If you don’t recall, NAFSMA is the National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies, and I am attending NAFSMA’s 46th annual conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado.Today I had the pleasure of addressing the attendees as part of the legal panel and I chose to use my time to talk about the lawsuit that was
It’s “what?” you might ask. NAFSMA, the National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies, was formed 46 years ago as a place where public agencies in the flood and stormwater space could come together, learn from each other, and partner with the Federal government to make life better and safer. I have had the privilege of
I had the opportunity this week to attend a National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies (NAFSMA) Mentoring Session on the Future [of] Flood Risk Data. This session, offered by NAFSMA in partnership with FEMA and including other interested parties, educated folks on several FEMA missions and discussed how those missions should handle the
Our April 26, 2023 article noted that the Principles, Requirements, and Guidelines (PR&G) are about money. The Federal government has a lot of money. Even in an era of budget cutting, it still has a lot of money, and it chooses to spend that money on a whole bunch of different things. One category of things it spends
Members of the Rangers led the First Continental Army during America’s Revolutionary War, and their “No man left behind” motto became a central fixture of U.S. military protocol. The slogan communicated the need to make sure that EVERYONE was taken care of. But do we have the same policy when it comes to levees? At the Federal level,
Back in 2019, we wrote a post about the surprising connection between the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). That post concluded with the following:
It looks like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will be forced to address ESA compliance on a state-by-state basis, unless it can develop a
[It would seem silly to post this article without first acknowledging an elephant in the room: We haven’t posted in 23 months. Why, you might ask? Is it because there is nothing going on in the flood world? No. Is it because we have retired to tropical islands? No. Is it because we got really
At last week’s Floodplain Management Association meeting in Reno, Nevada, the two of us planned and participated in a panel discussion on federal funding for flood control projects under the Trump administration. Attendees enjoyed a discussion on federal funding options for local entities that are ready to carry out a flood control project (or any water infrastructure
All joking aside about a gridlocked Congress, real progress has been made this week on flood risk reduction authorizations and appropriations. As explained below, it is looking like the 2018 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) may pass shortly, and the relevant budget subcommittees are ready to move an agreed-upon appropriations packet forward to their respective
California flood control agencies learned in January that the state’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) is making available $150 million for projects aimed at reducing flood risks to urban areas. The Urban Flood Risk Reduction grant money, which represents a portion of the $5 billion approved by voters in 2006, will be distributed through a
