From the linked article:
"On Monday, lawyers representing Johnson announced that the federal government agreed to resolve the case and a federal court has approved.
Under the settlement, Johnson's pond will remain and he won't pay any fines or concede any federal jurisdiction to regulate the pond. And the government won't pursue any further enforcement actions based on the pond's construction."
The EPA settled because they didn't want this to be decided by the courts (with a good chance they'd lose).
By settling out-of-court, no precedent has been set.
This leaves the EPA free to attack someone else, somewhere else...
