A July 15 letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency informed Oregon counties that they will need to pass interim updates to their flood plain development permitting processes as part of an ongoing update to the agency’s flood insurance plan.
John Graves, branch chief for flood plain management and insurance in the northwest region, told the Headlight Heraldthat interim updates had not been planned originally, but that a congressional delay and protracted federal reviews led to a change in course.
“As we reflected on again how long this EIS (environmental impact statement) process is likely to take, we recognized that we had some risk that we needed to address,” Graves said, “and so we decided that we were gonna do the interim measures now while we wait for the environmental impact statement to finish its process.”
Progress towards the update to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood insurance program began when the Audubon Society sued the agency in 2009, claiming that the program was causing harm to coho salmon in Oregon. The suit triggered a National Marine Fisheries Service review of the plan, which yielded a biological opinion in 2016 that concluded that the program did cause harm to coho, in violation of the Endangered Species Act, and needed to be updated.
By 2018, FEMA was ready to begin rolling out updates recommended in the biological opinion over a three-year period, but before that process could begin, then-Congressman Peter DeFazio passed a three-year implementation pause.
Under the original update timeline, Graves said that there would not have been a need to ask partnering governments to make interim code updates, but after the pause, FEMA officials began to review that decision. Recognizing that drafting, reviewing and submitting an environmental impact statement for the proposed updates and that a needed National Environmental Policy Act review would take several more years, they decided that interim updates were needed.
Communities that participate in the flood insurance program were presented three options for updating their codes until those processes are finalized: adopting a model ordinance from FEMA that includes a no-net-loss standard for new development, requiring developers to obtain habitat assessment and mitigation plans for their projects showing that they meet the no-net loss standard or prohibiting development in areas of special flood hazard entirely.
The model ordinance has not yet been released, but Graves said that it was currently undergoing legal review and should be ready by the end of July. Graves clarified that a December 1 deadline mentioned in the letter was only for partnering governments to indicate which of the three options they planned to pursue and that a deadline for implementing the interim updates would be provided along with the model ordinance.
Graves said that by meeting the requirements set forth in the biological opinion, FEMA officials believed that the model ordinance would also meet the finalized requirements for the program, now expected in 2027. Graves also said that agency officials expected that the interim update would help partnering governments to be prepared when the update is finalized.
“The more we can get communities used to the idea of reviewing their flood plain development permits and impact that they have on species, whether that’s through a model ordinance or through the permit-by-permit process, they start to build that expertise in community so they’ll be set up for success once the EIS is finalized,” Graves said.
Graves also answered questions about some of the issues of largest concern for residents, as voiced during a public meeting last summer in Tillamook.
On the subject of mitigation projects that will be required to offset negative impacts to floodplain functionality, Graves did not have specifics but said that the model ratio would contain detailed ratios for those projects and that onsite mitigation projects would have a lower required ratio than those at a different location.
As for the definition of development, which concerned many community members, particularly farmers, Graves said that any manmade change to improved or unimproved real estate would be considered development and require a floodplain development permit.
Most Popular
Comments / 0