LA SAFE Projects Announced in Coastal Parishes & Your May Water Update

​​​​​Here are the latest news stories in local and national water policy for June. Scroll to the end for a list of water events and deadlines to keep on your radar.

In The News

LA SAFE Projects Announced in Coastal Parishes 
Source: LA SAFE, The Advocate
The State of Louisiana has announced its first 10 projects that will be launched as part The Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) program. The program has been working with six coastal parishes (listed below) to develop projects that address challenges associated with flood risk. The projects looked at a wide range of adaptation strategies around residents’ concerns in five categories: stormwater management; housing and development; transportation; education, economy, and jobs; and culture and recreation.

• The selected projects in each parish include:
  • Jefferson – Gretna Resilience District Kickstart and the Louisiana Wetland Education Center
  • Lafourche – Emerging Industry Business Incubator and Resilient Housing Prototype
  • Plaquemines – Harbor of Refuge and Mental Health and Substance Abuse Assistance
  • St. John the Baptist – Airline and Main Complete Streets
  • St. Tammany – Safe Haven Blue-Green Campus and Trails
  • Terrebonne – Buyouts Outside of Morganza-to-the Gulf Levee System and Lake Boudreaux Living Mitigation 

HUD Announces Disaster Recovery Funds
Source: HUD, The Advocate
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced nearly $28 billion in disaster supplemental funding through its Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program. The funding goes to the areas hardest hit by disasters in 2017, including nine states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as providing funding for mitigation in states impacted by disasters from 2015-2017. Louisiana is set to receive $1.2 billion in funding for flood mitigation in parishes impacted by the 2016 floods. While it’s unclear which projects will be funded through this allocation, options include the Comite River Diversion Canal, New Orleans-area flood mitigation, or parts of the Morganza to the Gulf levee system. This is the largest allocation of CDBG-DR funding in HUD’s history. 

Flood Insurance Affordability Framework Released
Source: FEMA, The Advocate
FEMA released its Affordability Framework on April 17, which analyzes the cost burden of flood insurance and explores options to close the insurance gap. As a result of the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014, FEMA was directed to study options for policyholders who could not afford risk-based premiums under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The report found a large gap in terms of flood insurance coverage and wealth; in Louisiana’s Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA), the median income for a policyholder is $73,000 compared with $33,000 for a non-policyholder. Nationwide, lower income people tend to live in higher risk areas; Louisiana was one of the few exceptions to this trend, with households within the SFHA making $1,600 more annually than those outside the SFHA. The report lays out different options for policymakers to consider how to make flood insurance more affordable, including limiting premiums to a certain percentage of household income, targeted subsidies such as tax credits, or mitigation grants and loans for low-to-moderate income households. 

New Study: Attempts to Control Mississippi River Increased Flood Hazard
Source: Nature, Scientific American
A new study examines how climate variability and human attempts to control the river have impacted flooding by reconstructing the Mississippi River’s historic flood frequency using river discharge, tree-ring, sedimentary, and climate data. The results show a 20% increase over the past 500 years in the magnitude of 1 percent annual chance floods (aka 100-year floods). Researchers attribute 75% of this increase to river engineering, which has attempted to control the river by channelizing and straightening it, resulting in higher peak flows. 

More Water Headlines

• Study: Louisiana can’t rebuild land faster than it’s eroding, forcing tough decisions about what to save
• For future drainage repairs, Landrieu says New Orleans citizens will have to pay the bill
• How the catastrophic 1995 flood led to a $1.5 billion drainage bonanza
• City Council Members Should Regulate, Not Govern, S&WB
• Turning water into land: How New Orleans created the lakefront neighborhoods
• School board approves bid for filters to screen lead from drinking fountains
• Whiskey Island shows the progress and challenges of beach restoration projects

Upcoming Events & Opportunities

• Public Comments on Draft Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment | due TODAY(!) May 21;  The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group has released its Draft Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment for public comment. The draft plan proposes projects to restore lost public recreational uses and which reduce agricultural nutrient runoff in coastal watersheds impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. COMMENT  
• Evacuteer Volunteer Training | May 23;  Evacuteer is training volunteers to help should a major storm require activation of the City-Assisted Evacuation plan. VOLUNTEER