ASFPM Riverine Erosion Hazard 2016 White Paper

Over the past 15 months, Mike Kline and Rebecca Pfeiffer from our Vermont Rivers Program have been working on a riverine erosion paper with other practitioners from across the country.  The paper was recently presented to the executive committee of the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) as a Discussion Paper.  The Executive Committee thought it was so well done and connected with the paper's recommendations that they decided to adopt it as ASFPM Policy in the form of a White Paper.  You can read more about the paper here, or link directly to it from here:

http://www.floods.org/ace-images/ASFPMRiverineErosionWhitePaperFeb2016.pdf

Flood Inundation Maps & Report Released for Lake Champlain & Richelieu River

In the last post, information was provided about the draft report prepared by a working group of the International Joint Commission (IJC) about flood inundation and forecasting in the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River watershed.  The IJC is a a collaboration between the US and Canada to provide coordination, management and protection of shared watersheds. Here in Vermont, we have representatives that have been appointed to the International Lake Champlain-Richelieu River Technical Working Group.

Today, the final report that came out of the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River Technical Working Group was released.  The report, A real-time flood forecasting and flood inundation mapping system for the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River watershed, was an outcome of a 2013 comprehensive Plan of Study.

From the press release:

"The IJC endorses the TWG observation that enhanced coordination among agencies involved in real-time forecasts is necessary to support the development and maintenance of forecast models and quality-controlled joint water level predictions. The Commission endorses the TWG recommendation that a binational coordination body be mandated and funded to consolidate and synthesize flood forecasting work undertaken domestically into a single binational flood forecast. This body would also be charged with developing and disseminating consistent messaging to emergency responders and the public.

"Consequently, the new IJC report does not evaluate potential flood mitigation measures as this was outside the terms of reference provided by governments.

"The Commission reiterates its strong recommendation that governments implement the full scope of the 2013 Plan of Study (PoS) to evaluate past impacts, flood plain management practices and adaptation strategies, and to assess soft (i.e., low impact and cost) to moderate flood mitigation measures and their impacts."

An outcome of the report was a series of inundation flood maps that show the areas of the Lake Champlain and Richelieu River shorelines that would be inundated when the Lake flood waters are at a certain height. Again, from the press release:

"The inundation maps show flooding potential under different flood scenarios and are not designed for regulatory purposes. A preview of these maps is available on the IJC web site at: http://arcg.is/1MhXui2."

Please take some time to explore the inundation maps, as well as read through the final report which can be found at http://ijc.org/files/publications/Lake-Champlain-IJC-Report-to-Govts-Dec-2015-NEW.pdf 

IJC invites public comment on draft flood forecasting and mapping report for Lake Champlain and Richelieu River

IJC invites public comment on draft flood forecasting and mapping report for Lake Champlain and Richelieu River and previews flood inundation maps

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is requesting comments from the public on a draft report to enhance flood preparedness and warnings for Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River by December 10, 2015.  Specifically the IJC asks if the report’s recommendations are sound and whether the recommendations address real needs for enhanced flood preparedness and warnings for Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River.  The Commission is also inviting the public to preview the associated flood inundation maps.

Following the submission of IJC’s  July 2013 Plan of Study “The Identification of Measures to Mitigate Flooding and the Impacts of Flooding of Lake Champlain and Richelieu River” (POS), the governments of the United States and Canada asked the IJC to address two issues associated with the system wide flooding in 2011:
a. closing the gaps in the data needed for a future real-time flood forecasting and inundation mapping system, and
b. the creation of static flood inundation map products.

The IJC appointed the International Lake Champlain-Richelieu River Technical Working Group (TWG) comprised of technical experts from United States, Canada, Quebec, Vermont, and New York to address the two issues. The IJC is now inviting public comment on the TWG’s draft report Toward an operational real-time flood forecasting and flood inundation mapping system for the Lake Champlain and Richelieu River.

The TWG report includes six recommendations addressing the need to:

1. Implement an operational probabilistic approach for forecasting floods, including modelling of wind set up and wave action;
2. Keep the Henry and Grand Isle water level station to maintain water level calibration and also install wave buoys to assist in wave model calibration;
3. Institute a binational coordination body such as an IJC Board to support agencies involved in real time forecasting;
4. Acquire new bathymetric data for the Richelieu River between Sorel and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu;
5. Create a single consistent Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for the entire Lake Champlain-Richelieu River basin following the completion and quality control of LiDAR and bathymetric data acquisition; and
6. Generate static flood inundation maps for the entire Lake Champlain Richelieu River system.

