Electronic Submittal Instructions

On Wednesday, November 20, 2019, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), Fort Worth District, Regulatory Division, transitioned to paperless/electronic submittals as our primary means of accepting applications. This includes, but is not limited to: pre-application meeting requests, applications for Section 404 Clean Water Act and Section 10 Rivers and Harbors Act Individual Permits (Standard Permits and Letters of Permission), Pre-Construction Notifications for use of Nationwide or Regional General Permits, Regional General Permits, Aquatic Resource Delineation Reviews and Jurisdictional Determinations, and mitigation proposals (mitigation banks and permittee responsible mitigation plans), and also includes documentation required for compliance actions for projects that have already been authorized, and information regarding unauthorized work within waters of the United States.

Applicants/Consultants should email CESWF-Permits@usace.army.mil to submit all initial application materials or jurisdictional determinations. See below for detailed instructions on the format for submittals.

For Compliance actions, including Permit Compliance Certificates and monitoring reports, or to report unauthorized activities in waters of the United States, you may contact the Fort Worth District Regulatory office by emailing CESWF-Compliance@usace.army.mil

To submit your projects to the Fort Worth District Regulatory Division Office, the electronic PDF submittals need to comply with the following requirements: 

  1. We encourage that initial project submittals include fields 1-9 of the "Preliminary Data Entry Sheet". If a project number is already associated with your project, this MUST be listed on the first page.
  2. Include all information as email attachments, preferably in PDF format, and avoid transmitting information in the body of the email. 
  3. All documents (aquatic resource delineations, permit applications, endangered species biological assessments, historic properties reports, etc.) must be submitted as separate files. Do not combine all documents into one Adobe PDF file. For both initial and additional information submittals, each PDF file should be submitted using the project name and SWF project number (if already assigned) and should follow the naming conventions found below. Please do not use company project numbers or acronyms as the sole basis for the file name(s) 
  • Wetland Delineation/Jurisdictional Determination
  • Pre-Application Meeting Request
  • Application
  • Mitigation Plan
  • Cultural Resources Info
  • Endangered Species Info
  • Maps/Figures

Example: If the project you are submitting information for, i.e. Doe Subdivision, SWF-2019-00758, had a NWP application, with associated maps & figures, a mitigation plan, and ESA information, then the email submittal would be sent with 4 PDF attachments, saved as: SWF-2019-00758 Doe Subdivision NWP App.pdf, SWF-2019-00758 Doe Subdivision Maps.pdf, SWF-2019-00758 Doe Subdivision MitPlan.pdf, and SWF-2019-00758 Doe Subdivision ESA.pdf, respectively. If the project has not been assigned a SWF project number, each file must use at least the same project name.

NOTE: You are not permitted to submit initial requests to individual project manager's emails. This is to ensure that a file number is assigned to the request, and includes re-submittals or change in project type. If the project has recently been given a file number, you are permitted to submit additional information to the project manager. Furthermore, if a project manager sends you a request for additional information, please email those requests directly back to your project manager. 
*If the request asks for more information that includes Cultural Resources, please make sure that information is in a separate PDF document, and the Regulatory Archeologist is cc'd on your email reply. 

  1. Aquatic Resource/Consolidated Upload sheets must be submitted as .xlsm spreadsheet format.
  2. The majority of PDFs should be less than 30 MB in file size. Excessive engineering plans often result in unnecessarily large file sizes. Please work with your engineers to export drawings in a way that minimizes their file size. 
  3. The PDF cannot be locked or secured, and cannot contain active form fields.
  4. The PDF should be text searchable.
  5. For emails with PDF attachments larger than 30 megabytes (MB), there are several methods to send your submittal electronically:

Reduce PDF file sizes.
Send multiple emails.
Label each email with same subject line and indicate number of emails. For example:

Doe Subdivision Application, SWF-2019-00758 (1 of 2)
Doe Subdivision Application, SWF-2019-00758 (2 of 2)

Ask for a drop-off code to go through the DOD SAFE site, found at https://safe.apps.mil/.
For initial submittals, email CESWF-Permits@usace.army.mil, and for subsequent submittals for existing projects, email your specific Project Manager. You will be sent instructions on how to drop off large files from the Regulatory Division Administrative staff or your Project Manager.
Use .zip files as attachments. Combine multiple files into a .zip file to compress file size prior to adding as an email attachment.

Failure to comply with these requirements could result in a delay in processing the request.

The Fort Worth email address is owned by the administrative staff in the Fort Worth Regulatory Division Office. This inbox is not for general inquiries. The mailbox is checked daily and submissions are routed through the District’s assignment process as quickly as possible. You will receive an e-mail from the administrative staff within 5 days of submitting the request. It will include the date received, project manager assignment, and a project number. If you don't hear from the administrative staff within 5 days, you may contact the Regulatory Division Office at (817) 886-1731. Applicants and/or consultants are welcome to request a delivery and/or read receipt notification with the email submission. The read receipt notification date will correspond to our clock start / "stamped in" date.  In other words, should a requestor submit something via email after five o’clock p.m. on Friday or over the weekend and we open the email Monday morning, then our processing timeline starts Monday. 

This paperless transition will not alter the permit process. The use of electronic communications is expected to reduce transmittal delays and improve timeliness of the permit process. While electronic submittals will be the preferred method, the Corps will continue to accept paper copies of permit applications and other correspondence. The Corps will also not send hard copy correspondence (including permits or other decision letters) unless specifically requested.

Paper copies should be mailed to the Fort Worth District Office at the following address:

Regulatory Division
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
819 Taylor Street, Room 3A37
P.O. Box 17300
Fort Worth, TX 76102-0300

If you have further questions concerning this process, please contact the Regulator of the Day at 817-886-1731.