Angelo Tsakopoulos

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Angelo Tsakopoulos (b. 1936) is founder of AKT Development, the biggest real estate company in Sacramento, CA by land owned. Tsakopoulos was fined by the EPA for a violation of the Clean Water act. Tsakopoulos sued the government and was able to bring his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

From the Association of State Wetland Managers:

"The case grew out of Tsakopoulos' preparations to subdivide part of the 8,350-acre (33.8 km²) Borden Ranch into apple orchards and vineyards. He used a method of soil preparation called deep plowing or deep ripping to loosen the clay subsurface of nearly 1,000 acres (4 km²) so that the roots of deep-growing trees and vines could penetrate. During the course of that work, about two acres of wetlands also were plowed, although to lesser depths."

"But Tsakopoulos argued that normal farming practices, including deep plowing, were excluded specifically from the Clean Water Act."

"The government said that was true only if the plowing did not change the character of the farmland."[1]

Interestingly enough, Justice Anthony Kennedy had to recuse himself from the case because of his acquaintance with Tsakopoulos and only eight justices were left deciding the case. The ruling turned out to be a 4-4 tie. Because of the tie, the ruling against Tsakopoulos by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was automatically affirmed.

In 2002, Tsakopoulos purchased a 70,000 volume collection on Hellenism and donated it to the library of California State University, Sacramento where it's available for use by the community[2].