Whatever region of the United States you’re in, wetland consultants are a dime a dozen. This includes the one-man show all the way up to a Fortune 500 company. All promise the same things: to complete your project in a timely fashion and under budget with an approved jurisdictional determination (JD) and/or wetland permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). But do all consultants yield the same results?

湿地顾问被开发商，房地产所有者，工程公司，商业和工业客户聘用，提供了许多服务，包括湿地描绘，湿地允许和缓解援助。雷电竞首页湿地顾问应对清水法（CWA）的潜在湿地和水域的潜在湿地和水域的潜水行为（CWA）的要求密切熟悉。合格的湿地顾问应该了解国家和当地监管的课程，他们也在湿地和Wotus上有管辖权。例如，路易斯安那州沿海地区包括路易斯安那自然资源部（LDNR）和军团的管辖权。相应的机构也包括某些南部教区内的个人沿海管理机构。

最近改变了Wotus的联邦法规最近改变并影响了哪些溪流和湿地在CWA下受到监管。新政府意味着可以修订这些规则。行业和发展的实际含义是，在CWA下的兵团和环境保护局（EPA）规范了一些湿地和水资源同样，有些是不受欢迎的。湿地和水平二人或可能不会被国家法规同时监管，有时候是当地条例。工程师的兵团（以及相关的国家机构），必须寻找影响测序的证据，即努力避免并尽量减少许可证申请中对湿地的影响，并在能够为不可避免的湿地影响施用许可证之前。有能力的湿地顾问可以帮助浏览这些法规，并提供全面的湿地报告，以促进湿地影响的高效允许。

The right consultant will also work interactively with a client to help them understand permit requirements and suggest ways to design or reconfigure proposed projects for efficient permitting. If a permit application doesn’t show a good-faith effort to minimize or avoid impacts and explain why proposed impacts are unavoidable, it may be rejected. If that happens, a project redesign could be costly and add months onto a project schedule and delay construction.

Additionally, final determination of regulatory status is made by regulatory agencies (such as the Corps), but for an agency to make a determination, they will need a clear description of all wetlands with reference to appropriate technical criteria. For example, defining a wetland depends on specific criteria for vegetation, hydrology, and soils. The next step to determine if a wetland is regulated under the CWA is to consider the context of that wetland. If it formed incidentally in a low area that was abandoned after mining an upland, it would not be a jurisdictional wetland under the Navigable Waters Protection Rule that took effect in June 2020. Alternatively, if a naturally occurring wetland is adjacent to a stream that is a tributary to a downstream navigable water, that wetland is regulated if the stream’s flow regime is perennial or intermittent. If the stream is an ephemeral stream, the wetland is not regulated under current federal regulations. The determination of whether a stream is perennial, intermittent, or ephemeral relies on another suite of technical criteria. The right consultant can properly execute a wetland delineation and an appropriately written delineation report – two elements that are critical for timely determination of regulatory status.

顾问预计将编制征求陆战队和/或其他司法管辖区的划分报告。德国机构和宪兵可以使用划分报告，以及项目区的国家水域或湿地的文件。湿地报告包括在现场访问期间收集的所有数据，并总结了湿地描绘的调查结果。一般而言，湿地描绘报告的内容包括对湿地水文，植被，土壤描述，湿地/ Wotus的类型/种植面积的讨论，这将受到影响，并支持湿地数据表，数字和地图等文件。但是，一些军团区对湿地描绘报告的要求和/或如何在现场收集数据。例如，新奥尔良，奥马哈，圣保罗和加尔维斯顿区具有明确的要求，在审查任何湿地报告之前需要随访。

Wetland consultants only partly rely on what’s readily available in terms of published online data. These could include historical topographic maps, National Wetland Inventory (NWI) maps, infrared and historical aerials, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, and other data published by the U.S. Geological Survery (USGS), the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to name a few. It is easy to access some wetland and stream maps online through the National Wetland Inventory, by locating hydric soils in the Web Soil Survey, or streams via the National Hydrography Dataset. However, these map products are created through remote sensing and interpretation of aerial photographs and topographic maps. While they are good resources for desktop planning, they cannot substitute for an onsite wetland delineation conducted by an experienced wetland consultant.

The delineation process doesn’t stop when a wetland report is complete. A wetland consultant will help shepherd a delineation through ajurisdictional determinationprocess with the Corps and other local and state agencies. As mentioned previously, some wetlands are not regulated under the CWA. A Preliminary Jurisdictional Determination (PJD) is completed when the professional opinion of the wetland consultant is that all delineated wetlands and streams are jurisdictional under the CWA. It is the fastest determination by the Corps. An Approved Jurisdictional Determination (AJD) is recommended when some or all the delineated wetlands or streams are not jurisdictional. Although the Corps has the final say on jurisdictional status when they issue a jurisdictional determination, a good wetland consultant can help facilitate that determination by recognizing the relevant technical criteria in the field and appropriately documenting them in a delineation report.

In summary, it is important that a wetland consultant be well-versed in both education and experience conducting wetland delineations, and be very savvy about what is required by the local, state and federal regulatory agencies as well. The wetland consultant should have positive relations with personnel from all the agencies involved with the review process. Braun Intertec has numerous wetland biologists with over 50 years of combined service and has experience working in the following states with state-level wetland and waterbody regulation: Louisiana, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Florida. Braun Intertec also has experience working in the following states where no state-level wetland regulations but waters of the state are regulated: Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota, Arizona.

Want to know more? Register for our webinar, Wading through the Swamp: Wetlands, Endangered Species, and Environmental Assessments, on February 25th with wetlands and ecology specialists, Daniel DeJoode, Ph.D. and Brady Turk. They will discuss how to navigate these regulatory areas to propel you to successful project completion.