A permitted crossing in Central Texas. This is typically accomplished through a couple of different nationwide permits. Along with permits come permit conditions, and some of those are visible here: appropriate erosion and sediment controls. Any permit must satisfy all of its conditions.
A Section 404 permit is the authorization you need from the US Army Corps of Engineers before you put dredged or fill material into jurisdictional waterbodies, otherwise known as Waters of the United States (WOTUS). Most projects try to fit within the limits of a nationwide permit, which takes four to seven months. Projects with larger impacts go through an individual permit that may take one to two years.
Those are our numbers, from our files. The Corps publishes shorter ones, and we will show you both, because the distance between them is where projects actually lose time.
We have been helping people obtain permits in the southern US since 2002. Here is when you need one, which kind you are likely to get, and what sets the clock.
What is a Section 404 permit?
It is written authorization from the US Army Corps of Engineers to discharge dredged or fill material into Waters of the United States, under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.
You will usually see it written as Section 404/10. The 10 is Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which covers work in navigable waters (think big rivers and coastal waters) and travels with the 404 on a lot of projects. You may have 404 waters adjacent to Section 10 waters in the same project area. One application, two permit vehicles, and the Corps evaluates both.
The thing to pay attention to is what triggers it. It is not proximity to water. It is not disturbing a wetland. It is the discharge of dredged or fill material into a regulated water. Grading a slope next to a creek may not require a permit, but placing a culvert in that creek will require a permit.
When is a Section 404 permit required?
Any time your project will place dredged or fill material into WOTUS. In practice that covers most crossings, most impoundments, and most site work that touches a drainage. Even if your impacts are temporary, they may require notification and/or authorization from the USACE.
The activities that come up on our projects over and over:
- Culverts, bridges and low water crossings at creeks and drainages
- Pipeline and utility crossings, whether trenched or bored, depending on where the spoil and the workspace go
- Road embankments and pads that extend into a wet area
- Any impoundment (ponds and tanks, a small lake and the like) built in a channel
- Bank stabilization and channel work
- Site grading that fills a swale, a slough or a wetland fringe
Some work is exempt by statute, including normal farming, ranching and silviculture activities that are part of an ongoing operation. Those exemptions are narrower than people assume and they fall away the moment the purpose of the work changes, which is what catches landowners converting ranch land to something else.
WOTUS don’t have to be wet to be regulated, so the question is never “is there water here.” It is “am I putting material into it.” Those are different questions with different answers, and only one of them needs a permit.
You cannot answer either one without knowing where the jurisdictional boundary sits, which is why a wetland delineation comes first. Everything on this page assumes you already know what is regulated on your site.
Which authorization will your project fall under?
Either a nationwide permit, which covers defined categories of activity with minimal impacts, or an individual permit, which is everything else. The thresholds in the nationwide permits decide which one you get, and your design decides whether you meet them.
That threshold is usually acreage. Most of the commonly used nationwide permits cap impacts at half an acre per single and complete project. Stay under it and you are in the fast lane. Go over it, or trip one of the other limits, and you are in a different process with a different timescale.
| Nationwide permit | Individual permit | |
|---|---|---|
| What puts you here | Your activity matches a listed category and stays inside its limits, commonly half an acre | You exceed a limit, your activity has no matching category, or the district decides the impacts are more than minimal |
| What you submit | A pre-construction notification, where the permit or the district requires one. There are projects that can be done under a non-reporting nationwide permit. | A full application, ENG Form 4345, with an alternatives analysis and a mitigation plan |
| What the public does | Nothing. There is no public notice | Comments. A public notice goes out and anyone can respond |
| What decides it | Whether your impacts stay within the limit, and whether you can comply with all regional and general conditions | The 404(b)(1) Guidelines plus a public interest review |
| What we see it take | 4 to 7 months | 1 to 2 years |
The full comparison of permit types across the whole regulatory sequence sits in our environmental permitting hub. What matters here is narrower: the half-acre line is a design number, not a paperwork number. Moving a crossing thirty feet, narrowing a workspace, or boring instead of trenching can be the difference between four months and two years, and those decisions get made by an engineer long before anyone opens a permit file.
What is nationwide permit 12, and does it cover your pipeline?
NWP 12 is the nationwide permit for oil and natural gas pipeline activities. It remains the primary route for pipeline work in the 2026 package, and it caps impacts at half an acre per single and complete project.
