The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers have signaled they are advancing toward a new definition of "Waters of the United States" — the legal term that sets the boundary of federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over wetlands, streams and other water bodies.

For the waste and recycling sector, that boundary is not an abstraction. It decides whether a landfill footprint, a materials recovery facility's stormwater system, a composting pad or a scrapyard's runoff controls fall under federal permitting or stay with state regulators.

The agencies have not yet published the draft regulatory text, according to the report carrying the announcement. What they have done is confirm the rulemaking process is moving — a signal that operators tracking permitting timelines should treat as a live variable.

Why does WOTUS matter to materials handlers?

Every rewrite of the definition in the past decade has shifted which sites need federal dredge-and-fill permits and which stormwater discharges face Corps and EPA scrutiny. A narrower definition pushes more of that work to state agencies; a broader one pulls it back to Washington.

For facility developers, that swing affects:

• siting reviews for new landfill cells and transfer stations near waterways;
• stormwater permitting paths for MRFs, organics operations and metal recyclers;
• compliance costs baked into project pro formas under either regime.

The takeaway: jurisdictional scope is a cost line, not a legal footnote.

What happens next?

The process now runs through the standard rulemaking sequence — draft rule, public comment, final rule, and near-certain litigation. Each stage carries its own deadline, and each deadline is the point at which the practical effect on facility permitting becomes clear.

The milestone to watch is the release of the proposed rule text itself: until EPA and the Corps put their definition on paper, the sector is planning against a rule it hasn't seen.