Federal Register / Vol. 56. No. 157 / Wednesday, August 14, 1991 / Proposed Rules 40449 



Corps of Engineers (CE), Environmental 

 Protection Agency (EPA), Fish and 

 ' Wildlife (FWS), and Soil Conservation 

 Service (SCS). The CE and EPA are 

 responsible for making jurisdictional 

 determinations of wetlands regulated 

 under Section 404 of the Clean Water 

 Act (formerly known as the Federal 

 Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. 

 1344). The CE also makes jurisdictional 

 determinations under Section 10 of the 

 Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 (33 

 U.S.C. 403). Under section 404, the 

 Secretary of the Army, acting through 

 the Chief of Engineers, is authorized to 

 issue permits for the discharge of 

 dredged or fill material into the waters 

 of the United States, including wetlands. 

 EPA has an important role in developing 

 the Section 404(b)(1) Guidelines and 

 defining the geographic extent of waters 

 of the United States, including wetiands. 

 The CE also issues permits for filling, 

 dredging, and other construction in 

 certain wetlands under Section 10. 

 Under authority of the Fish and Wildlife 

 Coordination Act. the FWS and the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service 

 review applications for these Federal 

 permits and provide comments to the CE 

 on the environmental impacts of 

 proposed work. In addition, the FWS is 

 conducting an inventory of the Nation's 

 wetlands and is producing a series of 

 National Wetlands Inventory maps for 

 the entire country. While the SCS has 

 been involved in wetland identification 

 since 1956, it has recenUy become more 

 deeply involved in wetland 

 determinations through the 

 "Swampbuster" provision of the Food 

 Security Act of 1985, and the 1990 

 amendments. 



Prior to the adoption of the "Federal 

 Manual for Identifying and Delineating 

 Jurisdictional Wetlands" by the four 

 agencies in 1989, each agency had its 

 own procedures for identifying and 

 delineating wetlands. The CE and EPA 

 developed technical manuals for 

 identifying and delineating weUands 

 subject to Section 404 (Environmental 

 Laboratory 1987 and Sipple 1988, 

 respectively), yet neither manual was a 

 nationally-implemented standard even 

 vdthin the agencies. ConsequenUy. 

 weUand identification and delineation 

 remained inconsistent The SCS 

 developed procedures for identifying 

 wetiands for compliance with 

 "Swampbuster" which were adopted by 

 the agency for national use in 1987 (7 

 CFR part 12). While it has no formal 

 method for delineating wetiand 

 boundaries, the FWS has established 

 guidelines for identifying wetiands in 

 the form of its official wetiand 

 classification system report (Cowardin, 



et al. 1979). These varied agency 

 approaches and lack of standardized 

 methods resulted in inconsistent 

 determinations of wetland boundaries 

 for the same type of area. This created 

 confusion and identified the need for a 

 single, consistent approach for weUand 

 determinations and boundary 

 delineations. 



In early 1988, the CE and EPA 

 resimied previous disciissions on the 

 possibilities of merging their manuals 

 into a single document and establishing 

 it as a national standard within the 

 agencies, since both manuals were 

 produced in support of Section 404 of the 

 Clean Water Act The FWS and SCS 

 were invited to participate, thereby 

 creating the Federal Interagency 

 Committee for Wetiand Delineation 

 (Committee) vdth each of the four 

 agencies (CE. EPA. FWS. and SCS) 

 represented. 



The four agencies reached agreement 

 on the technical criteria for Identifying 

 and delineating wetiands and merged 

 their methods into a single wetiand 

 delineation manual, which was 

 published on January 10. 1989 as the 

 "Federal Manual for Identifying and 

 Delineating Jurisdictional Wetiands". 

 This established a national standard for 

 wetiand identification and delineation, 

 and terminated previous locally 

 implemented approaches that were not 

 in some cases, scientifically based nor 

 consistent Further, adoption of the 

 manual in 1989 resulted in some changes 

 in the scope of regulatory jurisdiction in 

 some agency field offices. 



Diiring the following two years, the 

 1989 manual was used by the agencies 

 for wetiand delineation, chiefly for 

 identifying and delineating wetiands 

 subject to federal regulations under the 

 Clean Water Act Unfortunately, during 

 this time many misconceptions of the 

 1989 manual (e.g.. classifying any area 

 mapped as hydric soil as wetiand 

 without considering other criteria), and 

 other factors created an obvious need to 

 review the 1989 manual and revise it 

 accordingly. From the outset the four 

 agencies recognized that additional 

 clarification and/or changes might be 

 required. 



Accordingly, in May 1990, the 

 agencies initiated an evaluation of the 

 1989 manual, which consisted of several 

 steps: 



1. Formal field testing was conducted 

 by the Environmental Protection Agency 

 to evaluate the sampling protocols of the 

 1989 manual (Sipple and Da Via 1990); 



2. Reviews by agency field staff using 

 the 1989 manual; 



3. To afford the public the opportunity 

 to comment on the technical aspects of 

 the 1989 manual, public meetings were 

 held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 

 Sacramento, California. St Paul. 

 Minnesota, and Baltimore, Meiryland; 

 and 



4. Written comments on the technical 

 aspects of the 1989 manual were also 

 accepted subsequent to the meetings to 

 give the pubfic ample opportimity to 

 express any concerns. More than 500 

 letters were received and reviewed. 



The technical comments were 

 reviewed by the four agencies and 

 considered for incorporation into a 

 revised manual The agencies concluded 

 that while the manual represented a 

 substantial improvement over pre- 

 existing approaches, several key issues 

 needed to be re-examined and clarified. 

 Some of the key technical issues 

 needing re-examination were: (1) The 

 wetiand hydrology criterion. (2) the use 

 of hydric soil for delineating the wetiand 

 boundary, (3) the assumption that 

 facultative vegetation indicated wetiand 

 hydrology, and (4) the open-ended 

 natiufl of the determination process 

 which created opportimities for misuse. 



The wetiand hydrology criterion in the 

 1989 manual included a series of 

 requirements related to specific soil 

 types (soil drainage classes). Looking for 

 water tables at various depths 

 depending on soil drainage class was 

 confusing, especially since properties 

 associated with soil drainage classes 

 are not standardized across the country. 

 The National Technical Committee for 

 Hydric SoUs (NTCHS) criteria for 

 defining hydric soils were adopted in 

 the 1989 manual. The hydric soil 

 criterion included wetiand hydrology 

 requirements to identify those soils wet 

 enough to be hydria In adopting the 

 NTCHS hydric soU criteria, tiie 1989 

 manual retained the hydrology 

 requirements under its hydric soil 

 criterion and also in effect repeated 

 them as the wetiand hydrology criterion. 

 This clearly gave the impression of a 

 less than three criteria approach to 

 wetiand identification. 



Perhaps the issue that engendered the 

 most concern over potential misuse of 

 the 1989 manual involved the use of 

 hydric soils for wetiand identification 

 and delineation. Since the 1989 manual 

 included wetiand hydrology 

 requirements within the hydric soil 

 criterion, and the delineation methods 

 relied on hydric soil properties to 

 delineate the weticmd boimdary. some 

 users got the impression that the 1989 

 manual was not based on three 

 mandatory criteria, but rather based 

 solely on one criterion — the hydric soil 



