The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have settled a claim against a Carver cranberry farming family over alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.

Farmers Charles Johnson, Francis "Van" Johnson and a family-owned partnership will restore 26 acres of wetlands and a stream, and pay a $75,000 fine to resolve claims against them for violation of the Clean Water Act at two sites at their farm, the agencies announced this week.

The Justice Department sued the Johnsons in 1999 for filling in wetlands at the two sites between 1979 and 1999 without the required permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.  The two sites are part of the headwaters of the Weweantic River, which flows from Carver to Buzzards Bay. The Weweantic River estuary is included on Massachusetts’ list of impaired waters.

Twenty-one acres of land,  known as the "Log Swamp" bogs near Great Meadow Drive in Carver, will be restored to forested and scrub wetlands, wet meadows and open waters, and will be preserved in perpetuity. The Johnsons also agreed to restore 5 acres of wetlands at a site off of Cross Street in Carver, and 1,200 linear feet of Beaver Dam Brook.  The Johnsons had dredged the brook as part of the unpermitted construction of cranberry bogs at the Cross Street site. The Johnsons are also required to provide an $800,000 performance guarantee bond to ensure that the restoration at both sites is completed.

The settlement follows a lengthy and tortuous journey through the courts whose most recent stage was an April 25, 2011 verdict, in which the jury found that the wetlands and streams altered by the Johnsons at the two sites were subject to jurisdiction of the federal Clean Water Act.