The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army are seeking additional public input on the proposed definition of "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) while the rulemaking process continues to advance, according to an announcement published on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers website (usace.army.mil).

The move signals that the two agencies — EPA and the Army, which share Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the nation's waters — have determined that the record around the proposed definition warrants further stakeholder engagement before the rule can move to its next procedural stage. Additional input requests of this kind typically extend the comment timeline and give regulated parties, states, tribes, and industry groups another window to submit technical and legal positions on where federal permitting jurisdiction begins and ends.

The stakes for the waste and recycling sector are concrete. The scope of WOTUS determines whether a facility's stormwater ponds, sediment basins, fill placement, or discharge points fall under federal dredge-and-fill permitting under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, which the Army Corps of Engineers administers. Materials recovery facilities, construction-and-demolition processors, composting operations, and landfill developers routinely face jurisdictional determinations when siting or expanding near ditches, wetlands, and intermittent streams — precisely the water features whose regulatory status shifts with each successive WOTUS definition.

The agencies' decision to seek additional input comes while they are advancing the rulemaking, indicating the proposed definition has not been withdrawn but is instead moving forward with an expanded record. For project developers, that means jurisdictional uncertainty persists in the interim: permitting decisions made under the current framework could be reviewed again once a revised definition is finalized and takes effect.

The announcement itself is brief, and the agencies have not detailed in it which specific elements of the proposed definition they are inviting further comment on, nor a closing date for the new input period. Those specifics are expected in the Federal Register notice accompanying the announcement.

The regulatory milestone to watch: publication of the supplemental comment period in the Federal Register, which will set the deadline for stakeholder filings and indicate whether EPA and the Army intend to revise the proposed definition before finalizing it.