GROUNDWATER & WETLANDS

Permitted aquatic resource impacts in Utah, 2017–2021.

Wetlands provide many important functions that help protect the quality of life for all Utahns, including safeguarding our clean water and reducing flood damage. Due to their importance, the federal government regulates fill and discharge to wetlands and other aquatic resources under the Clean Water Act through a permitting program overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Permit seekers apply to USACE for authorization to impact aquatic resources and may be required to develop mitigation to offset lost functions, depending on the scope of the impact.

The UGS publishes permit data on impacts to aquatic resources in Utah. These data provide transparency about the location and amount of impacts, as well as information on required mitigation. The UGS analyzed these data in a study evaluating whether the state should develop an in-lieu fee mitigation program to ease the regulatory burden on permit seekers and fund larger mitigation projects.

The UGS obtains permit data from USACE through Freedom of Information Act requests and updates the data approximately once per year after minimal processing. The UGS makes no claims about the accuracy or completeness of the data. The data represent only impacts that require a permit—impacts to wetlands that are not regulated by the federal government (i.e., wetlands that are not Waters of the U.S.) and wetlands lost due to unregulated impacts such as dewatering are not included in this dataset.