The current effort has significantly advanced the creation of flood-inundation maps for the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River system. These maps provide an emergency planning tool for authorities and the general public on land that may flood during high water events. Static inundation maps were created for the Vermont side of Lake Champlain and a portion of the New York northeastern shoreline on the US side, and for the Richelieu River from the border to downstream of the Fryers Rapids on the Canadian side. A preview of these maps is available on the IJC web site at: http://arcg.is/1MhXui2 , however, the site is under construction and the text accompanying the maps is in French only at this time. A complete LiDAR Digital Elevation Model available in Canada also allowed for the representation of inundation depths for the 11 flood scenarios.  The inundation maps are not designed for regulatory purposes, but rather to show flooding potential under different conditions.  Furthermore the report does not evaluate potential flood mitigation measures as this was outside of the scope of the reference from governments.

This public comment period is being held from November 16 to December 10, at which time the IJC will consider public comments before submitting its final report to governments.


Contacts:

Nick Heisler  (English)  Ottawa 613-992-8367 Heislern@ottawa.ijc.org

Sarah Lobrichon (French)      Ottawa 613-992-5368 LobrichonS@ottawa.ijc.org

Frank Bevacqua Washington 202-736-9024 Bevacquaf@washington.ijc.org

                                             
Sarah Lobrichon
Policy and Communications Analyst | Analyste des politiques et des communications
International Joint Commission | Commission mixte internationale
234 Laurier Ave. West, 22nd Floor, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1P 6K6
234, avenue Laurier Ouest, 22e étage, Ottawa (Ontario), Canada K1P 6K6
Telephone | Téléphone 613-992-5368 / Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-993-5583

Imagine two countries sharing hundreds of lakes and rivers along their border without conflict
www.ijc.org
Imaginez deux pays qui partagent des centaines de lacs et de rivières le long de la frontière sans conflit

EPA is looking for feedback on Clean Water Act jurisdiction

Some readers may have heard a little bit about the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) creating a rule having to do with the Clean Water Act.  A few years ago, a US Supreme Court Decision made it clear that the EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) needed to clarify which streams and wetlands were under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.  The result has been a scientific literature review and a proposed rule.  With the proposed rule, not much has actually changed in what is regulated and how.  A lot of the rule is focused on clarifying that tributaries to major, navigable rivers are protected and that wetlands which are connected to downstream waters are also covered by the Clean Water Act.

Part of the update was also for EPA to expand the exemptions for agricultural production.  These exemptions are in addition the those that are already established.  There have been questions about what type of agricultural activities are going to be regulated, so the EPA has compiled facts about the proposed rule and the agricultural exemptions.  In some groups, there are concerns that too many farming activities are going to be exempted, while there has been quite a push-back from others about the new rule with the misconception that more agricultural activities are going to be regulated.  The EPA's sites are trying to clarify just what would and would not be under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.

Planning for Increasing Precipitation and Flooding

A recent article was published in the New York Times on 5/12/14 - "Looks Like Rain Again.  And Again."  In the article, the author cites past studies from 2 decades ago or earlier that predicted the changes in our climate that we are now living through, namely increased precipitation during storm events.  Long term climate data has shown that the Northeastern US has seen a dramatic increase in precipitation amounts falling during storm events.  And when there is an increase in the amount of rain or snow falling during a storm, it usually ends up resulting in a greater frequency of flooding in places that have traditionally acted as floodplains.  Another result may be that people may start to see areas that had very rarely flooded in the past flood on a somewhat regular basis.  Some of these thoughts and ideas can be seen in a New York Times blog post "Three Long Views of Life With Rising Seas" that contains 3 interviews focused on how humans may look to deal with impacts from sea level rise.

This isn't the first time that we have seen evidence of increasing precipitation in the Northeastern US.  If anyone reading this has been to one of our presentations to communities, you may have seen a graphic that was taken from a report that was released from the White House Council on Environmental Quality -"Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (10/2010)".  This report found that there had been a 67% increase in the amount of precipitation that was falling during the heaviest storm events each year.  That means that the biggest storm events that we experience each year is bringing more rain or snow on average.

I think that many Vermont communities have been experiencing this increase in precipitation and flooding first hand.  Some of you may already be aware of the ANR Flood Resilience Sharepoint website.  This website aims to include information that individuals and community officials can use to better prepare for the increased flooding and precipitation that we have been experiencing around the State and in New England.  This Sharepoint site will be replaced this summer by a collaborative website that will be called Flood Ready.  The intent of the Flood Ready website is to expand upon the information that can be found on the ANR Flood Resilience Sharepoint site and present it in a way that can be helpful to a wide range of users.

