On Aug. 22, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) proposed updates to its Floodplain Management and Protection of Wetlands regulations to align with the 2015 Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which AGC commented on last year. These requirements would expand the floodplain and raise costs for actions involving the use of FEMA Federal Funds for new construction, substantial improvement, or to address substantial damage to a structure or facility.
Among other changes, the proposed changes would lead, in many cases, to a larger floodplain than the historical definition. The historical definition would continue to apply for actions that do not meet the definition of a FEMA Federally Funded Project. The proposal would also lead to a requirement to design projects to a higher vertical elevation – which can pose a challenge to accessibility and add costs. Another noteworthy change is that it would require the use of “nature-based” or “green infrastructure” approaches in the development of alternatives or mitigation for Federal actions in the floodplain.
FEMA estimates that the total additional grants costs as a result of the proposed rule would be between $906,696 and $7.8 million per year for FEMA and between $301,906 and $2.6 million per year for grant recipients due to the increased elevation or floodproofing requirements of FEMA Federally Funded Projects.
The Standard allows agencies to establish the floodplain using any of three approaches. FEMA proposes to use the Freeboard Value Approach (FVA) for non-critical actions, which relies on raising the elevation. Even though the Climate-Informed Science Approach (CISA) is the preferred approach per the Standard, FEMA is proposing to use CISA to define a floodplain only for critical actions in cases where the CISA elevation is higher than the elevation established under the FVA. (A ‘‘critical action’’ is any activity for which even a slight chance of flooding would be too great.) In coalition comments last year on the proposed guidance for federal agencies to implement the Standard, AGC expressed its concern with the CISA approach saying that it “lacks regulatory certainty” without extensive guidelines for the “length of the data series, the quality of the data, and the degrees of uncertainty determined acceptable.”
AGC will continue to review the Aug. 22 proposal and plan an appropriate response. For more information, contact Melinda Tomaino at tomainom@agc.org.