207 



The Callaway case triggered a several year effort by the Corps to arrive 

 at an acceptable description of the term "waters of the United States" which included 

 various categories of wetlands. The evolution of the program continued as Congress 

 debated the Clean Water Act of 1 977. As the debate unfolded over the Clean Water 

 Act, efforts to curb the growing jurisdictional reach came close to succeeding in both 

 the House and Senate, but failed. In the end, Congress reauthorized the Section 404 

 program without taking decisive action on the jurisdictional reach of the program, but 

 incorporated the concept of "general permits" to aid the Corps in its implementation 

 of the program. 



Congress has not returned to this debate since 1977. Meanwhile, in 

 United States v. Riverside Bavview Homes. Inc. . 474 U.S. 121 (1985), the Supreme 

 Court upheld the expansive definition of "waters of the United States" to include 

 infrequently flooded "adjacent wetlands." The Court noted that the Congress had 

 rejected efforts to restrict the Corps definition of "waters of the United States" during 

 the Clean Water Act debate in 1977. Finally, the definition of Federal jurisdictional 

 wetlands may have reached its apex with the release of the 1989 Federal Manual for 

 identifying and Delineating a Wetland . 



While the reach of the program was evolving ever more broadly, access 

 to Section 404 permits was becoming more restrictive. On December 24, 1980, as 

 President Carter was leaving office, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the 

 Section 404(b)(1) guidelines which established the current "avoidance" permitting 