Two things about it are worth knowing.
Not all Corps districts treat the “single and complete crossing” the same. Some consider every stream crossing to be a single and complete project, unless the pipeline crosses the same stream multiple times. Other districts add up each stream crossing cumulatively, which will put you in an individual permit situation quickly. Regardless, minimize your impacts at each crossing, and know which district you are working in. It can be the difference between efficient permitting and not-so-efficient permitting.
The Corps has told you where its authority stops. In finalizing the 2026 permits, the Corps clarified that its jurisdiction is limited to the Ordinary High Water Mark of the channel or the wetland/upland interface. It does not involve your upland routing decisions. That is a useful thing to have in writing when a consultation starts drifting into redesigning your whole alignment.
The 2026 nationwide permits took effect on 15 March 2026 and run through 15 March 2031. There are 57 of them. We covered what changed in the reissuance when it landed.
How long does a Section 404 permit take?
Four to seven months for a nationwide permit, longer if the project is high visibility or has public opposition. One to two years for an individual permit. The Corps publishes shorter figures, and the difference is worth understanding.
| What the Corps publishes | What we see | |
|---|---|---|
| Nationwide General Permits | About 3 weeks on average | 4 to 7 months |
| Individual permits | 2 to 3 months from a complete application | 1 to 2 years |
| Public Notice | Issued within 15 days of a complete application, with a 15 to 30 day comment period | Whenever they have it ready. The comment period is 30 days, but agencies are often given an extension at the end of it that pushes the deadline back another 10 to 15 days. Then the comments have to be processed, which can drag on, especially on projects with a lot of opposition or that are not seen as environmentally friendly, or needed. |
Both sets of numbers are honest. They measure different things.
The Corps clock starts at a complete application. Ours starts when a client first asks. In between sits the work that makes an application complete: the delineation, the jurisdictional determination, the species and cultural surveys, the alternatives analysis, the mitigation plan. If you are asking for an approved jurisdictional determination, expect delays, even if you request it with the permit application.
Then there are the things running alongside it that can hold the permit whatever the Corps does. State water quality certification under Section 401. Endangered Species Act consultation. Section 106 review for cultural resources. A 404 permit does not issue ahead of the slowest of those. This is important to know.
Nobody is waiting two years for the Corps to read a form. They are waiting two years because there is a whole host of other considerations that should have been dealt with during the planning phase.
What about the 45 day rule?
Under the nationwide permit general conditions, the district engineer has 45 calendar days from receipt of a complete pre-construction notification. If nothing comes back in writing in that time, you may generally proceed.
It is a real provision and it is worth knowing. It is also the most over-read sentence in the general conditions.
The clock only starts on a complete PCN, and completeness is the district’s call, not yours. An incomplete submission does not pause the clock, it never starts it. And the provision carves out the situations that cover a large share of Texas projects: where endangered species may be affected, where historic properties may be affected, and for certain nationwide permits outright.
In our experience the 45 days is not something to use, think about or bank on. It is just a number that distracts people. The best approach is to get a complete application package in right off the bat, and to work as closely as possible with the Corps project manager to help the process along.
Plan around the possibility that the district comes back asking for more, because that is the normal outcome, not the exception.
Why does the Corps district matter so much?
Because every district runs its own workload, its own staffing and its own reading of marginal features, and the same file can move in one and sit in another.
This is the part that surprises people who have permitted in another state. The statute is federal and the nationwide permits are national, but they are administered district by district, each with its own regional conditions layered on top. A crossing that clears without comment in one district draws a request for additional information in the next.
What that means practically is that experience is district-specific. Knowing what a district expects to see in a submission, what it has flagged on similar projects, and who is going to read the file, is a real part of how quickly you get an answer. That is not a shortcut. It is fewer rounds of correction, which is the only kind of speed available in this process.
If your project is in a well known environmentally sensitive area, might be controversial, or is likely to draw public opposition, ask the Corps for a pre-application meeting so you can gather as much information up front as possible. It prepares you to collect anything extra that might help the Corps permitting process, and the other agencies, and it lets you collect the right type and amount of field data to quiet the opposition (and the Corps). An hour spent finding out what they want to see is worth more than a month of guessing at it.
What gets a 404 application sent back?
Almost always one of six things, and all six are avoidable.
- A delineation that will not hold up. Thin data forms, boundaries that do not follow the three criteria (vegetation, soils and hydrology), calls the district cannot verify.
