W.Va. flood resiliency bill awaiting committee action Wednesday
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CHARLESTON -- With West Virginia under yet another state of emergency for flooding after heavy rainfall at the end of last week, a bill introduced in the state Senate Friday would help the state proactively address future flood resiliency.
Senate Bill 677 clarifying the role and responsibilities of the State Resiliency Officer was introduced Friday by Sen. Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, the co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding. The bill is set to be considered Wednesday by the Senate Economic Development Committee.
Despite the bill's simple summary on the West Virginia Legislature's bill status web page, it is the result of numerous hearings before the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding, formed in the wake of the disastrous 2016 floods that hit Central and Southern West Virginia. Swope said he also received guidance on the bill from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
"(Pew) has been very helpful in helping us through the process of building a strong resiliency program which will prepare West Virginia for the next natural disaster and hopefully we'll respond better than the one in 2016," Swope said Monday morning before the start of the Senate floor session.
According to the bill's text, the goal of the legislation is to create "… a comprehensive and coordinated statewide resiliency and flood protection planning program to save lives, and develop community and economic resiliency plans …"
The bill requires the State Resiliency Officer to submit a new Flood Resiliency Plan by Dec. 31 and then every two years thereafter. The current state flood protection plan was created in 2004 and hasn't been updated since.
The qualifications to be the State Resiliency Officer are bumped up, requiring the officer to have prior experience with developing disaster resiliency plans, community economic development, and regional planning. The bill also empowers the officer to hire additional staff as needed. It empowers the officer to lead long-term recovery planning efforts in the event of a state of emergency of federal disaster declaration.
The bill gives the State Resiliency Officer authority over the West Virginia Disaster Recovery Fund currently administered by the Division of Homeland Security. The fund can be used to provide funding for disaster recovery for people, local governments, emergency services, and local organizations.
Priority for disbursements from the fund, not less than 50% of available funds, would be distributed for the benefit of low-income geographic areas or low-income households. Local governments would receive funds contingent on whether city and county governments are in compliance with all resilience and mitigations certifications, such as having approved local hazard mitigation plans and emergency operations plans on file.
The bill creates the West Virginia Flood Resiliency Trust Fund within the State Resiliency and Flood Protection Act. The fund would be used to encourage local governments to work on flood protection and prevention projects.
The Flood Resiliency Trust Fund would prioritize low-income geographic areas and prioritize nature-based solutions, using the local environment and features to protect against flood damage. One example of nature-based planning included in the bill is using the Resiliency Trust Fund to purchase homes and property located on floodplains and restoring the natural function of floodplains.
The bill calls for $10 million to be placed in the Disaster Recovery Fund and $40 million in the Flood Resiliency Trust Fund. The State Resiliency Officer is required to submit a budget request to the Governor by Dec. 31 of each year to keep both funds at $10 million and $40 million respectively. It also requires that 25% of future Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Funds received by the state as a result of a flood disaster be deposited in the Flood Resiliency Trust Fund.
"We have a dollar amount in the bill that is not mandatory; it's just a suggestion to create funding so the state will know when funding is going to be needed for two categories of expenditures," Swope said. "If you have a fund already established, you don't have to wait weeks or months to write a check or respond."
SB 677 allows for grants to city and county governments for both Flood Resiliency Plan implementation and local flood prevention and protection studies. The bill also calls for a vulnerability assessment of critical infrastructure at the state and municipal level including hospitals, schools, fire stations, and other vital infrastructure.
According to the bill's findings, there have been more than 1,600 separate flood events between January 2010 and December 2021, with 27 federal disaster declarations for the state between January 1996 and January 2021. More than 282 West Virginians have died from flood-related events over a 52-year period.
Gov. Jim Justice issued six states of emergency in 2022 alone due to heavy rainfalls and flash flooding. On Thursday, Justice issued his first state of emergency of the year for all 55 counties due to heavy rainfall. According to the National Weather Service, between 2 and 4 inches of rain fell across the state, with southern West Virginia taking the brunt of the flash flooding. An 11-month-year-old baby became the latest victim of flooding after being swept away in Fayette County.
The State Resiliency Office created by Justice and the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding in 2020 by Senate Bill 586 began working with the Pew Charitable Trusts last year to update the state's nearly 21-year-old state flood protection plan. That review wrapped up in December.
State Resiliency Officer Bob Martin briefed the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding on Jan. 8 about the results of their review, which only recommended changing how the plan was formatted to make it easier to search and implement.
"The formatting of the document will be the biggest part of the change we have to make," Martin said. "The format it currently is in of 385 pages is more random than we'd like it to be and not as usable as it could be, so we're going to be formatting it and taking it into another direction. The information that was contained within it though was all good information for the most part. Everything we needed to do back then we still need to do to this day as far as flooding in the State of West Virginia."
State and county emergency management officials and floodplain managers participated in a two-day flood symposium sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, New Orleans-based disaster recovery and mitigation company SBP, and the State Resiliency Office last May.
According to a 2021 report by the First Street Foundation, an organization that studies climate change, 17 of the top 20 U.S. counties most at risk from flooding are in Louisiana, Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky.
The state is sitting on $678 million left over from the $1.35 billion West Virginia received from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act passed by Congress in 2021. The funds can be used for COVID-19 expense reimbursements; broadband expansion; or water and sewer infrastructure projects, such as flood mitigation.
While lawmakers are considering a supplemental appropriation bill to use $177 million of the remaining ARPA dollars for the Water Development Authority, $500 million would go to the state Economic Development Authority to provide matching funds for future economic development projects.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, every dollar spent on flood mitigation and prevention results in a $7 return on investment. Swope said he hopes the bill will gain support and that the Governor's Office will be willing to provide funding for flood mitigation through ARPA or the state's surplus tax revenue.
"I brought that to the attention of all of our leadership, including our governor, that we ought to include flood mitigation as an infrastructure need that we haven't addressed for many years because we didn't have any money," Swope said. "Now that the state is growing like it is, I'm very hopeful we can start addressing some of these mitigation needs."