Doug Nicoll faces a year in jail and $2,500 fine - Brickbats - penalties for trimming wetland plants - Brief Article

Reason, July, 2002 by Charles Oliver

Doug Nicoll faces a year in jail and $2,500 fine. His crime? Trimming the bushes on his property in Norfolk, Virginia. Nicoll didn't know the property had been designated a wetland, where city law says it's illegal to cut or remove plants Officials explain that the bushes might die if trimmed, causing soil erosion.

Yet Nicoll has been trimming his healthy bushes since 1994, when he bought the property.