing and to get off of my property. I was still recovering from a previous heart attack and when things looked like they were going to get physical, I walked over to my truck and got my gun out.” The agent was made to lay down on the ground while police were called. Basically, Mills said he made a citizen’s arrest on trespassing charges, and when law officers arrived, the man was told to leave the premises.

Three days later, the DER filed charges and Mills was arrested for two counts of battery and one count of reckless display of a firearm. Mills was vindicated in a court of law by a jury of his peers and promptly served the DER with a lawsuit. “I sued the DER and the agents for malicious prosecution stemming from my arrest,” he said. “I settled for $9,000 ‘with prejudice,’ which meant they could never raise this issue again.” The initial confrontation could have been easily avoided, Mills said, if the agent had presented legal documentation to begin with. “They (DER) came onto my property, thus attempting to violate search and seizure rights without proper court documentation (such as a warrant),” Mills said. “I challenged their action in court and proved this to be unconstitutional in the state of Florida.”

The next 10 years passed uneventfully for Mills ... until he bought some property on the north side of East Bay on Hwy. 399 in the spring of 1986. This time the contender in the fight was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and, once again, the wetlands issue came into play. The offense? Dumping 19 loads of clean builders’ sand on his newly purchased property in preparation for constructing a new home. The Corps accused Mills and his son Carey of “filling in wetlands” by extending a ditch and dumping the dirt on the property. They were also accused of failing to have dredge and fill permits and allowing sediment to flow back into East Bay.

Both father and son were found guilty of violating the Clean Water Act in a January 1989 trial and sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison camp. They were the first to serve time as “environmental criminals.” Ironically, the Millses had a state-issued building permit for the project that landed them in jail!

After their release, Mills and his son filed a lawsuit to overturn their convictions. Mills argued, unsuccessfully, that the government’s wetlands regulations were built on a single reference in the 1972 Clean Water Act that prohibits placing pollutants, without a permit, into the “navigable waters of the United States.”

In March 1993, the Millses, armed with new evidence, went back to District Court. It was here, Mills said, that they learned the Corps had written a letter urging that Mills be criminally prosecuted “due to” his highly publicized involvement with the Corps and his freely-given advice to others “with intent to subvert the Corps’ regulatory program.” In other words, the Corps singled out Mills as a target for harassment because of, or rather “due to,” his outspoken criticism of the Corps and bureaucracy, in general.

During court proceedings, however, the U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled Mills had “procedurally defaulted,” in his accusation of being selectively prosecuted by the Corps. He further discarded Mills’ argument regarding the Clean Water Act with its ambiguous reference3s to “navigable waters” and “waters of the United States.”

In a final decision, Vinson also threw out the argument that Congress had delegated excesive power unconstitutionally to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. However, in a 21-page “attack” written by Vinson in the spring of 1993, the judge did express concern about the wording in the Clean Water Act, stating the terms are “worthy of Alice in Wonderland.” Simply put, the Corps’ ‘wetland’ interpretation of the CWA states that a landowner who employs fill dirt to build up a plot of dry LAND my be imprisoned on the felony offense of ‘discharging pollutants into the navigable WATERS of the United States.’ According to Vinson, the plot of land belonging to mills “does not have the appearance of what most lay people think of as wetland.” In conclusion, the judge said Mills’ lot was “probably” not a wetland to begin with.

Once again, Mills is taking his case to the court. Only this time, the hearing will be before a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, GA. The panel will determine whether the government was within its bounds on Mills’ 1988 environmental convictions. Margaret Reigle, chairman of the Fairness to Land Owners Committee (FLOC), says the March 8 hearing will be a landmark for future environmental cases. “We believe that this is the most important case in the country at this time because a win will go a long way to restrict bureaucratic abuse of (people) like Ocie,” she said. “We are also hopeful that the judges’ decision may have a significant impact on the current Congressional debate over the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act and require Congress to address wetlands in a fair and balanced manner.”

Mills says he is optimistic that justice will finally prevail in the outcome of Tuesday’s appeal. “This will be history in the making,” he said. “We’ve traveled the ladder of the state of Florida all the way to the Appellate and Supreme Courts and have won. This latest hearing is just another rung on that ladder.”