(Contingent effective date – See note) 1.    Except as otherwise provided by this chapter, no person may discharge dredged or fill material into waters of the state unless that person has a permit from the department of water resources. No person may discharge dredged or fill material in violation of a permit. A permit is not required for:

a.    The discharge of dredged or fill material when an activity is authorized by a general permit issued pursuant to section 61-38-06; b.    Normal farming, silviculture, and ranching activities such as plowing, seeding, cultivating, minor drainage, harvesting for the production of food, fiber, and forest products, or upland soil and water conservation practices; c.    Maintenance, including emergency reconstruction of recently damaged parts, of currently serviceable structures such as dikes, dams, levies, groins, riprap, breakwaters, causeways, bridge abutments or approaches, and transportation structures, which does not change the character, scope, or size of the original fill design; d.    Construction or maintenance of farm or stock ponds or irrigation ditches or the maintenance of drainage ditches; e.    Construction of temporary sedimentation basins on a construction site that does not include placement of fill material into waters of the state; f.    Construction or maintenance of farm roads or forest roads, or temporary roads for moving mining equipment, where the roads are constructed and maintained, in accordance with best management practices, to assure flow and circulation patterns and chemical and biological characteristics of the waters of the state are not impaired, the reach of the waters of the state is not reduced, and any adverse effect on the aquatic environment will be otherwise minimized; or

g.    The placement of fill material associated with activities the state regulates by requiring best management practices under chapter 61-28.

2.    Any discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the state incidental to any of the activities identified in subdivisions a through g of subsection 1 must have a permit if it is part of an activity with the purpose of converting an area of waters of the state into a use to which it was not previously subject, where the flow or circulation of waters of the state may be impaired or the reach of such waters reduced, or if the discharge contains a toxic pollutant. Where the proposed discharge will result in significant discernible alterations to flow or circulation, the presumption is flow or circulation may be impaired by the alteration.