Wetlands Permitting in Region 5
While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers administers the day-to-day
program, develops policy and guidance, and enforces Section
404 provisions, the responsibilities of U.S. EPA include:
- Developing and interpreting environmental criteria used
in evaluating permit applications;
- Determining scope of geographic jurisdiction;
- Approving and overseeing State assumption;
- Identifying activities that are exempt;
- Reviewing/commenting on individual permit applications;
and
- Enforcing Section
404 provisions.
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2001 Permitting
Highlights
- Screened 375 permit applications;
- Commented on 21 proposed permits;
- Recommended denial of 10 permits totaling 1,273 acres
of wetlands;
- Recommended a reduction of fill saving 12 acres of wetlands;
and
- Recommended increased mitigation resulting in an additional
18 acres of wetlands.
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The following is a list of the Offices
of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  and other regulatory contacts
for wetlands by State:
Wetlands Enforcement and Compliance
in Region 5
Enforcing Section
404 provisions is among the responsibilities of U.S. EPA. EPA
enforcement highlights for 2001 in Region 5 include:
- 9 new actions;
- Restoration of 650 acres of wetlands sought;
- 6 enforcement cases concluded;
- Assessment of $811,000 in civil penalties and 81 acres of wetlands
mitigation;
- SEP completed
to remove dam on the Deerskin River, Wisconsin; and
- 33 active cases.
Wetlands Protection Development Grants in
Region 5
Region 5 awarded $1,581,000 in wetlands grants. Activities funded
address the use of biocriteria for wetlands, wild rice research and
expanded floristic quality indices. Administrative refinements include
evaluating the effectiveness of compensatory mitigation, several wetland
assessment and monitoring methodologies, State program refinements
and several significant staff training efforts. Other grants will
promote expanded wetland volunteer monitoring and local ordinance
development. A number of projects were completed and put to use from
previous wetlands grants:
- Wetland mitigation surveys completed by the Indiana Department
of Environmental Management contributed to the National Academy
of Sciences report on compensatory mitigation.
- Ohio EPA's wetland grant work resulted in the development of
a rapid wetland assessment methodology which has been calibrated
to their wetland biocriteria. The methodology is being used to
implement Ohio's wetlands water quality standards. The data generated
during grant work is currently being used to defend the standards
in court.
Advance Identification of Wetlands (ADID)
The USEPA sponsors ADIDs
with the COE and other partners in areas where development, mining,
agricultural, or other pressures threaten high quality or locally
critical wetlands with destruction or deterioration. The purpose
of ADIDs is to further wetland protection by providing science-based
information on wetlands to those making local land-use decisions.
- The Northwest Indiana Advance Identification of Wetlands Study
(ADID) was developed with several partner organizations and individual
volunteers and is nearly complete. Public notice of the results
of the study will be published in the first quarter of FY02. The
ADID, which was produced using Geographic Information System (GIS)
software, will reside on the Indiana
Geological Survey's Lake Rim web site . This site provides several environmental
and natural resource data layers specific to the Northwest Indiana
Region. These GIS coverages can be selectively accessed to create
a variety of maps to support a range of analyses of the ADID wetlands
information.
Wetlands Education and Outreach in Region
5
In February 2002, Region 5 sponsored a conference and workshop on
"Midwest
Ephemeral Wetlands: A Vanishing Habitat" in Chicago, Illinois.
Proceedings from these sessions will be published online as they become
available in electronic format. The presentation abstracts are summarized
below in Portable Document File (PDF) format.
Midwestern Ephemeral Wetlands Conference Presentation Abstracts
[File: eph_wet_abstracts.pdf
(152 KB)] 
Other useful wetlands education resources found within Region 5 are:
More
Wetlands Education Information
Wetlands Contacts
For more information about wetlands, please contact:
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