Ehlers testifies to House committee on impact of floodplain remapping

WASHINGTON – Congressman Vernon J. Ehlers testified today before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) floodplain remapping initiative. The City of Grand Rapids completed a 17-year, $12.4 million project to improve its floodwalls to one foot above the 100-year flood elevation in 2003, but a combination of bad timing and inflexibility by FEMA could cost the owners of over 6,000 parcels of land on the Grand River thousands of dollars per year in mandatory, but impractical flood insurance.

“This policy is bureaucratic closed-mindedness and inflexibility at its worst,” Ehlers said in his testimony. “It is my understanding that under FEMA’s policies, they will be mapping the floodplain and evaluating flood risk as though the existing floodwalls and embankments are not even there. It makes no sense at all,” added Ehlers.

In 2005, FEMA issued a procedural memo which required that levees be certified in order to be considered during floodplain mapping revisions. The certification required that levees be constructed to three feet above the 100 year flood elevation, and as a result, Grand Rapids was notified that its levees were below the FEMA design standard. The standard was in place since 1986, but until the release of the 2005 procedural memo it was understood to be a guideline rather than a rule.

The city’s infrastructure budget cannot support the cost of raising the height of the wall; the estimated cost to bring the city into FEMA design standards is $9.2 million. 

Congressman Ehlers is working with FEMA on behalf of the City of Grand Rapids to help resolve the current dilemma. “I am going to do what I can to delay publication of maps and rates until these detrimental economic consequences can be resolved,” said Ehlers. FEMA projects that it will issue the preliminary revised flood insurance rate map for Kent County on May 31, 2008, followed by a public comment and appeals period. Once appeals are resolved and the map is published, it will trigger the flood insurance requirements for the 6,114 properties in the floodplain.

“FEMA should discard its ‘all-or-nothing’ policy on levee certification and should take existing flood protection into consideration when revising its maps and calculating flood risk,” said Ehlers. “To do otherwise is to require property owners to insure themselves against imaginary flood risk that will likely never be realized.”