The Corps of Engineers has issued final notice of reissuance of Nationwide Permits (“NWP”) for dredged and fill materials that would increase flooding risks, write off protection of many streams and allow for senseless industry give aways that harm our waters. NWPs are general permits that permit certain activities that result in the dredge and fill of waters without the stricter review of the individual permit process. The reissuance of the NWPs is particularly troubling in light of events like Hurricane Katrina and other warnings that global warming will increase flood risks in the future, making policies designed to protect us from flooding all the more important.
 

In particular, the NWPs will:

• Eliminate a prohibition on using NWPs for activities that result in impacts in the 100 year flood plain. James Lee Witt, former director of FEMA took the lead in getting this important protection against flooding impacts in the previous NWPs, but this administration appears intent on stripping this protection out.
• Loosened several requirements making it easier to destroy streams. Streams are important not only for flood control, but also provide invaluable habitat for wildlife. For instance, several permits allow for district engineers to waive linear feet limitations, meaning the NWPs can be used for impacts to potentially limitless amounts of length for many streams.
• The NWPs (21, Surface Coal Mining Activities, 49, Coal Remining Activities, and 50 Underground Coal Mining Activities) allow for almost unlimited and unmitigated destruction of non-tidal waters, such as streams and wetlands, associated with mining activities. All these NWPs would require is compliance with weak Office of Surface Mining requirements, or state requirements that are often subject to extreme political pressure. Additionally, a new permit allows below-ground coal mining operations the same easy access to disposal of their waste in streams and wetlands.
• In an unprecedented giveaway, NWP 48 would allow for up to 100 acres of impacts for commercial shellfish aquaculture activities in sensitive tidal waters without even requiring pre-construction notification of such impacts.
• NWP 40 for farm buildings, drainage ditches, and other activities on agricultural land is now expanded by eliminating a condition that limits the use of the NWP to a single one half acre fill per farm tract. As a result more wetlands and streams can be filled with no individual permit review, so long as the permittee fills his agricultural wetlands incrementally instead of all at once.