The St. Paul office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued new guidelines in an attempt to streamline the process to determine if a water falls under the federal agency’s jurisdiction.
The new guidelines are in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers Headquarters’ guidance to implement several Supreme Court decisions.
The new Rapanos guidance, which came out of the June 2007 decision in Rapanos v. United States, requires that new analytical standards be applied and a greater level of documentation be collected before regulatory staff can determine whether a particular aquatic resource is a water of the U.S., which would fall under the Corps’ jurisdiction.
The new guidelines are on the Corps’ Web site at: www.mvp.usace.army.mil/docs/regulatory/special%20notices/publicJDguidanc... [1].
For assistance, residents may attend a meeting of Koochiching County’s technical evaluation panel, which includes a Corps official, or stop in the Koochiching Soil and Water Conservation District office in the courthouse, which can assist in finding resources and with the permit process in projects that disturb wetlands.