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Articles
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| Floodplain extension too broad, planners say |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Capital-area planners say the proposed new floodplain map for the District overstates storm-water dangers, and they want the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reevaluate its estimates.
Those planners also say that if published as is, the District floodplain map will discourage development in the new floodplain by saddling potential builders with mandatory flood insurance and inflated construction costs. The plan would push the flood zone several blocks outward from the Anacostia River into parts of downtown D.C.
The National Capital Planning Commission last week said the proposed flood zone is too broad because the estimates assume the Anacostia River levees do not exist.
The proposed District floodplain map, the first update since 1985, is part of a larger effort to reassess flood dangers countrywide. It incorporates new assessments from the Army Corps of Engineers, which adopted new certification standards for levees in response to Hurricane Katrina."
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Under those updated criteria, the Corps downgraded the five levees along the Anacostia to “unacceptable.” Earthen sections of some levees contained trees — something the Corps now considers a structural hazard, according to the planning commission’s report.
But the report said that trees and other vegetation have been removed from the levees, and that other repairs are underway. Some of the five levees — three are in the city — have more serious structural problems, according to the report.
The commission wants the federal agency to republish its map with updated information on the levees, and it wants to extend the public comment period before final publication.
Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Butch Kinerney said that despite promises of upcoming repairs to the levees, the agency does not make assessments on what doesn’t exist yet.
“We can’t show the map’s future state,” he said. “There’s nothing being done and there’s nothing on the horizon that shows us something will be done.”
But Kinerney also said he expects some of the commission’s concerns will be addressed before the new floodplain map becomes final.
The federal floodplain map also takes into account the sluggish nature of the Anacostia, which flows considerably slower than the Potomac River and floods more rapidly.
Besides flowing slower than the city’s other river, the Anacostia runs through more urban, industrialized terrain, creating a less permeable environment and a “flashy” upstream. Most of the 8.4-mile long river’s original wetlands have been destroyed.
Commissioner John Parsons addressed the National Mall levee, a temporary barrier the federal map considers nonexistent.
Kinerney said the Corps wouldn’t certify the “quick and dirt” levee.
But Parsons said the proposed map should recognize that there is ample time before a flood to erect the temporary sandbag barrier that protects the monumental core. He said he’s worried the new map could elicit a panicked response that might lead the federal government to build unnecessary flood safeguards near the Tidal Basin.
Commissioner Harriet Tregoning, director of the D.C. Office of Planning, said that the federal flood-zone assessment doesn’t adequately reflect current conditions and looks to solve 1985’s problems, not today’s.
The commission report said that aside from discouraging private development, the proposed map could deter public agencies from locating in the flood zone — the federal government owns 17 percent of the land in the Anacostia watershed, according to the report.
The commission said it will invite the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Corps to speak with the commission, and will continue to encourage low-impact development and wetland restoration along the Anacostia.
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Posted on Jan 19, 2008 08:43am.
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