Sierra Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Craig v. Chatham, County of

No. 270PA01, 356 N.C. 40, (N.C., 06/28/2002)

ELR Digest

The court affirms an appellate court's holding that a county ordinance and health board rules attempting to regulate swine farming are preempted by state law, but reversed the appellate court's holding approving a zoning ordinance that required swine farm operators to obtain a permit through compliance with the invalid ordinance. The court first holds that the county ordinance and the health board rules are preempted. Contrary to the county's argument, the state assembly does not have to provide an express statement of intent to preempt a field, but can instead create a regulatory scheme that is so complete in covering the field that it is clear that any regulation on the county level would be contrary to the statewide regulatory purpose, which is the case here. The purpose statements and expressions of intent in the state statutes make it clear that the purpose for creating the statutes was to regulate animal waste at the state level, and that allowing individual counties to create particularized regulations for swine farms would upset the overall balance reached by the state legislature for the entire state. Additionally, the state statutes are so comprehensive in scope that the state legislature must have intended that they comprise a complete and integrated regulatory scheme on a statewide basis, thus leaving no room for further local regulation. Further, the health board rules are incompatible with state law in that they purport to regulate a field in which the state has provided a regulatory scheme to the exclusion of local regulation. Although a health board is allowed to make rules that are more strict than state standards when they are enacted to protect the public health, the health board here failed to provide any rationale or basis for making the restrictions more rigorous than those applicable to and followed by the rest of the state. The court also holds that the appellate court erred in approving a zoning ordinance that required swine farm operators to obtain a permit through compliance with the invalid ordinance.

The full text of this decision is available from ELR (21 pp., ELR Order No. L-540).

[Counsel not available at this printing.]

[OPINION OMITTED BY PUBLISHER IN ORIGINAL SOURCE]