The Garden City Telegram
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Locals take exception to flood plain changes
Published 10/18/2008 in News : Politics
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Representatives of the cities of Garden City and Holcomb and Finney County appear to still be in a holding pattern after a Friday meeting with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address proposed changes to the local flood plain.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram - Garden City Mayor David Crase and City Manager Matt Allen listen Friday as representatives with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, AMEC, an environmental and engineering consulting firm, and the state's Division of Water Resources explain changes to flood insurance rate maps that place more of the area in the flood plain.
Residents, as well as representatives of the cities and county and legislators, were given the chance to listen to Julie Grauer, Andy Megrail and Joe File explain why the area is facing changes to the flood plain -- the three are with FEMA, the Kansas Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources and AMEC, an environmental and engineering consulting firm with a branch located in Topeka. The community then had a chance to ask questions.
Up to this point, there have been a lot of questions thrown out by the cities and county in an effort to understand how the changes occurred. Additional areas have been added to the flood plain in Garden City, Holcomb and Finney County. And if the changes stick, more property owners will need to purchase flood insurance.
The local entities don't necessarily see the changes as a positive -- that's why they're requesting an extension from FEMA to gather more information to try to mitigate the changes' effect.
After the meeting, Grauer said the entities could know by sometime next week whether the extension will be granted.
The process
After gathering the information and doing the work needed to update the maps, FEMA issues preliminary maps, "and that's what just came out," Grauer said.
FEMA and its partners then hold meetings with the county and public -- there's a 30-day comment period, which is what the cities and county are currently in. Residents can submit their comments to community representatives, who then forward it to FEMA, Grauer said.
"Maybe we didn't do the best job with Finney County...," Grauer said of gathering public input on the updated maps. "We also know we can't make everybody happy. If you can prove us wrong, then you can prove us wrong."
According to a timeline from Megrail, FEMA identified Finney County as one of the locations needing new maps. A scoping meeting was held in March 2007 to decide what would be mapped. About a year later, work maps were sent to the county -- county and city officials met with FEMA and others in April to discuss the changes. The preliminary maps were released in September.
Unless the cities and county receive the six-month extension they're requesting to gather more information to represent what they feel should and shouldn't be in the flood plain, the effective date of the maps will be roughly a year to 1 1/2 years from now, Grauer said.
The city also is given six months to adopt the maps, Grauer said. If the community doesn't adopt the maps, "then they will be suspended," she said, meaning federally backed flood insurance wouldn't be available to that community because it wouldn't be participating in the National Flood Insurance Program.
That also means, she said, there'd be no federal disaster assistance for repairs of flood plain structures.
"So it's really important communities participate," she said.
According to FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program was created in 1968 to make federally backed flood insurance available to property owners who live in eligible communities -- at the time, flood insurance was "virtually" unavailable from the private insurance industry.
The situation
The message delivered by Megrail, File and Grauer as they stood in the front of the meeting room Friday at the City Administrative Center was difficult for USD 457 Superintendent Rick Atha to understand.
Atha attended the meeting as a representative of the school district where the current high school is in the proposed flood plain -- and if a bond issue to construct a new high school passes in the Nov. 4 election, that building would be built in the flood plain.
During the meeting, Atha said he doesn't see the changes as positive. He said for starters, he takes exception with FEMA using what he sees as outdated information when determining the changes to the flood plain. The agencies applied some of that information to the current maps that significantly changed the local flood insurance rate maps, enough to affect about 1,000 additional residential properties and 60 businesses in Garden City.
Plus, Atha said, the three officials who spoke Friday admit they don't have the funding to do all of the studying they'd like to in the area.
And then the burden is placed on the community and its residents to prove whether properties should or shouldn't be in the flood plain, Atha said, adding he doesn't understand why the burden is on the community.
"Everything you said was accurate," Grauer, with FEMA's Region 7, told Atha.
According to Grauer, the purpose of the flood insurance rate maps is to accurately portray people's risk to flooding and flood damage. In the past, even though water doesn't currently flow in the portion of the Arkansas River at Garden City, it's been the main waterway in the area's flood maps. The maps FEMA now is proposing include some of the drainage ditches, Grauer told the group, which is one of the main concerns for the area "and the thing we'll probably need to talk about the most."
FEMA started talking around 2003 and 2004 about updating the maps and later received $1 billion to update the maps nationwide over a five-year period. FEMA is updating the flood maps in 39 of Kansas' 105 counties, Grauer said -- that's all funding would allow for.
The changes mean larger portions of the city, county and Holcomb are now in the flood plain and that any property owner with a federally backed loan and in the flood plain needs flood insurance.
Tim Hamilton, with Planning and Community Development, estimates Holcomb has an additional 50 or so residential properties in the flood plain.
The data
Among other things, Megrail and File were charged with mapping additional streams up to one square mile. Available information used by FEMA included, but wasn't limited to, an early 1970s flood insurance study.
It used to be, Grauer said, that elevation information dating back to 1929 was used as a measuring point for the flood plain. In 1929, the sea level was measured as a flat plain. In 1988, they realized the earth was round, Megrail said jokingly, explaining when a curvature was applied to the plain, the level was raised at varying degrees depending on the curve.
That affected the flood plain. And now, the three entities of Holcomb, Garden City and Finney County, as well as property owners who would be added to the flood plain if FEMA's proposed maps take effect, are attempting to understand how the changes affect them.
Garden City Mayor David Crase hopes FEMA will grant the requested extension. From there, he figures the entities will "just have to work the system I guess."
For more information on the proposed maps or to view them, contact Planning and Community Development at 276-1120.
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