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The Water Resources Coalition was established in
2007 to promote the development, implementation and funding of a
comprehensive national water resources policy. With member
organizations representing state and local governments,
conservation, engineering and construction, ports, waterways and
transportation services, the Coalition works to ensure that a
comprehensive, national water resources policy is developed,
implemented and funded to provide a sustainable, productive
economy; a healthy aquatic ecology; and public health and safety.
For more information, visit the Water Resources Coalition Web site
at www.waterresourcescoalition.org.
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National
Academy of Sciences Criticizes CEQ Revisions to Water Resources
Guidelines
On December 2, 2010, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a report finding
that the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) needs to
define more clearly the purpose of its revisions to the nation's
chief water resources planning document.
"The 2009
proposed revisions lack clarity and consistency in several
respects," the NAS said of the CEQ's draft proposal to rewrite
the Economic and Environmental Principles and Guidelines for Water
and Related Land Resources Implementation Studies (called the
Principles and Guidelines or P&G).
"Given
that the 2009 document represents only a partial revision to the
P&G document, and given several areas of ambiguity and
incompleteness in the 2009 proposed revisions, detailed advice on
specific
planning procedures at this point would be premature," the NAS
added. "As CEQ proceeds with further revisions to the
P&G document, clarification and specification in these areas
detailed below will be necessary for the document to be of value to
CEQ and the federal agencies that will use the document in decision
making."
In its most
pointed criticism, the NAS said the CEQ proposal does not spell out
clearly enough which agencies are supposed to follow the
P&G. "The proposed revisions to the P&G should
more clearly specify the agencies, programs, studies, and water
projects to which they will apply," the NAS said.
"If the new document is to apply solely to the four
traditional construction-oriented agencies [the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, and the Tennessee Valley Authority], the
proposed revisions should reflect the fact that these agencies
today are constructing fewer new projects."
The NAS said
the CEQ should clarify whether a revised P&G document will be
used as general policy guidance, or as a decision document that
specifies planning steps to be followed, or both. If the
proposed revisions are to provide a document that specifies
planning steps and analytical procedures, the many challenges that
would attend creating a document to be uniformly applied to the
large range of modern water projects-locks and dams, levees,
navigation channels, ecosystem restoration, flood risk management,
watershed protection, water supply projects -managed across an
array of federal agencies, should be considered carefully.
"The national objective for water resources development
and management activities should be stated more clearly," the
NAS said.
The P&G
were first adopted in 1983 and are badly out of date with modern
economic and environmental thought. In November 2007,
Congress adopted the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2007
over a presidential veto. Section 2031 of the Act directed
the Secretary of the Army to revise the P&G adopted by the U.S.
Water Resources Council in March 1983. The revisions must be
completed by November 8, 2009. The CEQ took control of the
project in 2009.
Under the
P&G, the four agencies weigh the tradeoffs between a project's
benefits to the present generation against those benefits that
accrue in the future through benefit-cost analysis. If this
analysis shows
that a project's national economic development (NED) benefits
exceed its NED costs, the Corps seeks project authorization from
Congress.
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Senate Holds
WRDA Hearing
On November 17 the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), a WRC co-chair, urged Congress to enact water
resources legislation to create jobs, ensure a strong economy and
protect public safety through renewed investments in critical
infrastructure.
"Public spending on infrastructure often produces
positive economic returns," said Larry Roth at a hearing
before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the
need for another Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) in 2011.
Roth, the former assistant executive director of ASCE
and a consulting engineer at Arcadis US, Inc., in Sacramento,
California, said infrastructure investments in WRDA are essential.
"Federal, state and local investments in
essential public works can create jobs, provide for economic
growth, and ensure public safety through a modern, well-engineered
national infrastructure," he said. "The
Congressional Budget Office has noted one recent study that
suggested that public capital enhanced the economy's ability
to produce goods and services to the extent that $1 spent on
infrastructure could generate close to $1 of output within roughly
a year."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the committee,
said she is committed to working with Republicans to enact WRDA
legislation in 2011. She said the focus of the Senate bill
will be on ensuring the appropriation of all revenues received by
the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, fixing the Inland Waterways
Trust Fund, and creating a national levee safety
program. The WRC supports each of those policy
goals.
