DRBC - Flood Advisory Committee Report to the Commissioners (July 17, 2002)

Clark D. Gilman. P.E.
Chief, Flood Plain Management Section
Division of Engineering and Construction
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

The Delaware River Basin Commission Flood Advisory Committee (FAC) was established in response to Resolution 2000-8 adopted March 7, 2000 by the Delaware River Basin Commission and held its first meeting on September 7, 2000. The FAC has since met quarterly a total of eight (8) times, the last meeting being held on June 5, 2002. The committee is comprised of members from 18 different organizations with flood loss reduction responsibilities in the basin. This includes federal organizations such as the Corps of Engineers, USGS, National Weather Service, FEMA, state DEPs, emergency management agencies, and local representation through the Water Resources Agency at the University of Delaware and utility companies.

The mission statement adopted by the FAC states that it will provide recommendations and suggested strategies to the commissioners that will reduce flood losses in the entire Delaware River Basin. It is important to recognize that flood loss reduction is accomplished by many organizations outside of the DRBC, and the value of this committee is bringing these organizations together to coordinate the efforts to the extent possible. The committee's primary objective was, however, to assess, evaluate, and recommend improvements to the basin's flood warning system.

The FAC has essentially completed its work on this task thanks to the efforts of the members of the committee representing the National Weather Service (NWS) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and recently revised its recommendations. A revised list of proposed Flood Warning System enhancements and improvements has been compiled. Some of these improvements have been funded and are already completed. A list of improvements since April has been assembled by the FAC and is included in the meeting folders. They include improvements in stream gaging and gage telemetry, expansion of NOAA Weather Radio Service, and the introduction of several AHPS products in the Delaware River Basin.

The remaining improvements proposed were divided into two categories: Site-specific Deficiencies and Recommendations and General Deficiencies and Recommendations. The first or one time costs of implementing the recommendations pertaining to site-specific deficiencies is $494,000 with an additional annual cost for operation and maintenance (O&M) of $103,140. The total one time cost of implementing the general recommendations is $1,654,000 with an additional annual cost of $131,040, which includes $50,000 annually for public education and outreach. It should be noted that a large portion of the cost to implement the general recommendations would be used to provide state-of-the-art Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Services (AHPS) to the basin. An AHPS Headwaters Flood Warning system would have an estimated one-time cost of $510,000 with an annual O&M cost of $10,000. An additional $1,064,000 in one-time costs would be required for AHPS forecasting and mapping products with an additional annual cost of $131,040. AHPS uses radar, GIS, and computer modeling technology to generate greatly improved hydrologic forecasting products in graphical formats. This is a national program for which funding in the President's budget proposal was requested to be increased from $2 million to $8 million at the national level for this year.

The DRBC, working through the Northeast Midwest Institute, has advanced both the benefits of AHPS and the Delaware Basin flood warning recommendations to the Delaware River Basin Congressional Task Force. The task force has endorsed the Delaware Basin proposal and recommended funding to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary by letter of March 15, 2002. This is the second straight year that the funding has been requested by the task force.

The FAC has also been assigned the task of developing implementation strategies for three additional comprehensive plan objectives supporting waterway corridor management and the need to reduce flood losses. To accomplish this task, the committee will need the assistance of a consultant or perhaps the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Philadelphia District to identify, inventory, and survey areas along the main stem of the Delaware River and its tributaries that have recently experienced flood damage or have the potential of experiencing damage in the future.

The cost of damage caused by recent flooding and the cost of potential future flooding is needed by the FAC to prioritize areas of loss and begin to match existing programs and mitigation strategies to specific areas. The success of these strategies can, in the future, be measured by the number of structures protected by traditional structural or non-structural mitigation measures which include floodproofing, retrofitting or raising, and the purchase and demolition or evacuation of existing structures from flood damage prone areas. The later strategy would further return flood damage prone areas to open space or naturally functioning flood plain, also an objective of waterway corridor management.

The committee did not feel that it had sufficient experience to assess or qualify flood damage to riparian and instream ecosystems and felt that the Stream Corridor and Land Use Advisory Committees could better recommend mitigation strategies to reduce these types of damage through storm water management or streambank restoration.

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 requires that local governments adopt flood hazard mitigation plans by the end of 2003 in order to be eligible for hazard mitigation grants after a major disaster. The FAC will recommend an implementation strategy for the basin, which will also assist local governments in their planning efforts.