Floodplain hue and cry much ado about very little

A July notice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency imposed a Dec. 1 deadline on Oregon cities and counties for adoption of updated flood management regulations.

The local jurisdictions are saying six months isn’t nearly enough, given the extensive hearing, notice and appeal provisions coming into play under Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission dictates. And there’s much truth to that, as LCDC is as every bit as bureaucratic as FEMA, if not more so.

But the scope of the FEMA notice is limited to new construction proposed by current and prospective federal flood insurance clients, and then only in the state of Oregon, where activity is heavily concentrated along the coast. So the local effect figures to be almost nil.

Only farms, parks and pump stations are permitted outright in McMinnville’s floodplain lands. Anything else is subject to a highly restrictive conditional use process.

As a result, the city has only 21 properties currently enrolled in the federal flood insurance program. And it’s business as usual for them unless they aren’t embarking on an expansion program.

Though some 3,900 county residents reportedly own at least some flood-prone property, the county only gets about five to 10 applications a year for floodplain projects, according to Planning Director Ken Friday. And he said about a third are for maintenance work undertaken by county crews, which is not affected.

However, that didn’t prevent County Commissioner Mary Starrett from decrying burdensome mandates being imposed on private property owners out West by an uncaring federal bureaucracy back East. She wondered if the county couldn’t just ignore the Dec. 1 deadline in hopes President Donald Trump would rectify the problem after he takes office in January.

“So you’re looking at — just in our county alone — 3,900 property owners who are having their flood insurance weaponized,” she complained. “And I’m editorializing here, but this is significant because it’s unelected bureaucrats that are making this decision. And this is another attempt to, in my estimation, make it harder and harder for people to live and operate and use their own property.”

Or actually, all five to 10 a year, minus the one-third or so attributable to arms of the county itself. Let’s be generous and round that up to three to seven private property owners affected annually.

Starrett is not only vastly overestimating the impact, but also badly misconstruing the impetus for stricter regulation in the first place and reason for the sudden urgency on FEMA’s part. No one is trying to weaponize anything here, and certainly not in any undue haste.

With a bow to Paul Harvey, here’s the rest of the story:

The impetus actually comes from the Audubon Society, which filed suit against FEMA in 2009, alleging overdevelopment of floodplain land was threatening eventual extinction of Oregon’s coho salmon runs. Though the society won a court order in its favor, a lengthy appeal process and a three-year pause mandated by our elected Congress combined to put off projected implementation until 2025 to 2027.

The urgency actually comes from a court order issued in response to a followup Audubon Society suit over the delay. It was, in fact, an exasperated court, not FEMA, that imposed this year’s Dec. 1 deadline.

If that weren’t enough, FEMA gave affected Oregon cities and counties their choice of three ways to achieve compliance: Ban all floodplain development, adopt a model ordinance developed by FEMA or simply opt to consider new floodplain development proposals on a case-by-case basis. Options, not a one-size-fits-all mandate.

Locally, both the city and county are opting for handling applications on a case-by-case basis going forward, which seems wise, considering how few they get. Both are entertaining the thought of eventually adopting the model ordinance, but only after it emerges from draft form and gets its inevitable baptism by Oregon land-use fire in other jurisdictions.

So, no, unelected federal bureaucrats did not willfully set out to impose onerous new limitations on private property rights in Oregon. Nor were unelected federal bureaucrats responsible for the short implementation notice, which, after all, is coming a full 15 years after the Audubon Society issued its initial call for action.

But Starrett’s take serves as good fodder for the furnaces of the political outrage factory, where any factual basis remains purely optional. So there’s that.