ST. LOUIS DISTRICT

Both the Individual Permit application form  (ENG Form 4345) and the Regulatory Customer Service Survey form have expired. The use of these expired forms will have no effect on ths permit process. Once the forms have been updated, changes will be posted on our website.

Implementation of this rule is temporarily stayed; until further notice all determinations and permitting actions will be based on guidance in place prior to 28 August 2015.

http://www.usace.army.mil/Portals/2/docs/civilworks/regulatory/news/FRN_CleanWaterRule.pdf

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced today that it received a final biological opinion from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries on the nationwide permits that were reissued on Feb. 13, 2012, and went into effect on March 19, 2012. The biological opinion was issued on Nov. 24, 2014, and it concludes the re-initiated programmatic consultation on the Endangered Species Act that began in July 2012 between USACE and NOAA Fisheries. This biological opinion replaces NOAA Fisheries’ earlier biological opinion issued in February 2012. The biological opinion affects 19 of the 38 USACE districts. The St. Louis District is not affected since it does not have any coastal waters within its boundaries.Information on the 2012 nationwide permits, including the biological opinion dated Nov. 24, 2014, is posted to the USACE Web site at http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/RegulatoryProgramandPermits/NationwidePermits.aspx

The 2014 NWPL has been published on the NWPL website and the updated list contains 8057 plant species, an increase of 120 species, based on new literature. The majority of these new species received FACU ratings. The bulk of the 2014 update is the additional ratings for 754 species that were noted to occur in other areas of the 10 Corps Regional Supplement regions, based on the literature and herbarium records. All of these species were already included on the NWPL and only the new occurrences were rated. The 2014 update includes no nomenclature or taxonomic changes. Overall, these revisions represent a less than one percent change in species and ratings from the 2013 NWPL. Many of those plants that were updated are uncommon.  A summary of all the changes can be found on the NWPL website under the “What’s New?” section.

We at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Regulatory Branch are committed to improving service to our customers and would like to know how well we have been doing. To identify how we can better serve you, we need your help. Please take the time to fill out this brief survey and submit it to us. Your honest opinions will help us determine areas in which we need to improve.

http://corpsmapu.usace.army.mil/cm_apex/f?p=regulatory_survey

The 2013 update to the National Wetland Plant List was necessary to align with the current taxonomy and nomenclature of the Biota of North America (BONAP).  The update also addresses the results of interagency regional panel re-evaluations for 12 plant indicator statuses performed since the original 2012 NWPL was published.

The NWPL database is now managed on the Corps web server and future updates can occur more frequently (annually). 

The 2013 update reduces the total number of plants from 8200 to 7937 and reflect a 1.2% change in indicator statuses.  Please look for the lists of 2013 changes under the "What's New" section of the NWPL homepage.

The effective date for the 2013 NWPL is set for 1 September 2013.