Nationwide Permit 28 authorizes the reconfiguration of existing docking facilities within an authorized marina area. This permit is specifically designed to allow marina operators to rearrange their internal layout to better accommodate vessel needs or improve operational efficiency . The scope is strictly limited to modifications of the existing structural footprint. This NWP does not authorize any dredging, the addition of new slips, the creation of extra dock spaces, or any expansion of the marina's outer boundaries into waters of the United States. Because it only applies to structures and work in navigable waters, it operates solely under the authority of Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act.
The 2026 reissuance of NWP 28 contains no substantive changes to its national terms or conditions compared to the 2021 version. The Corps of Engineers reevaluated the permit's individual and cumulative effects and determined that the existing qualitative limitations remain sufficient to ensure that authorized reconfigurations result in no more than minimal adverse environmental impacts . While the regulatory text remains identical, the supporting decision document has been updated with current environmental baseline data. This includes information from modern national assessments, such as the 2022 National Lakes Assessment and the 2021 National Wetland Condition Assessment, to ensure the impact analysis is grounded in the most recent available ecological science.
Marina owners, facility managers, and maritime contractors use this permit to update their internal layouts. It is essential for commercial or public marinas that need to rearrange floating or fixed docks within their existing permitted boundaries without increasing the number of slips or dredging the bottom.
The Corps determined that reissuing NWP 28 has 'no effect' on federally-listed endangered or threatened species or their critical habitat. This is because General Condition 18 ensures that no specific activity is authorized if it 'may affect' listed resources until a project-specific Section 7 consultation with the USFWS or NMFS is completed . Compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is maintained through General Condition 20, which triggers review if an activity has the potential to affect historic properties. For Essential Fish Habitat (EFH), district engineers retain the authority to apply regional or case-specific conditions to ensure that internal structural changes within a marina do not cause more than minimal adverse effects to sensitive aquatic environments.
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