Shannon Grady, a Pennsylvania homesteader and Moms for Liberty leader, faced relentless DEP "raids" after installing a $500K-permit culvert post-Hurricane Ida, accused of wetland violations under WOTUS despite no contamination proof. A 2025 court ruling sided with regulators, threatening fines or jail—until she filed federal complaints and demanded a jury trial. With EPA Director Lee Zeldin’s potential intervention looming, her case exposes how Biden-aligned agencies weaponize environmental laws against dissenters, mirroring Roger Stone’s own federal harassment. [Automatically generated summary]
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The Stone Zone.
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Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
Shannon Grady and her husband Jason own a 24-acre homestead, as I say, in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, where they raise goats, ducks, turkeys, chickens, and rabbits with their five children.
The family purchased the property in 2019 and gradually converted a former horse pasture into a functional family space, including a small pond with a natural spring used for recreation and also for watering the animals.
But unfortunately, Shannon Grady and her husband have been targeted by state and local officials over completely what I believe are fabricated environmental infractions in an effort to target them.
What began as an emergency storm repair during Hurricane Ida in 2021 has since escalated into a year-long legal struggle with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, in which the Grady family believes, correctly, that they're targeted out of vengeance by state and local authorities due to Shannon Grady's advocacy against some of the COVID restrictions and her criticism of the local school board.
Shannon Grady joins us in the Stone Zone now.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Shannon, this is an extraordinary story that I think the people need to know about how this attack on you and your family and your property has spiraled out of control.
First, let's talk about your activism regarding COVID restrictions and the local school board.
Yeah, I generally kept myself prior to the school shutdown.
And when the masking mandate was put in place, I kind of just kept to myself, kept quiet, and I just kept my kids home.
I didn't send them to school.
I kept them online and I didn't really cause a stir.
I never complied with any masking mandates anywhere I went.
I just lived freely.
But when the COVID restrictions continued, it was supposed to be two weeks and then it was two years in our school district.
My son was about to enter high school and his high school was one of the schools in the district that you have to apply to.
It's a STEM academy.
So they had no in-person option.
So prior to the start of that school year, I was researching, you know, because we had no avail with our school board to listen to facts, listen to us talking at the school board meetings, et cetera.
So I was researching the school codes and I found a section in the school code that allows you to file a petition to remove your school board.
So I, knowing nothing about anything, I was just a really upset parent.
I filed a petition to remove the school board based on the masking mandates.
And that sort of the school board was removed.
They were later placed back home.
But that kind of started a whole stir.
I got more involved with the school.
I later became the chair of Moms for Liberty.
And so that was sort of my first, you know, I guess experience with standing up to government mandates.
And it really opened my eyes to understanding.
I was following the Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did rule that that administrative order issued for the masking mandate by the Department of Health was void ab initio.
And I started to understand what these things meant, being an administrative order, government infringing upon your rights, and starting to really be able to recognize when government is overextending their reserved powers, if you will.
Okay, so after Hurricane Ida destroyed your family's private driveway, crossing over a small drainage ditch, cutting off access to your home, the Grady's say the crossing became impassable, creating an urgent safety concern.
Within a day, the family installed a 10-foot-long metal culvert and placed stone filled to restore access, an arrangement common in rural properties in this area of Pennsylvania.
But then days later, following, of course, an anonymous complaint alleging earth disturbance, representatives from the Chester County Conservation District and the State Department of Inventor Priority and Texas entered the property without a warrant, without advance notice, describing the visit and several that followed as raids because that's how Shannon told me they went down, saying officials entered despite being posted no trespassing signs and explicit objections from the Grady's.
An inspection report by the Department of Environment Protection, aquatic biologist Carol Canigliania, documents a confrontation in which the property owners were present and were told that they had a legal right to enter and their refusal could result in enforcement action.
To me, that, of course, is a threat.
So it was during that initial inspection, the officials identified the pond on the property.
They gave them their next excuse to harass the Grady family.
Subsequent Department of Environmental Protection reports alleged multiple fabricated violations, including unpermitted earth disturbance exceeding one acre, discharge of sediment into a water of the Commonwealth, construction of an unpermitted covert, failure to implement erosion and sediment controls, unlawful obstructive encroachment upon wetlands.
The natural spring pond was described as impermeable and potentially polluting.
These are all, of course, outrageous fabrications.
And you and your husband dispute these findings.
Shannon, tell us about that.
Correct.
Yeah, we dispute these findings.
You know, as you mentioned, starting in 2021 was when the initial inspection took place based on an anonymous complaint, which we did file right to know to get such anonymous complaints.
We still haven't yet seen those.
But since 2021, there's been at least nine unreasonable searches of our property.
And the DEPs had brought in not only the state, but they at one point had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
They were claiming that we were under federal jurisdiction according to WOTIS.
So they were trying to say that we needed to work with the federal government as well because we're in violation of multiple environmental crimes and whatnot.
But in all of these raids, if you will, they came with armed officers numerous times.
They conspired with the police department, the PA Fish and Game officers who are also armed numerous times, came onto our property.
