such things as "the propagation of fish and wildlife, recreational purposes, and . . . other 

 purposes."** Because of the broad authority granted by the Congress to the States to 

 adopt water quality standards pursuant to Section 303 of the CWA, and because 

 compliance with Section 303 is clearly one of the bases on which a State can deny 

 certification, the States can avoid the difficulty of the deny/condition dilemma by 

 adopting water standards that include all the water quality related considerations it 

 wishes to include in the 401 certification review. 



For example, the State of Washington has included State water right permit flow 

 requirements in its conditions for certification of a dam project. This is one means of 

 helping to ensure that hydrological changes do not adversely affect the quality of a 

 waterbody. However, a more direct approach is to include a narrative criterion in the 

 State's water quality standards that requires maintenance of base flow necessary to 

 protect the wetland's (or other waterbody's) living resources. The State of Kentucl^ has 

 such a criterion in its water quality standards (see previous section IV. D(l) on "Using 

 Narrative Criteria"). Placing the provision directly in the State standards might better 

 serve the State if a certification is chaUenged because the requirement would be an 

 explicit consideration of 401 certification. 



C Special Considerations for Review of Section 404 Permits: Nationwide and 

 After-the-Fact Permits 



1. Nationwide Permits. 



Pursuant to Section 404(e) of the CWA, the Corps may issue general permits, 

 after providing notice and an opportunity for a hearing, on a State, regional or 

 nationwide basis for any category of activities involving discharges of dredged or fiU 

 material, where such activities are similar in nature and will cause only minimal adverse 

 environmental effects both individually and cumulatively. These permits may remain in 

 effect for 5 years, after which they must be reissued with notice and an opportimity for 

 a hearing. If the activities authorized by general permits may result in a discharge, the 

 permits are subject to the State water quali^ certification requirement when they are 

 first proposed and when proposed for reissuance. States may either grant certification 

 with appropriate conditions or deny certification of these permits. 



Under the Corps' regulations, if a State has denied certification of any particular 

 general permit, any person proposing to do work pursuant to such a permit must first 

 obtain State water quali^ certification. If a State has conditioned the grant of 

 certification upon some requirement of State review prior to the activity's commencing, 

 such condition[s] must be satisfied before work can begin. 



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