Wetlands Board

Responsibilities

The Middlesex County Wetlands Board reviews requests for permits for the use, alteration or development of tidal wetlands, and enforces the regulation of the Middlesex County Wetlands Ordinance and the Coastal Primary Sand Dunes and Beaches ordinance.

Jurisdiction

The Board's jurisdiction concerns non-vegetated tidal wetlands between mean low water and mean high water, and vegetated tidal wetlands from mean low water to an elevation one and one-half times the mean tide range beach jurisdictional concerns extend from the low water line landward to where there is a marked change in either material composition or physiographic form such as a dune, bluff, or marsh, or where no such change can be identified, to the line of woody vegetation, (usually the effective limit of storm waves), or the nearest impermeable man-made structure, such as a bulkhead, revetment, or paved road.

Coastal Primary Sand Dune jurisdictional concerns are from a mound of unconsolidated sandy soil which is contiguous to mean high water, whose landward and lateral limits are marked by a change in grade from ten percent or greater to less than ten percent.

Army Corp Joint Permit Application (JPA)

There are two different Joint Permit Applications available for use depending on the type of activity that you are proposing.

The JPAs include detailed instructions on how to apply. If you propose to impact tidal waters, or wetlands, or dunes/beaches in the Tidewater area of Virginia, you may be eligible to use the Tidewater JPA, an abbreviated version of the Joint Permit Application. Activities eligible to use the Tidewater JPA include: