PrintAug. 28--A draft executive order currently under consideration by the Barack Obama Administration could prevent federal agencies from supporting critical facilities constructed on floodplains unless no alternative exists.
That could include dams and levees, according to the order.
With millions of dollars wrapped up into studies and plans to construct flood control structures in Lewis County, news of the order -- first reported by the New York Times in July -- has made some local leaders uneasy.
Until a final version of the order is complete, planners and federal workers with the Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency can only theorize over what exactly it will do.
The 14-page document strengthens a similar order signed by former President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The draft order also would expand federal protections for floodplains from the 100-year requirement now in federal insurance regulations to cover a 500-year floodplain in areas where even a slight chance of flooding exists.
"Floods have caused a greater loss of life and property and have devastated more families and communities in the United States than all other natural hazards," the draft order states. "Despite the expenditure of billions of tax dollars trying to manage floodwaters and guide wise use of floodplains, flood damages continue to increase and every year billions are spent in response to flood disasters."
Andrea Takash, a spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers, said it is difficult to determine the impacts of a draft ordinance before it is signed by a president. She added, though, that the Army Corps is already completing many of the directives laid out in the order.
"It deals a lot with looking at non-structural alternatives and it talks about looking at everything as a whole, which we've done in leading up to the Twin Cities Project," Takash said.
The Twin Cities Project is currently nearing 35 percent design, and calls for 11 miles of levees in and around Centralia and Chehalis. Those structures would likely be exempt from the order, Takash said, because the majority of them are "set-back levees," a term used to describe dikes built far enough away from the river to protect property but not impede its normal flow.
"It still provides flood protection but it also doesn't have as much of an impact on the river environmentally," she said.
Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority Chairman Ron Averill, a Lewis County commissioner, agreed that it is difficult to gauge the impacts of a draft order before it has reached its final version.
He said the "devil is in the details and how the agencies implement the order."
"If things that are already completed are not going to be torn down and things that are approved are not going to be stopped, what you're talking about is new developments," Averill said.
The executive order would deal only with federal agencies, as local planning and development regulations are left to state and local governments.
Averill said he saw some parallels between the executive order and a bill passed in the state Legislature that bans development in Washington's floodplains, but leaves broad exemptions for cities that are largely located in the floodplain like Centralia and Chehalis.
If signed, though, he said it could deliver a blow to ongoing studies into water retention in the upper reaches of the Chehalis River.
"It would have the biggest impact on the dams," he said.
No timeline has been released for a the final version of the executive order, and the Obama Administration has yet to release a statement on its plans.
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