Hundreds of property owners and at least one landscape contractor are being investigated as part of the aerial dragnet by the state?EUR??,,????'???s Department of Natural Resources.

In the first crackdown of its kind, crews spying from the sky have discovered an array of serious violations of state law?EUR??,,????'??+from protected wetlands being drained to ponds being dredged without permits.

The DNR recently ordered Joshua Larrabee, a landscape contractor, to stop digging at a pond on his property near Andover. The alleged violation was spotted from the air in April. DNR wetland enforcement officer Lt. Martin Book visited the pond and concluded it was not in compliance with the rules.

Larrabee disagrees. “There was no wetland there,” insisted Larrabee, who said he replaced a cattail border with rock fill on a pond dug six years ago by a former owner. “If you build (a pond), you ought to be able to improve it.”

“People want open water and a mowed lawn up to it,” Book said. Yet man-made ponds or shoreline changes seldom benefit wildlife and often harm water quality, he said.