For details of the hearing and a Webcast of all
witnesses, see the committee Web site, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_id=4064043a-802a-23ad-4ad7-02e791a36550.
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WRDA
Provision Extended in House
In other WRDA news, the coalition sent a letter at
the end of October urging Congress to support H.R. 6184, a
bill to amend a provision in the Water Resources Development Act
(WRDA) of 2000. The bill would extend and modify Section 214 by
allowing the Secretary of the Army to accept and expend funds
contributed by non-Federal entitities to expedite the evaluation of
permits.
On December 1,
the House passed H.R. 6184 by voice vote. The Senate has yet to
take any action, however the coalition has sent a letter
to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) urging action.
Without the
legislation Section 214 will expire on December 31st. While
the Water Resources Coalition is in support of a permanent
extension of Section 214, H.R. 6184 will extend the crucial
expedited evaluation process of permit applications through 2016,
just as WRDA 2010 would do if enacted.
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EPA Finalizes
Revision in Construction Stormwater Permits
EPA this month
finalized its rule to remove numeric limitation of 280 NTUs
(numeric turbidity units) from its new Construction and Development
Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs). After petitions
from the housing industry and others, EPA concluded that "it
improperly interpreted the data and, as a result the calculations
in the existing administrative record are no longer adequate to
support the 280-NTU numeric limit."
State water agencies
that are in the process of adding the 280-NTU limit to their
stormwater permits will have to issue the permits without the
numeric limit. The other provisions of the ELG rule remain valid
and will require best management practices relating to erosion and
sediment control, soil stabilization, dewatering, pollution
prevention and prohibited discharges.
All the
NPDES-delegated states must incorporate the non-numeric sections of
the ELG the next time they issue a new construction general
permit. Idaho, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico and
the District of Columbia which are not delegated authority to
administer NPDES permits, will be covered by the ELG requirements
when EPA reauthorizes its Construction General Permit in July 2011.
The direct
final rule and a fact
sheet and the federal register notice are available on the EPA website.
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FEMA Enacts Rules for Building in Floodplains
The Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) last month finalized new rules that
will apply to developers in many flood-prone areas that provide
habitat for threatened and endangered species. The new
rules were issued in response to several successful lawsuits
by environmental groups against FEMA for not appropriately
considering its responsibilities under the ESA when development is
allowed to take place.
The rule could impose
Section 7 consultation requirements for FEMA with the Department of
the Interior when acting on flood map change requests before
beginning any projects that may harm endangered or threatened
species on the property.
When a project is
proposed for a parcel of land within a floodplain, FEMA can issue a
CLOMR - or Conditional Letter of Map Revision -
to state that the project, if it is built as proposed, would
sufficiently modify the floodway, base-flow elevation and/or
100-year floodplain (Special Flood Hazard Area) as shown
on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps.
A CLOMR-F - a Conditional Letter of Map Revision
based on Fill - is used by FEMA when the parcel or proposed
structure will be elevated by fill material to be above the base,
100-year floodplain. Property owners usually seek a CLOMR on
large projects such as levees and dams and residential or
commercial developments, while CLOMR-F might be used for projects
on smaller parcels or small parts of a subdivision.
Currently, any 5-acre or 50-lot subdivision adjacent
to or in the 100-year floodplain designated "Zone A" must
conduct a study to determine the "base flood elevation"
and submit a Letter of Map Change (LOMC)
revising the flood map. With this new guidance, a LOMC could
trigger ESA consultations.
The new rule, "Procedure Memorandum 64"
appears to shift a portion of its ESA consultation obligation to
private landowners by requiring them to provide proof that they are
complying with the provisions of the Endangered Species Act before
making any requests of FEMA. The change could add time and
expense to any project in which the property owners need flood map
revisions to move forward, because they may first need to complete
the Section 7 or Section 10 permit process.
