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The United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) published a June 10th Notice to the Federal Register announcing the availability of the final 2019 National Wetland Plant List (“NWPL”). See 84 Fed. Reg. 26824.

The Corps developed a 2019 NWPL as part of an interagency effort with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the United States of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The NWPL is used to determine whether the hydrophytic vegetation parameter is met when conducting wetland delineations under the Clean Water Act and Wetland Conservation Provisions of the Food Security Act.

Wetlands are a subset of Clean Water Act waters of the United States. Three parameters are required to be addressed in the Corps and other agencies’ delineation of wetlands:

• Wetland plants (hydrophytic vegetation)
• Wetland soil (hydric soil)
• Adequate water (wetland hydrology)

During a wetland delineation, a project area is surveyed to determine whether the three criteria are present.

Additions, or deletions, to the NWPL are stated to represent new records, range extensions, nomenclatural and taxonomic changes, and newly proposed species.

A copy of the Federal Register Notice can be downloaded here.