Chapter 7 



The Effects of the 404 Program 



CHAPTER SUMMARY 



According to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers es- 

 timates for 1980-81, Corps districts (excluding 

 Alaska) processed permits for projects that, if com- 

 pleted as requested, would have resulted in direct 

 and indirect conversion of approximately 100,000 

 acres of wetlands per year. The Corps authorized 

 projects that, if completed in accordance with the 

 conditions of the permits would involve the con- 

 version of approximately 50,000 acres of wetland 

 or about half the acreage applied for. National 

 Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) data for the 

 coastal wetlands (in the lower 48 States) indicate 

 that the 404 program, in combination with State 

 regulatory programs, reduced the conversion of 

 coastal wetlands by 70 to 85 percent in 1981 . Thus, 

 several thousand acres of coastal (saltwater) wet- 

 lands are probably being converted to other uses 

 each year. Moreover, each year about 5,000 acres 

 of vegetated wedands either are created or restored 

 for mitigation purposes as a direct result of the 

 "conditioning" of 404 permits. 



There are probably numerous cases where reg- 

 ulatory costs or delays to developers have been 

 substantial — in some cases, millions of dollars. But 

 little verifiable data are available to document the 

 overall impacts of 404 on development activities, 

 especially as they relate to other costs imposed by 

 other policies and programs (such as sec. 10, the 



National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), State 

 programs; and local ordinances) and general 

 economic conditions. Information collected by this 

 study suggests that 404, for the most part, mini- 

 mizes or compensates for impacts rather than pre- 

 vents development. 



All permit applicants bear at least some 404-re- 

 lated costs resulting from permit denials, modifica- 

 tions of projects, permit processing, and/or process- 

 ing delays. Of approximately 1 1 ,000 project appli- 

 cations per year, slightly less than 3 percent are 

 denied; about one-third are modified significantly 

 to reduce wetland impacts; and about 14 percent 

 are withdrawn by applicants. About half are ap- 

 proved without significant modifications. From 

 1977 to 1981, the average processing time for non- 

 EIS (environmental impact statement) permits was 

 about 130 days; in 1983, the average processing 

 time was about 70 days. Less than 1 percent of all 

 projects permitted by 404 require an EIS, which 

 may take several years to complete. Delays in proc- 

 essing permit applications for the relatively few 

 large-scale projects that represent the bulk of the 

 economic value of all proposed development activ- 

 ities probably account for a substantial portion of 

 the total costs to industry associated with the 404 

 program. 



EFFECTS ON WETLANDS 



In many areas of the country, the 404 program 

 is the only Government program controlling the 

 use of wedand resources. This chapter discusses the 

 effects of the 404 program on wetlands; however, 

 it does not evaluate the effectiveness of the program. 

 Analysis of effectiveness requires judgments about 

 how the program should optimally or realistically 

 perform to reach both specified goals and measure- 

 ments of the actual performance against the ideal. 



This chapter presents evidence of how the 404 pro- 

 gram actually has affected wetlands. 



Theoretically, the effect of the 404 program on 

 wetlands use can be quantified from permit data 

 by tallying the acreage of wedands that are not con- 

 verted as a direct result of the permit evaluation 

 process, or the acreage on which the impacts of de- 

 velopment have been lessened, and the acreage of 



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