Comments Needed on Public Notice Issued by the Wilmington District for Regional General Permit for Bulkheads

The Regional General Permit (RGP) for bulkheads issued by the Wilmington District of the Corps of Engineers went to public notice on March 25, 2016 with a 30 day comment period.  Here is the link. www.saw.usace.army.mil/Missions/Regulato...ublicNotices.aspxThe District has noticed essentially the same general permit that has been in effect for decades.  The new permit still does not require the selection of the best environmental alternative or pre-construction notifciation for bulkheads built in the 20 coastal counties on N.C.  The Wimington District has no record or data on the thousands of bulkhead authorizations issued over the past five years in North Carolina, and does not know how many hundreds of miles of estuarine shoreline have been walled off this permit.Since the proposed RGP does not require any written notification if a project is within the 20 coastal counties, the Wilmington District proposed to continue to rely on a General Permit issued by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management to implement its federal authorization.  This dependence on the state permit exists even though many required conditions in the federal are outside the statutory authority of State, and are significantly different than the conditions within the state's general permit.Some examples of differences between the federal RGP and state general permit for bulkheads include:  (1) the federal permit can only be used on shorelines where erosion is occurring while the state permit does not have that prohibition--the state must issue its general permit whether or not erosion is occurring; (2)the federal permit requires protection of freshwater federal jurisdictional wetlands contiguous to the shoreline while North Carolina's coastal management program only has authority to protect coastal marshes (and the 401 general certification that is issued by another state agency requires no pre-construction notification or wetland jurisdictional determinations); (3) the federal permit requires repair or removal of damaged structures while the state permit has no such requirements; and (4) the federal statutory requirements to protect endangered and threatened species which are are not within the statutory authority of North Carolina state agencies.  There is still no RGP for living shorelines offered by the Wilmington District in North Carolina.  Living shoreline projects continue to require a much more detailed review, and thus this RGP for bulkheads provides a regulatory disincentive for living shorelines.  This means that many bank stabilization projects will still select bulkheads over living shorelines even when a living shoreline alternative is clearly the best and most practical alternative, and according to the 404(b)(1) guidelines should be used.Please comment on this proposed RGP even if you aren't from North Carolina.  It is shaping national policy on living shorelines.  In particular, we need help from the scientific community to provide copies of studies and monitoring data that document that when used in the proper locations, living shorelines are the best and most practical environmental alternative.  We also need to make sure the record contains good science that documents the harm that widespread use of bulkheads do to the productivity and health of our estuaries.We will post the Coastal Federation's comments on the proposed permit when they are submitted.  Please share your comments as well.Thank you. Todd Miller