The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has revised and renewed the nationwide permits for regulating work in wetlands and other waters of the United States under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. The new nationwide permits are to be published in the Federal Register on March 12 and take effect on March 19, 2007. The current set of permits expires on March 18, 2007, and these permits are to replace them.

The Corps’ division engineers may add, after public review and consultation, regional conditions to protect local aquatic ecosystems such as fens or bottomland hardwoods or minimize adverse effects on fish or shellfish spawning, wildlife nesting or other ecologically critical events.

Some highlights of the new permits:

• The Corps reissued all the existing permits and added six new ones. The Corps also added a new general condition and eliminated one other.
• The Corps retained the acreage limits from the current nationwide permits.
• The Corps added protections for ephemeral streams, including a 300-linear foot limit.
• The new nationwide permits cover activities such as repairs of uplands, time-sensitive pipeline repairs, repairs to ditches and canals to control erosion, commercial aquaculture operations, reclamation of surface coal mining areas and underground coal mining.

You can find the final documents for the 2007 Nationwide Permits at http://www.usace.army.mil/cw/cecwo/reg/nwp/nwp_final.htm.