PERMFILE125708

• Permit No: M1998038
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Date: 5/22/1998
• From: DEPT OF THE ARMY
• To: DMG
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

.; .
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demonstrate the inadequacy of a 100-foot buffer and a long-term
problem with locating gravel pits near large rivers. Possible
adverse impacts from river breaches into gravel pits include
headcuts, upstream bridge pier undermining, and downstream bank
erosion. Mining companies' responses to the threat or occurrence
of a breach have typically been to hard line the river banks or
channelize the river. These actions can in turn affect flooding
and erosion patterns in the treated reach and in adjacent
reaches, creating a domino effect where other landowners then
respond by treating their section of the river.
If you canno*_ disallow pits in the lowlands, ~.ve urge you to
require nonstructural conditions including locating any pits much
further away from both rivers than 100 feet (ideally they would
be located outside the meander paths) so that a portion of the
buffers would remain when either river erodes, increasing native
tree and shrub densities in the buffer zones with dense plantings
of willow and cottonwood, protecting existing or planted
vegetation by prohibiting stockpiling and roads within the
buffers, and protecting vegetation by permanently prohibiting
grazing or other conflicting land uses within the buffers.
Although a mine pit may originally be located on uplands
where the Corps of Engineers has no jurisdiction, once either of
the rivers breaches into a pit, repairing the breach or treating
the river bank requires a Section 404 permit. In these cases
when our jurisdiction does not occur until after mining pits are
in place and buffers have been lost, we are precluded from
requiring the use of the earlier mentioned nonstructural
conditions.
The applicant should also be aware that waterfilled
depressions created in dry land incidental to construction
activities or pits excavated in dry land for the purpose of
obtaining, fill, sand, or gravel are generally not considered to
be waters of the United States until the pit is no longer used
for obtaining fill. At that time, waterfilled depressions may be
considered a water of the United States and the placement of
dredged or fill material into the pit may be regulated.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to write or
call me at [phone].
Sincerel
G~
Anita E. Culp
Senior Project Manager