BOISE, Idaho - A federal judge has sentenced an eastern Idaho developer to 18 months in prison and $9,000 in fines for bulldozing a stream bed and draining wetlands to create land to build more new homes.

In September, a Pocatello jury found C. Lynn Moses of Driggs guilty of three felony charges for violating the Clean Water Act. It was a landmark criminal conviction in Idaho under the 1972 federal law. Moses was indicted by a grand jury in March 2005, accused of knowingly discharging sand, gravel and other fill material into Teton Creek without a permit.

After rejecting numerous motions from attorneys representing Moses for a reduced sentence and a new trial, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill of Pocatello imposed the prison sentence Monday, as well as fines of $3,000 on each conviction. The maximum sentence Moses could have received was nine years and $750,000 in fines.

Winmill delayed the start of Moses' prison term until his expected appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court is heard and decided. Moses has 10 days to file notice of an intent to appeal and his request could take between one and two years to be considered by the appellate court.

As a result, a 2004 order issued to Moses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requiring him to repair the damage to the stream bed and restore the wetlands won't be enforceable until Moses' sentence - if upheld - is completed and he is released from prison.

"Given the way the statutes are written, the judge cannot order the restitution of the resource until Mr. Moses is in supervised release if his appeal fails and he goes to prison," said Jim Werntz, EPA's Idaho operations director. "That's unfortunate, because there is a still a damaged resource there that has to be restored."

Werntz said EPA officials are meeting with Teton County, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and homeowners in the Driggs subdivision whose residences may be in danger of flooding because of the illegal stream alteration work done by Moses.

Attorneys for Moses had said in court he felt it was critical to build makeshift dikes and dams and to excavate the stream bed of Teton Creek to prevent flooding in the subdivision where he had developed and sold new homes. But beginning in 1997, federal officials issued the first of several notices of violations against Moses for manipulating the stream channel without proper permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He failed to submit applications for permits to excavate the creek bed in 2002, 2003 and 2004 and violated a 2004 EPA cease-and-desist order by dumping dredged material into the creek, court records show.

The gravel and dirt Moses dumped into the creek altered the waterway and stream flow, causing banks to collapse and increasing the likelihood of flooding. It also polluted a spawning bed for the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, a fish that conservation groups have unsuccessfully petitioned to have protected under the Endangered Species Act because of its dwindling numbers.