Educators Invited to "Discover a Watershed: The Missouri"

Click on the image below to open the registration form for a unique event sponsored by Nebraska Forrest Service and Project WET.  This is for traditional educators and those natural resource professionals (MS4 Coordinators???) that engage youth about water resources.  Ponca State Park is also one of Nebraska's gems.  If you can't go, please make sure to forward this information to any educational contact you may have locally.

Education Committee Soliciting Topics for 2012 Workshops

To all the NeFSMA members and those interested in what educational workshops NeFSMA provides, the Education Committee is asking for your feedback on topics/speakers that we should target for 2012. Your Board has worked hard to provide workshops that are engaging and relevant to our profession, but NeFSMA is a member-driven organization.  Please submit your floodplain and stormwater ideas about what we should provide next year.

Seriously, this is your chance.  Send an email to nefsma@hotmail.com and we will add it to the list of possible topics and speakers.

 

NDOR Erosion and Sediment Control Courses

Starting in 2011, many of you may need to be re-certified in the NDOR Erosion and Sediment Control Inspector Class or you may know of folks that need to receive the initial training in the full-day certification course.  If you are unsure when your certification expires, there is a database available on LTAP’s website that lists the certification number and expiration date of everyone certified through this program.

Below is the current schedule of upcoming classes as of today.  More classes will be held throughout the year as needed.  If you have a large number of people interested in a class, contact Ron Poe or Dennis Smith and we’ll try to set up a class in your area to cut down on travel expenses.

DATE	CLASS	LOCATION		AVAILABILITY
Sept 27th	Full Day – Inspector Certification	Hampton Inn & Suites	Lincoln	Open
Sept 28th & 29th	Full Day – Erosion Control Design Class	Mahoney State Park	Ashland	Open
Week of Sept 18th	Half Day – Inspector Recertification	TBD	Scottsbluff	Open

Contact Information:
Ron Poe – (402) 479-4499
Dennis Smith; UNL-LTAP – (402) 472-0976
Course information is also available on the LTAP website at: 
http://www.ne-ltap.unl.edu/erosion_control.html

New Publication by Natural Hazard Mitigation Association - A Great Cross-Disciplinary Resource

The Natural Hazard Mitigation Association has recently published a new summary paper called, "Planning and Building Livable, Safe & Sustainable Communities - The Patchwork Quilt Approach."  The paper can be Downloaded Here.  One of the primary authors was our 2011 annual conference keynote speaker, Terri Turner, AICP, CFM.    Much like her presentations this June, the paper is comprehensive and lively.  It provides a wealth of information and resources for the planner, lawyer, resource agency, municipal official and floodplain and stormwater professional.  The paper presents great talking points about the value of taking a comprehensive approach to floodplain and stormwater management rather than a reactionary response to disasters.  Maybe you are involved with one particular program, but don't know where it fits within the "patchwork quilt" and want to learn more.  You will find this paper very useful.

Potential Changes to NFIP

Last week, the House of Representatives approved a bill reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program for another five years.  In the bill passed by the House, language was included to take out the "flood-in-progress" clause of flood insurance policies.

As currently policies are written, a flood insurance policy must be in place at least 30 days prior to the beginning of a flood event. This is a hot topic right now with the unprecedented flooding along the Missouri River.  FEMA has declared that the flood began on June 1, 2011 for Nebraska residents.  If a flood insurance policy was not purchased before May 2, 2011, damage caused by this flood event will not be covered.

Several legislators in both the House and Senate have proposed to change the "flood-in-progress" rule to state that the policy must be in place 30 days before damage occurs, regardless of when the flood started.

The bill is now being considered by the Senate.  We will keep you posted on the outcome.

Click here for Omaha-World Herald Article.

NeFSMA Improving Effort to Track Continuing Education Credits for CFMs

We have been working for some time now to figure out how to improve the process of tracking Continuing Education Credits for CFMs.  ASFPM provides credit pre-approval for our meetings and conferences if they meet their discipline guidelines.  We work hard to provide events that will help CFMs meet their continuing education credit requirements so that they are not forced to attend out-of-state conferences unless they want to.  But how do we get around the process of rounding up all your attendance certificates every two years to submit to ASFPM?  Failing to do so can have expensive consequences for maintaining your CFM status.

Well, since NeFSMA is a state Chapter, ASFPM will track your credits on-line at www.floods.org if they have the information that you attended.  This means you don't have to send your certificates of attendance to them. NeFSMA will provide that information to ASFPM after each workshop if you attended.  You should log into the member page of ASFPM to verify that your information is current.  I checked mine today and it was up-to-date.

We hope this is a valued member benefit you receive from NeFSMA.  We currently have 31 NeFSMA members that maintain their CFM and possibly a few more since our Annual Conference last month.  If you are interested in becoming a CFM or what the value of that certification program might be to you or your community, please contact Bill Jones or Andrew Christensen with Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.

Nebraska H2O Updates Website, Social Interaction

The Nebraska Stormwater Cooperative - Nebraska H2O - has recently launched a completely reskinned version of their website.  The link www.nebraskah2o.org will take you to a much improved site that incorporates new social media assets for public education through their blog and individual community news feeds.  There is a lot of great stormwater protection work just getting started in these communities which will be shared through the website.

The website operates as a group information sharing platform to benefit as many residents, students, contractors, developers, city officials, and resource agencies in the State as possible.  Congratulations to Nebraska H2O on the update!  We look forward to watching your dynamic new website grow.  A link on our blog and website will help people find you too.

Iowa is Latest ASFPM Chapter

Iowa is the 31st ASFPM Chapter!

  

Please join us in welcoming Iowa as the 31st ASFPM chapter! The ASFPM Board approved Iowa's application for chapter status during their board call this week.

Iowa is the third ASFPM chapter in Region 7! Our newest chapter brings the national membership to 14,000 members with 31 Chapters and 8 states with existing floodplain management associations (not yet chapters).

The Iowa Floodplain & Stormwater Management Association (IFSMA) was formed in 2010 and joined ASFPM as chapter in 2011. IFSMA has just under 50 members.

IA Chapter Website

ASFPM Chapter page

ASFPM Adds Current Flooding Webpage

ASFPM has added a page to their website with links to news articles, photo collections, government resources, and other information regarding the current flood events.  Click here to access the page.

Lincoln Stormwater Tour

On Friday August 5, the UNL Stormwater Team will be sponsoring a tour of some of Lincoln's Stormwater Best Management Practices.  This will be a great opportunity to see how people across the city are implementing porous pavements, rain gardens, bioretention gardens, rainwater harvesting systems, and green roofs!

The tour will begin at 8:30 am at the Lower Platte South NRD - 3125 Portia Street in Lincoln.  Registration is $15 per person and includes a chartered bus, box lunch, drinks, and handouts.  For more information, contact Katie Pekarek at (402) 643-2981 or kpekarek2@unl.edu.

Prairie Fire - Using the Floodplain to Store Floodwaters

This article was published in the June edition of Prairie Fire Newspaper - http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2011/06/using-the-floodplain-to-store-floodwaters

By Jill Kostel, Ph.D.

On May 2, 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blew up a two-mile stretch of levee in Missouri to save the town of Cairo, Ill., from catastrophic flooding. This intentional breach opened the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway—a 130,000-acre area of farmland—to take in some of the rushing floodwaters of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Within two weeks, two floodways in Louisiana, the Bonnet Carre and Morganza, were opened to lower Mississippi River flood levels from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. This marks the first time in history that all three of these floodway systems have been in operation at the same time.

Natural wetlands and floodplains were our original flood protection infrastructure, and restoring more of them would help absorb and reduce floodwaters before such drastic measures as the Birds Point levee incident become necessary. Below is background on the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway and a brief summary of this flood’s events.

Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway

The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway is a component of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project (MR&T), the world’s largest flood control project. The MR&T project was authorized by the 1928 Flood Control Act. Following the catastrophic Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, there was nationwide support for a comprehensive and unified system of public works within the lower Mississippi Valley that would provide enhanced protection from floods while maintaining a channel for navigation. The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway is one of four developed by the Army Corps of Engineers under the MR&T Project. The floodways consists of a mix of public and private lands, many of which have easements granting the corps the right to run water through.

Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri just below the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The construction and operation of the floodway was authorized by the 1928 Flood Control Act and later modified under the 1965 Flood Control Act. A floodway is a basin surrounded by levees that can be intentionally blown open to divert floodwaters. The purpose of the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway is to lower flood stages at and upstream of Cairo, Ill., and along the east bank levee opposite of the floodway during major flood events.

The floodway is approximately 35 miles in length and varies from three to 10 miles in width. The frontline (56 miles long) and setback (36 miles long) levees enclosed about 205 square miles (130,000 acres). Within the frontline levee (river side), there are two fuseplug sections that are designed and built lower than the remaining levee. After floods in the 1970s, the Mississippi River Commission revised the plan to increase operation safety and effectiveness by including two artificial crevasses in the upper fuseplug, one in the lower fuseplug and a fourth one in the frontline levee opposite Hickman, Ky. To assure the artificial crevasses came at the precise time, the use of explosives was provided.

Under the current operation plan that was developed in 1986, the floodway is activated when designated sections of the frontline levee naturally overtop or are artificially crevassed through the placing and detonation of explosives. Artificial crevassing of the levee would commence upon the command of the Mississippi River Commission president prior to river stages reaching 61 feet on the Cairo gage with additional stage increases forecasted. The floodway is designed to divert 550,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the Mississippi River. The floodway has been used once during the Great Flood of 1937; however, most of the floodway would have been flooded as a result of natural crevasses and overtopping and backwatering through an existing 1,500-foot gap near New Madrid.

There has been legal opposition to the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway since its inception. Throughout the years, the federal government has acquired flowage and modified flowage easements that allow the government the right to operate the floodway by artificial crevassing. The easement also reserved the landowners the right to compensation if operation of the floodway resulted in “excessive deposits of sand and gravel” upon the land.

