Vohs v. District Com'rs of Fremont County, Iowa Soil Conservation Dist., 55997

• Decision Date: 22 May 1974
• Docket Number: No. 55997,55997
• Citation: 218 N.W.2d 595
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: Henry VOHS et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS OF the FREMONT COUNTY, IOWA, SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT and Mills County, Iowa Soil Conservation District, Appellants. Arthur FOSTER et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS OF the FREMONT COUNTY, IOWA, SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT and Mills County, Iowa Soil Conservation District, et al., Appellants.

Page 595

218 N.W.2d 595

Henry VOHS et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS OF the FREMONT COUNTY, IOWA, SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT and Mills County, Iowa Soil Conservation District, Appellants.

Arthur FOSTER et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS OF the FREMONT COUNTY, IOWA, SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT and Mills County, Iowa Soil Conservation District, et al., Appellants.

No. 55997.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 22, 1974.

Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., Clifford E. Peterson and James C. Davis, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellants.

Nichols & Leonard, Sidney, for appellees.

Considered en banc.

McCORMICK, Justice.

These cases arise from action by the defendant soil conservation districts to establish a soil conversation subdistrict ('subdistrict'). All plaintiffs own land included in the proposed subdistrict. Plaintiffs in one case are landowners in the Waubonsie Creek Drainage District ('drainage district') and plaintiffs in the other are landowners outside the drainage district. They brought separate certiorari actions in district court challenging the legality of defendants' decision to establish the subdistrict. Trial court sustained the writs. We reverse.

Code chapter 467A contains the Soil Conservation Districts Law. None of our prior decisions have dealt with its provisions.

In enacting the statute, the legislature declared its policy was 'to provide for the restoration and conservation of the soil and soil resources of this state and for the control and prevention of soil erosion and for the prevention of erosion, floodwater and sediment damages, and thereby to preserve natural resources, control floods, prevent impairment of dams and reservoirs, assist and maintain the navigability of rivers and harbors, preserve wild life, protect the tax base, protect public lands and promote the health, safety and public welfare of the people of this state.' § 467A.2, The Code.

In order to permit local watershed protection and flood prevention programs to be carried out and financed by assessment of lands benefited, the statute allows formation of subdistricts of a soil conservation district. § 467A.13, The Code; see 56 Iowa L.Rev. 804, 902 (1971). Landowners who desire formation of a subdistrict may petition the commissioners of the soil conservation district. When 65 per cent of the landowners join such a petition, it is set for hearing. § 467A.14, The Code. All landowners in the proposed subdistrict are given notice. §§ 467A.15, 467A.16, The Code. Upon hearing, the commissioners are required to 'consider and determine whether the operation of the subdistrict within the defined boundaries as proposed is desirable, practicable, feasible, and of necessity in the interest of health, safety, and public welfare.' When they find it is, they are authorized to establish the subdistrict. § 467A.15, The Code.

In the present situation the landowners' petition was presented to the boards of Mills and Fremont soil conservation districts since the proposed subdistrict included land in both, and the boards acted jointly as a single board of commissioners in conducting the administrative proceedings leading to its formation. See § 467A.17, The Code. A watershed work plan prepared earlier with federal assistance was presented in support of establishment of the subdistrict. Plaintiffs were objectors at the hearing. Upon completion of the hearing defendants decided to establish the subdistrict, to be called the Waubonsie Soil Conservation Subdistrict.

Plaintiffs subsequently brought the present certiorari actions in district court to test the legality of the commissioners' decision. No other means of review of that decision is provided in the statute.

Certiorari affords limited review of administrative action. Only questions of jurisdiction or illegality may be raised. Rule 308, Rules of Civil Procedure. In these actions the question presented is whether the commissioners' decision was supported by substantial evidence.

There is illegality within the meaning of the certiorari rule 'when there is not substantial evidence to support the findings on which the inferior court or tribunal based its conclusions of law.' Reed v. Gaylord, 216 N.W.2d 327, (Iowa 1974). Findings of an administrative tribunal may not be upset upon certiorari review in district court when they are supported by substantial evidence unless it is shown the findings resulted from application of an erroneous legal standard. 'The fact that others may have reached a different conclusion or that an opposite result would have been fully justified by the evidence is of no importance.' Reisner v. Board of Trustees of Fire Retirement Sys., 203 N.W.2d 812, 814 (Iowa 1973).

The proposed subdistrict is in the Waubonsie Creek watershed. The watershed includes 29,510 acres of agricultural land adjacent to the Missouri River in Mills and Fremont counties in southwestern Iowa. It drains in a southwesterly direction from hills through bottomland to the river. The bottomland is used mostly for grain farming.

Prior to establishment of the drainage district in 1908, Waubonsie Creek flowed out of the upland hills westerly and then southwesterly into tributaries, including one which led to a lake, and into the river. Flooding and sedimentation of the drainage area was frequent and extensive. When the drainage district was established, the Waubonsie Drainage Ditch, for much of its course built in the channel of Waubonsie Creek, carried water straight westward from the bluffs to the river. The Waubonsie ditch has occasionally overflowed since then. Plaintiffs' witnesses attributed the overflow to plugging of the ditch by trees carried down from the hills or to flooding from the river.

In the district court proceeding the work plan advanced to support establishment of the subdistrict was put in evidence. It was developed pursuant to federal statutory authority by the Soil Conversation Service and Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture under sponsorship of the Mills County Board of Supervisors, Fremont County Conservation Board, and defendants. The work plan identified sheet and gully erosion in the upland hills and consequent sediment damage to the Waubonsie Drainage Ditch as problems to be solved by structural installations and conservation practices in the watershed area. The soil retention structures would be constructed with funds from various sources. Establishment of the subdistrict was provided for as an ongoing means of obtaining local funds to operate, maintain...