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March 11, 2004Clous settles for $75KHe still faces a civil caseByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Dennis LaBelle once said he'd seek nearly a half-million dollars in fines for Bill Clous' alleged willful soil erosion violations on his East Bay Township land. But LaBelle accepted much less, and on Wednesday cut a deal with the developer that allows Clous to pay $75,000 in fines, donations and in-kind services to resolve a case a former county regulator called the "most serious" and "most blatant" environmental violation she'd ever seen. The settlement ended a civil case just before it was set to go to trial. The county had alleged Clous knowingly failed to obtain a soil erosion control permit before he scoured parts of a 360-acre property in the Mitchell Creek Watershed in East Bay Township. Clous agreed to a $25,000 fine to be paid to Grand Traverse County by his Eastwood Custom Homes, a $25,000 charitable donation to be paid by Clous and his wife toward a nature center and to donate $25,000 in in-kind services from Eastwood Excavation LLC for the Civic Center South in Kingsley. "It was a business decision," said Matthew Vermetten, Clous' attorney. Vermetten said Clous did not admit responsibility in the settlement. The settlement does not affect a circuit court civil case against Clous in which LaBelle said he hopes to use a section of the Michigan Environmental Protection Act to force Clous to restore environmental damage at the property. LaBelle defended his decision to settle at a press conference Wednesday. "The real question would be, would the judge have awarded that kind of money?" LaBelle said. "The amount that we agreed to was an amount we felt would be appropriate." LaBelle later said he was confident but not certain he could have won the case. Vermetten maintained that Clous didn't need a permit because he operated under an agricultural exemption, but at a hearing in October, 86th District Court Judge Thomas Phillips ruled the agricultural exemption did not apply. "There's always those chances when you do litigation that you may not be successful, although we were confident we had a good case," LaBelle said. LaBelle said the deal is good for the community because it forces Clous to contribute to important projects. Others disagreed. "This certainly doesn't send a message at all for anyone that's in business and has that many acres of land," said Maureen Kennedy Templeton, who served as county drain commissioner from 1985 until she resigned last year. "I can't see how it sends a message to them, but then we'll see what happens in the other court." Templeton, who for months pushed LaBelle to pursue a case against Clous called the developer's bulldozing and tree-cutting "absolutely the most serious (environmental violation) I had ever seen and honestly the most blatant." John Nelson, of the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, said the circuit court case looms large now. "If this were all that were to happen, it certainly wouldn't be a deterrent to others going out and doing the same thing," Nelson said. "But I'm confident this is not all that will happen." Clous continues to negotiate with the state Department of Environmental Quality over alleged wetlands violations on the property. "As long as we're making progress, we're willing to continue the discussions," said DEQ spokeswoman Patricia Spitzley. "It is complex (due to) the extent of the disturbance, his initial claim of farming purposes. We had to do a lot of investigating." Spitzley would not discuss the DEQ's demands, but said the agency typically seeks fines and remediation in such cases. "Those are things routinely embodied in settlement negotiations," she said. Staff writer Bill O'Brien contributed to this report
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