Tulsa District Regulatory Permits for Public Comment

PURPOSE:  The purpose of these public notices are to inform you of a proposal for work in which you might be interested and to solicit your comments and information to better enable us to make a reasonable decision on factors affecting the public interest.

SECTION 10: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is directed by Congress through Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 (33 USC 403) to regulate all work or structures in or affecting the course, condition, or capacity of navigable waters of the United States.  The intent of this law is to protect the navigable capacity of waters important to interstate commerce.

SECTION 404: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is directed by Congress through Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (33 USC 1344) to regulate the discharges of dredged and fill material into all waters of the United States.  These waters include lakes, rivers, streams, mudflats, sandflats, sloughs, wet meadows, natural ponds, and wetlands adjacent to other waters.  The intent of the law is to protect these waters from the indiscriminate discharge of material capable of causing pollution and to restore and maintain their chemical, physical, and biological integrity.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District

Regulatory Office, Chief

918-669-7400

 

SWT-2017-47

Published May 11, 2017
Expiration date: 6/10/2017

Location:  The proposed project is in a rural area of Payne County, Oklahoma, approximately 3.25 miles southeast from the city of Cushing, immediately north of the Payne and Lincoln Counties line.  The site is in a highly developed industrial area generally surrounded by similar large storage tanks and is centered at approximately North Latitude 35.945839, West Longitude 96.727150.  The project site may also be found on the North Village, Oklahoma, 7.5 Minute USGS Quadrangle map.

Purpose:  The basic purpose of this work is to safely construct a total of six new large crude oil storage tanks and required ancillary industrial equipment on a cleared flat site. Construction of one tank would permanently impact jurisdictional aquatic features.  The proposed project is not a water dependent activity.

Some site construction continues in upland areas, although work potentially impacting aquatic features has stopped pending results of this permitting action.  The project as proposed would permanently impact jurisdictional waters of the United States.

Nomenclature presented in the proponent’s submittal (and in enclosures accompanying this Public Notice) describing permanent impacts to jurisdictional aquatic features associated with unnamed ephemeral tributaries to Cottonwood Creek are (i) Wet-04, a PEM wetland, 0.03 acre; and (ii) Wet-05, a PEM wetland, 0.05 acre.  Similarly, permanent impacts to waterbodies all described as being unnamed ephemeral tributaries to Cottonwood Creek are presented as being stream segments (iii) WW-01A, 316 linear feet and 0.03 acre; (iv) WW-01B, 5 linear feet and effectively 0 acre; (v) WW- 01-Segment #1, 256 feet and 0.02 acre; and (vi) WW-01-Segment #2 at 1,401 feet and 0.10 acre. Wet-03, a PEM wetland, 0 acre impact, was identified within the review area and was determined to suffer no permanent impact.

The overall purpose of this work is to place fill material into both the wetlands associated with and the unnamed tributaries to Cottonwood Creek in order to provide a cleared flat area large enough to safely construct one of six total large crude oil storage tanks. The planned outcome of the proposed project would result in filling a total jurisdictional aquatic area of approximately 1,978 linear feet of ephemeral tributaries representing an area of 0.15-acre and an additional 0.08 acre of wetland.

Description of Work:  The applicant proposes to place approximately 556 cubic yards of native material obtained from onsite excavation into both the wetlands associated with and the unnamed ephemeral tributaries themselves to Cottonwood Creek below its OHWM.  The total permanent impact to six different aquatic features is approximately 0.23 acre and 1,978 linear feet.  Fill material is expected to be acquired from on-site excavation as the entire project area is cleared and made flat suitable for heavy construction.  A majority of the fill material is planned to be available onsite as the stormwater detention basin is excavated.