We gave them, we had posted signage and we gave them verbal notice that they were not permitted to inspect our property and search our property, but yet they continued their searches.
We basically explained to them that they have to prove harm.
Their main claim is that we are a public nuisance causing environmental harm.
And the statutes in which they cite we're violating, they have the statutory duty to prove that we've contaminated the waters of the Commonwealth or waters of the United States.
Yet in all of their visits from 2021 through 2025, they failed to do one single soil sample test or water soil test, which they're required to do by the statute.
They're required to show contamination, which they failed to do.
So you and your husband maintain that the natural spring pond that they refer to is permeable, smaller than an acre, and actually environmentally beneficial, converting what was previously a muddy, runoff-prone pasture into a stabilized grass area that serves as a water source for your livestock.
The government has never shown any evidence of pollution or downstream harm, nor have any of your neighbors filed complaints alleging damage.
Additionally, state aerial imagery shows only minor soil displacement consistent with normal rainfall.
Grady notes that no soil in this article that I read, this is, I think, you talking, Shannon, noted that no soil or water tests were ever made by state authorities to prove any survival damage, as you just said, demonstrating that this whole thing is, in fact, political.
You know, I really must tell you, in a way, I can totally identify with you because I myself have been politically targeted.
It was seven years ago this past Sunday that 29 heavily armed FBI agents, similar to the armed thugs that were sent to your farm property, stormed my home at 6 o'clock in the morning.
And this entire attack on you and your husband and your family, where you live on the property with your five children, as I recall, in a farmhouse that's almost 200 years old, they want to find you and try to destroy you, not because you're doing anything wrong on your property, but because you stood up to the local school board.
Complying with Controversial Process00:05:01
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Yeah, and maybe that's where it originated.
But, you know, ever since they've interacted with us, everything they, every time they come, they said, just comply.
You need to comply.
But complying, but complying with the company.
Complying would cost your family $500,000 or more, including permit fees, hiring a certified wetland specialist, delineating wetlands, preparing restoration plans, and submitting a notice of intent for individual permits.
Are any of the other property holders around where you live experiencing these same kinds of issues?
Not that I'm aware of.
And the ironic part here is that the permits in which they wish us to obtain and comply with are regulated by the federal government.
The EPA regulates the MPDES permit, which they want us to get.
And MOTIS has been basically eliminated by the Trump administration.
They're claiming that the water, our natural springs, which is what the pond is, the natural springs, we have seven on our property, is not a water of the United States, not regulated by the federal government, which is what they're trying to claim.
And they're also trying to claim our drainage ditch is a navigable waterway.
It has about a half an inch of water.
So, you know, they're trying to, you know, pull us into not only administrative regulatory purview, but they're trying to also force us to comply with an administrative process, which we have been saying from the beginning is unconstitutional.
We are afforded proper due process.
You cannot just show up here with an administrative order demanding us to comply with your demands, purchase all these permits, do all of these things, which would cost us $500,000, plus allow you to inspect, quote unquote, inspect our property for the next five years whenever you want, based on an administrative order issued by a manager who works at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
That's not due process.
No, in fact, and this will come as a surprise to no one when this whole matter reached the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on May 28th of 2025.
You represented yourself pro se, because let's face it, lawyers are very expensive, focusing all of these questions that you've raised today about the state's authority to enter private property absent any consent to begin with.
And of course, the local judge, Matthew S. Wolf, granted the state's Department of Environmental Protection to enforce this outrageous administrative order.
The court retained jurisdiction, warned that failure to comply could result in sanctions, including contempt, fines, and perhaps even jail.
These people are out of control, but I do think you have put your finger on the potential solution to your problems.
I really doubt that Lee Zeldin, who is the director under Donald Trump or the Department of Environmental Protection, is aware of the situation.
There are federal issues involved.
They're claiming you violated federal laws incorrectly.
Do you have some hope that Lee Zeldin and the administration will examine all of these issues, as they have done in other instances, defending in one case a Washington rancher who was falsely accused of environmental crimes?
Are you hopeful that Lee Zeldin will step in?
I am hopeful that Lee Zeldin will step in.
And I actually did file a federal complaint against the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection along with an emergency temporary restraining order.
We are seeking proper due process.
If the DEP wants to prove their claim, their claim in their administrative order is that we are a public nuisance, which requires them to prove contamination to the waters of the Commonwealth or waters of the United States.
They need to prove their claim in court and give us proper due process, which requires a trial by jury, not a non-neutral quasi-judicial administrative hearing.
That's all we've been afforded.
Well, we are going to try to make sure that your case comes to the attention of the director of the Environmental Protection Agency.
There's a great story over at the Populist Sentinel.
Seeking Due Process00:01:28
You can check this out.
If you go to populistsentinel.com, look up Shin and Grady, a terrific story about this epic harassment of you and your family by the state officials.
And look at a lot of these federal agencies.
Locally, you still have Biden Democrats in control at the state level of some of these federal agencies.
So we don't know what the Director of Environmental Protection knows about your case, but we're going to bring it to his attention.
All right.
God bless you.
All right.
You've been listening to The Stone Zone.
I'm your host, Roger Stone, and we'll be right back.
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