- Impact numbers that do not reconcile. The acreage in the narrative, the acreage in the tables and the acreage on the drawings have to be the same number.
- An alternatives analysis that was written after the design was locked. It reads that way, and reviewers know it.
- No real avoidance or minimization. You have to show you avoided what you could and minimized what you could not, in that order, before compensation is even on the table.
- Survey methodology that does not follow the Corps Manual.
- Mitigation left as a placeholder. “Mitigation to be determined” is not a mitigation plan.
Every one of those will result in delays. That is the whole reason an experienced submission is cheaper than a cheap one.
What about mitigation?
Compensation is the last step, not the first. The 404(b)(1) Guidelines require that you avoid what you can, minimize what you cannot avoid, and compensate only for what is impacted.
The standard behind that sequence is strict, and it applies to both permit types. No discharge can be authorized if a practicable alternative exists that is less damaging to the aquatic environment, or if the nation’s waters would be significantly degraded.
Where compensation is required, it is usually credits from an approved mitigation bank, or permittee-responsible mitigation you build and monitor yourself. Bank credits are simpler and the price is the price. Permittee-responsible mitigation is a long-term obligation with monitoring and reporting attached to it, and it outlives the construction schedule by years. But sometimes permittee-responsible mitigation is the only option, when banks are not available in your project area or watershed.
The reason avoidance keeps coming up is arithmetic. A crossing you designed around costs a design revision. A crossing you mitigate costs credits, a plan, a monitoring period and the time to negotiate all three. What the permitting work itself costs is in the permitting hub.
Who should prepare it?
Someone who has had files come back and knows why.
A 404 application is not a form-filling exercise. It is an argument, supported by field data, that the impact is what you say it is and that you could not reasonably have made it smaller. The people who get those through efficiently are the ones who have had one rejected and learned what the reviewer was actually asking for.
We do the whole sequence in house: due diligence, agency coordination, delineation, data processing and reporting, the permit application and its supporting documentation, alternatives analysis, mitigation planning, and construction inspection and monitoring during the project. One firm the whole way, which matters on a 404 application because the delineation and the impact tables and the mitigation plan all have to tell the same story, and they rarely do when three vendors wrote them.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a Section 404 permit take?
Four to seven months for a nationwide permit, longer if the project is high visibility or has public opposition. One to two years for an individual permit. The Corps publishes shorter figures, about three weeks for general permits and two to three months for individual permits, but those clocks start at a complete application, and getting to complete is most of the wait.
When is a 404 permit required?
When your project will discharge dredged or fill material into Waters of the United States (WOTUS), even temporarily. Being near water is not the trigger. Putting material into it is. Culverts, crossings, embankments into wet ground, in-channel impoundments and site grading that fills a swale are the usual ones.
What is the difference between Section 404 and Section 10?
Section 404 of the Clean Water Act covers discharges of dredged or fill material into Waters of the United States. Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act covers work in navigable waters. Many projects need both, which is why you see the authorization written as Section 404/10.
Does nationwide permit 12 still cover pipelines?
Yes. NWP 12 remains the primary nationwide permit for oil and natural gas pipeline activities in the 2026 package, capped at half an acre per single and complete project. Corps districts differ on whether each stream crossing counts on its own or all crossings add up toward that limit, so know which district you are in.
Can I start work if the Corps does not respond to my PCN?
The general conditions allow it once 45 calendar days have passed from receipt of a complete pre-construction notification with no written response, but there are carve-outs, including where endangered species or historic properties may be affected and for certain nationwide permits. The clock also only starts once the district considers your submission complete. Do not plan around it. Submit a complete package and work closely with the Corps project manager.
What happens if I fill a wetland without a permit?
It is an enforcement matter, and the usual outcome is a stop work order, an after-the-fact permit application on the agency’s terms rather than yours, and restoration. After the fact is the most expensive way to do this, because every option that would have saved you money has already been built over.
Find out which permit you are in before the design is fixed
Which side of the half-acre line your project lands on is a design decision, and it is usually still open when people first call us. Once the drawings are stamped, it is not.
If you have a crossing coming up in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas or Louisiana, tell us what it looks like and we will tell you what you are facing. If you do not need us we will say that too. Everything you share stays confidential.
Whitenton Group · 512-353-3344 · info@whitentongroup.com