Have you been noticing changes in your own community?  What steps have you been taking to try to address this issue?

US Senate Passes Bill to Delay Implementation of BW12

2/12/14 Update:  Here is a FEMA FAQ about the impacts of this bill on the implementation of BW12

There have been several articles (Washington Post, NYT) published today that provided details on the US Senate's passage of a bill to delay the implementation of Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, or BW12.  There has been discussion about a possible repeal or delays of the BW12 bill for several months.  However, this discussion seems to have gained more steam as homeowners and other people with structures located within the Special Flood Hazard Area are starting to receive their new flood insurance premiums.  More information from ASFPM about some of the efforts that are being made to consider or include other options in any bill that may be brought to the floor in the US House of Representatives. 

For anyone who is not familiar with the BW12 bill, the insurance reform act had several goals including changes to flood mapping, flood grants and reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for an additional five years.  However, the changes that BW12 is best known for are changes to the flood insurance aspect of the National Flood Insurance Program.  Many of the flood insurance changes were designed to make the flood insurance fund more stable by reducing the fund's current deficit to the US Treasury, as well as beginning to create extra savings to help the fund to be able to withstand large scale disaster declarations like Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Sandy.  Another aspect of the flood insurance reforms was to phase in actuarial rates for flood insurance policies which resulted in some groups of people losing the subsidy that they may have for their policy or losing any subsidy when a new policy was written.  Past posts by Ned include some information about how BW12 would impact flood insurance policies within the State of Vermont.  FEMA's website also has quite a bit of information that goes into much fuller detail about these flood insurance changes.

Many people have recognized that the original bill had issues in implementation and execution of the stated goals and objectives, specifically that the phase in of higher rates happened at a relatively fast rate, that some home or other building owners may go right from a subsidized rate directly to a full actuarial rate overnight and while many policy holders may not want to pay the higher premiums for many reasons, there was a definite contingent of people who would not have an actual ability to pay for the higher rates. 

Despite the myriad of issues with the implementation of BW12, the reasons for the passage of BW12 still remains - trying to have the National Flood Insurance Program be able to be fiscally solvent and support itself by the premiums that are paid into the program and to keep general taxpayers for funding flood recovery efforts.  A third very compelling reason for BW12 focused on having people in a flood hazard area recognize and pay for the true cost and risk of living in a hazard area, especially as we have been seeing more frequent and intense flood events and sea level rise starting to impact properties that may have been less vulnerable in the past.  The idea was that if a person living or working in a hazard area had to pay the actuarial flood insurance rate for living in this risky zone, then more structure owners would undertake mitigation efforts to help reduce their yearly premiums.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) released a Policy Paper in October of 2013 that included 9 recommendations of how BW12 could be altered to improve implementation but cautioned against repeal.  This was in order to help keep moving the NFIP towards fiscal solvency as well as continue to focus on the growing demand for mitigating homes and other infrastructure that is located within the FEMA-mapped Special Flood Hazard Area. Many of the 9 ASFPM recommendations that had been made focused on continuing to promote and encourage meaningful mitigation of flood prone homes in a variety of ways.  This included:

• finding more ways to fund mitigation projects and existing hazard mitigation grant programs;
• exploring ways to better incentivize mitigation efforts through tax incentives or long-term flood insurance policy benefits;
• recognizing partial mitigation efforts by homeowners; and
• making loans more available to home and other building owners who may be looking for ways to mitigate their structure from future floods. 

At this time, it looks like it is uncertain how such a BW12 reform/delay bill will fair in the US House of Representatives, but we will surely hear more of this debate in the near future. 

Flood Resilience - Two New Comprehensive Reports

The Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) has released Vermont’s Roadmap to Resilience including the recommendations of a broad array of Vermont organizations and agencies.

Vermont’s Roadmap to Resilience includes twenty-three recommendations to increase Vermont’s preparedness for the effects of climate change and extreme weather impacts.

Vermont’s Roadmap to Resilience (Full Report)

Executive Summary

Resilient Vermont Project Documents

Steve Zind of VPR covered the release of the Roadmap 12/17/13 and also noted the release of another report this week by Gavin Smith of the University of North Carolina and Coast Hazards Center.  Gavin Smith’s report was sponsored by EPA’s Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program (SGIA).    

Gavin Smith

Vermont State Agency Policy Options Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program: Disaster Recovery and Long-Term Resilience Planning in Vermont

The report identifies both long-term flood resilience goals and options for specific state agencies and inter-agency policy opportunities.