Fiscal year 1981 (October 1980- September 1981) was the first year the National Marine Fisheries Service quantified the cumulative acreage of habitat involved in the Corps of Engineers permit program in the Southeast Region of the United States. NMFS made recommendations on 1,380 permit applications involving 17,969 acres. Of that total, 18 percent was proposed for dredging, 36 percent for filling, and 46 percent for impounding. NMFS did not object to alteration of 4,598 acres, recommended against altering 13,371 acres, and recommended that 3,324 acres either be restored or modified from upland habitat to mitigate the losses that were permitted. NMFS recommendations were incorporated into permits in 98 percent of the cases. Compliance with permit conditions ranged from 100 percent in the Charleston and Savannah Districts to 36 percent in the Mobile District. Because NMFS recommendations are based heavily on state-of-the-art information provided by its research laboratories, the relationship between the NMFS Southeast Regional Office and Southeast Fisheries Center laboratories is discussed briefly.