re: How to determine if property is wetlands?

You will pay a pretty penny to have a consultant do a delineation.

Best bet is to find someone that used to do it that will do a preliminary look for free. I do those every now and then.

As for NRCS, that depends on the property. If it was ever in AG production, it will hage a determination. Depending on how old it is, it may be valid, it may not for Corps of Engineers purposes. NRCS determinations are for food security act compliance, so it could be 15 years old and still be good in their eyes.

With the Corps, that isn't the same story. A jurisdictional determination is only valid for 5 years.

Also, anyone that just looks at a map or soils map and tells you its wet or nonwet is doing you a disservice. There are very few instances where you can make a determination based on maps and soils solely, and those are typically things like marshes, swamps, etc. At best, they SHOULD only be telling you if it potentially has wetlands.

That's just my opinion, but that is the way I always worked with customers. Maps only tell you so much, and even NRCS will tell you field data should be taken to confirm soils. You can expand that to plants and hydrology as well. You need all 3 for a wetland.