Sustainability

Supervisors to ask feds nicely to fix flood maps

Calaveras Enterprise

Advocates for property owners wanted sterner tone

Calaveras County’s Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to ask “respectfully” that the federal government fix flood insurance rate maps that are forcing the owners of thousands of county properties to buy insurance that many don’t need.

At least some of those property owners don’t see any point in asking nicely.

“I think we should demand action from FEMA, not request action,” said Derek Bray, who said he was unable to sell a home he owns in Tamarack last year due to an inaccurate flood insurance rate map.

Despite Bray’s concerns, the Board of Supervisors voted 4-0, with Supervisor Darren Spellman absent, to send the request letter written by county staff. Supervisors also, however, decided to send copies of the letter to Congressman Tom McClintock, a Repub-lican who represents Calaveras County, and to Congressman John Garamendi, a Democrat who grew up here.

Ultimately, supervisors said they will likely need Congressional help to force stubborn regulators to fix the flood rate maps.

“The important thing is doing the work outside the letter,” said Supervisor Chris Wright.

FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA officials asked Calaveras County leaders in 2008 to use state flood awareness map data to update flood insurance rate maps for the county. Calaveras County adopted the new flood insurance rate maps in 2010.

When FEMA officials first asked for the change, they said that updating maps with the state flood awareness data would make it possible for property owners here to get flood insurance if they needed it. Instead, the opposite happened, and inaccurate maps forced some owners to buy insurance even though their homes were not in flood plains.

The problem, said Calaveras County Planning Department Director Peter Maurer, is that the state flood awareness zone data is extremely crude. Contours on the state maps were off by as much as 40 feet. The offset information, in some cases, shows creeks flowing through homes that are actually nowhere near the water.

Maurer described the impact of the maps on Calaveras County as “nothing more than a disaster.”

He said Calaveras was the only county in California that agreed to the FEMA recommendation to use the state flood awareness zone data to revise the maps countywide. As it stands, property owners who are forced to buy unneeded flood insurance must hire an engineer or surveyor to conduct a study in order to petition FEMA to correct the map for their individual home.

Yet aerial data that FEMA collected in 2010 for most of the county is more accurate and could easily be used to update the maps, Maurer said. Maurer estimated that the more accurate data would likely remove several thousand Calaveras properties from the flood zone designation.

Still, Maurer cautioned against taking a hard line in the letter to FEMA.

“We have very little leverage,” he said. “We can demand all we want and it can go in the trash.”

Meanwhile, Maurer said that in recent days he was emailed by Juliette Hayes, the new risk assessment branch chief for FEMA Region IX, which is based in Oakland. He said he and other Calaveras staff would meet with Hayes on Dec. 10 and that her outreach might signal some hope of movement on the part of the federal agency.

Still, Maurer and other planning staff say they have repeatedly had FEMA representatives in the past appear to be willing to solve the problem only to have those hopes dashed.

“It is one of the most frustrating things I’ve been involved in,” Maurer said.

Tell the EPA: Make Environmental Justice part of the Clean Power Plan

Over 7 million children suffer from asthma — and they are overwhelming black, Latino or poor.

It’s a travesty, an outright injustice, and a direct result of dirty power plants being disproportionately placed in marginalized communities.

Right now the EPA is considering a major federal rule to limit carbon pollution from the type of power plants that give kids asthma — but if we don’t act now, the new carbon rules may allow even more fracking, waste incinerators, and dirty power plants.

The EPA Clean Power Plan is a good start, but it’s not strong enough, so right now we need to demand they strengthen the rule and focus on equity and meeting the needs of communities suffering most from pollution.

The EPA is accepting comments on the rules until Monday — join us in calling on the EPA to strengthen the Clean Power Plan and make sure it protects the communities suffering most from climate pollution.

Tell the EPA: keep dirty energy out of the Clean Power Plan.

Leaders from the environmental justice community have put together a set of recommendations to the EPA that they must adopt to ensure equity and environmental justice in the rule¹ — things like mandating actual emission reductions in power plants near residential neighborhoods. Join us in supporting these recommendations and making it clear to the EPA that we expect them to strengthen this rule, and that we’re willing to fight for it.

The EPA’s Clean Power Plan is a major breakthrough — never before has a President proposed executive action that could reduce pollution so dramatically and help avert the climate crisis. But we must ensure that it spurs a rapid transition to renewables, and not be riddled with loopholes that will allow more fracking, power plants and pollution.

The EPA is collecting public comments on the Clean Power Plan until Monday — Help us flood them with comments demanding a stronger Clean Power Plan that ensures equity and environmental justice.

People of color and low-income communities shouldn’t have to suffer so that the Koch Brothers, utilities and other big polluters can profit — let’s turn the tide, protect our communities, and make big polluters pay.

Are electric cars greener? Depends on where you live.*
Whether plug-in electric cars are green depends on your local energy source.
Sacramento Bee, November 19