For Section 7, that process can take 90 to 135 days on
average, and the Section 10 permit takes about two years to
complete. For more information, see the rule, "Procedure
Memorandum 64".
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Restrictions in CR Must be Relaxed
Top of the list of the American Shore and Beach
Preservation Association's (ASBPA) immediate priorities are
the limitations of the current Continuing Resolution (CR).
Feasibility studies or a construction project that received funding
in FY10, but nevertheless was only in the House or the Senate
Energy & Water Appropriations Bills (but not both), currently
cannot get any funding under the Corps' rules for implementing
the CR. While,that may make sense in a short-term CR, the
strong possibility of a long-term CR will bring ongoing studies and
construction to a halt - unless they were earmarked by the
President in his FY11 budget recommendations. The same
applies to any Continuing Authorities study or project. Not
all previous CR's have been this restrictive. Of course, this
is a problem that applies to the entire Corps civil works program
and was probably dictated by the Office of Management and
Budget. ASBPA, a WRC member, will be asking
Members of Congress and coastal communities to urge for
studies funded in FY10 and named for funding in FY11 by the House
or Senate Appropriations Committees be permitted to receive and
spend funds at their FY10 levels. Please contact ASBPA
at coastal@asbpa.org if you want to join in on
the efforts.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has
released a number of options to reform the faltering National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP), the federal program that provides
insurance against flood losses for more than five million U.S.
property owners.
In the most radical approach, FEMA has proposed a plan
that would abolish the federal program altogether and allow private
insurers exclusive rights to market flood insurance and set
premiums based on industry actuarial standards.
Another proposal would create a semi-public program,
with FEMA providing minimum insurance requirements for the private
market to follow in selling insurance. Yet another option
would require FEMA to identify flood risks within each U.S.
municipality and require the local government to pay the premiums
for blanket coverage of all properties within the municipal
limits. This would create an incentive for local governments
to adopt land-use plans to manage flood risks and thereby reduce
their premiums.
The agency also needs to reform the program to solve
the problem of costs incurred through "repetitive
losses," which are defined as four or more paid claims of
$1,000 or more or two or more paid losses in any 10-year period
since 1978. The repetitive claims history attaches to the
property, not the property owner.
Although FEMA has $1.1 trillion worth of property
insurance on the NFIP books, the program is actuarially unsound
because it cannot charge high enough premiums to cover loss
claims. Current premiums cover only about 35 percent to 40
percent of loss claims, the Government Accountability Office
reported last year.
FEMA owes the U.S. Treasury approximately $19 billion
for funds advanced to cover major flood losses from two major
hurricanes in 2005.
None of the proposals is official. FEMA senior
managers said this week that the agency will accept comments on
every idea until December 31 at the FEMA Web site. The
agency's reform plans are at http://www.fema.gov/business/nfip/nfip_reform.shtm . The comments may be submitted at http://www.nfipreform.com/ .
FEMA will consider all public comments and issue a
second round of proposals in mid-2011. The new list of policy
options will be narrower in scope, officials said this week.
In late 2011, NFIP staff will brief FEMA's leadership on the best
approaches.
FEMA will be holding a second meeting on December 9th
at the below location: December 9, 2010 -
Denver, CO: Denver Federal Center, Building 810 - Entrance
W-5
Due to space
constraints, seating will be limited. To reserve a seat, please
email or mail your request and include the participant's name,
mailing address, and e-mail address, and the meeting(s) to be
attended. On the subject or attention line or on the envelope
please write Reservation Request for NFIP Reform Meeting. Submit
reservations to fema-nfip-reform@dhs.gov or
NFIP Reform, 1800 South Bell Street, Room 970, Arlington, VA
20598-3030.
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Brian Pallasch and Marco Giamberardino
Water Resources Coalition
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