2011 Operation of the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway

On Monday, May 2, 2011, the Ohio River had risen to 61.05 feet at Cairo, bypassing the 1937 record of 59.5 feet. The river was expected to crest Wednesday at 61.5 feet and remain at that level until Friday. While the floodwall at Cairo can handle water up to 64 feet, the Army Corps was concerned about the strain the floodwaters were putting on this floodwall and in other areas.

Missouri officials failed to sway a federal judge, an appeals court and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from Missouri and various other Midwest states, to block the Army Corps of Engineers from artificially breaching a two-mile section of the levee and inundating 130,000 acres of productive farmland.

The decision to intentionally breach the levee was made by Major General Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission, on May 2, 2011, at approximately 10 p.m.

The decision to alleviate pressure on the levees and drawdown the Mississippi and Ohio rivers appears to have worked as planned. By 7 a.m. on Tuesday, May 3, the Ohio River at Cairo had dropped by more than a foot to 60.57 feet from 61.72 feet just before the explosion. By Tuesday night, the Ohio River at Metropolis, Ill., measured 54.7 feet, the same level at the time of the breach, but it was predicted to have a crest of more than 58 feet. The second and third levee breaches that occurred on May 3 and May 5, respectively, at the southern end of the levee complete the operation of the floodway by allowing flow back into the Mississippi River.

The rush of floodwater into Birds Point inundated as many as 100 homes and washed away this year’s crop prospects. It could be late summer or early fall before the floodwaters are fully drained off the land, and the remaining sediment and moisture could do more lasting damage.

Downstream Floodways

The 2011 flood event is the most significant to hit the lower Mississippi River Valley since at least 1937 and has affected nine states: Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. With record levels predicted for the lower Mississippi River, two additional floodways developed by the Army Corps of Engineers under the MR&T Project have been opened in Louisiana: the Bonnet Carre and Morganza. Unlike the Birds Point Floodway, these floodways are opened through a gated spillway control structure.

The Bonnet Carre Floodway, which is located about 30 miles north of New Orleans, is the southernmost floodway in the MR&T. The control structure and six-mile floodway is designed to divert 250,000 cfs (or 1,870,000 gallons per second) into Lake Pontchartrain whenever the flow past New Orleans is projected to exceed 1.25 million cfs. The opening of the first gates on May 9, 2011, marked the ninth time (and the sixth time since 1973) that this structure has been used to lower river stages at New Orleans. It was used initially during the Flood of 1937. Currently, 330 of the 350 gates (or bays) are open, diverting approximately 316,000 cfs (this is more than the structure’s rated capacity).

The Morganza Spillway was opened on May 14, 2011, for the first time since 1973. The Mississippi River Commission directed the corps to operate this spillway once the river flows reached 1.5 million cfs in an effort to lower flood crest levels. While it can divert up to 50 percent of the Mississippi River’s volume, only a quarter of the 250 gates are expected to be used. Currently, 16 out of 125 bays have been opened, diverting 108,000 cfs from the Mississippi through 3,000 square miles of the low-lying areas in the Atchafalaya basin to the Gulf of Mexico.

Information in this statement was obtained from the Mississippi River Commission (“The Mississippi River & Tributaries Project: Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway Information Paper”;www.mvm.usace.army.mil/publicaffairs/News/press_releases/bpnm/BPNMpaper.pdf), Army Corps of Engineers Memphis District (“Birds Point-New Madrid Flood Information Sheet,” www.mvm.usace.army.mil/Readiness/bpnm/bpnminfo.asp); Associated Press; Chicago Tribune; CNN Wire Staff and MSNBC.

UNL Urban Environment: 13 July 2011 Center for Watershed Protection Webca...

UNL Urban Environment: 13 July 2011 Center for Watershed Protection Webca...: "Douglas County Environmental Services and UNL Extension in Douglas/Sarpy Counties are screening the Center for Watershed Protection's webcas..."

It is Official - NDEQ Issues Industrial Storm Water General Permit

PRESS RELEASE  from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality

For more information, contact Brian McManus (402) 471-4223, or Jim Bunstock (402) 471-4243

For Immediate Release June 30, 2011

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New NPDES Industrial Storm Water General Permit Goes Into Effect

A new NPDES Industrial Storm Water General Permit was signed June 30 and is in effect for all applications submitted to NDEQ after July 1, 2011. This general permit, also known as the Industrial Storm Water General Permit, or ISW-GP, NPDES NER900000, is an industrial storm water permit that authorizes discharges of storm water associated with industrial activities to: Waters of the State, Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems, or Combined Sewer Systems. This permit is applicable statewide to 11 categories of industrial activity established in state regulations (Chapter 10 of Title 119). It does not apply to construction activity. 

The permit replaces the general permit (NER000000) for Storm Water Discharges Associated with Industrial Activity issued September 18, 1997. The new permit is reflective of EPA requirements contained in the federal 2008 Multi-Sector General Permit.

To view the new permit, fillable forms, and guidance, go to www.deq.state.ne.us and select Publications and Forms, Water Quality, Applications and Forms, and select NPDES Permit for Industrial Storm Water Discharges. Or, the direct URL is: http://www.deq.state.ne.us/Publica.nsf/pages/wat011

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