Number: 2006-06
WHEREAS, flooding remains the most costly, most deadly, and most common form of natural disaster; and
WHEREAS, it is generally associated with human encroachment on natural floodplains and sometimes with alteration of hydrologic regimes; and
WHEREAS, flooding is a natural hydrologic process; and
WHEREAS, floodplain ecosystems serve critical natural resource functions, including providing important habitat for wildlife, absorption and attenuation of floodwater protection, and maintenance of water quality and quantity; and
WHEREAS floodplains provide transportation, retention, and deposition of sediments and nutrients, and areas for groundwater recharge; and
WHEREAS, for many decades, much development in the nation’s floodplains has been accompanied with little recognition of substantial losses or degradation of floodplain ecological functions and alarming increases in flood-related damages; and
WHEREAS, despite enormous national investments in flood reduction project and structures, including more than $123 billion by the nation’s largest water resources agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, average national flood damages have continued to rise alarmingly, especially where floods exceed the capacities of flood protection systems; and
WHEREAS, the nation’s floodplain experts are increasingly recognizing that traditional approaches to flood protection, which have emphasized projects for the physical control of floods rather than often less costly nonstructural measures, may be contributing to the exacerbation of flood-related costs and human suffering, particularly through the inducement of development into natural floodplain areas; and
WHEREAS, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was originally established in 1968 as an alternative to traditional flood reduction approaches with the intention of providing affordable flood insurance for flood prone properties, while working with local communities and states to guide new development out of the floodplain; and
WHEREAS, while the NFIP has provided some incentive for communities to consider and better manage flood-related risk, it is not actuarially sound, and it has often failed to guide new development out of harm’s way and in many instances it has worked to support and underwrite unwise floodplain development, with resultant increases in flood risk and damages and continued loss of natural floodplain functions and their associated benefits to people and wildlife, and it has not adequately strengthened community standards over time; and
WHEREAS, in the wake of the 1993 Great Midwest Flood, the Federal Interagency Floodplain Management Task Force (“Galloway Report”) proposed four broad goals to improve the status of our nation’s floodplains, yet, these broad goals along with nearly 100 other practical proposed actions, largely remain unimplemented; and
WHEREAS, the federal flood reduction programs encourage floodplain development and wetland drainage with strong bias favoring structural over non-structural approaches, and the key guidance documents for these programs have not been updated to remove such bias in more than 20 years; and
WHEREAS, hazard mitigation — the notion of building or rebuilding to reduce risks and vulnerabilities — is a well-recognized modern principle of disaster recovery (and avoidance), yet national flood programs have recently seen major reductions in mitigation funding after disasters; and
WHEREAS, the recent experience of natural disasters in the Gulf region and across the nation raise even greater concerns about the need to plan for, mitigate vulnerabilities to, and aggressively work to combat the causes of human-induced global climate change that threaten the safety and ecological health of people and wildlife on Earth;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, at its annual meeting assembled March 17-18, 2006, in New Orleans, Louisiana, calls upon Congress and the Administration to undertake efforts to modernize the nation’s flood-related and other water policies and programs to emphasize ecologically sustainable and economically sound management of the nation’s floodplains, with full commitment to promoting public safety and sustainable human development in the context of the natural physical and ecological processes; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation calls upon Congress and the Administration to reduce and eliminate subsidies and biases in federal programs that promote unwise, high-risk floodplain development, including unwise subsidies in water development, transportation, agriculture, flood insurance and disaster programs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation urges Congress and the Administration to establish among the highest priorities to consider and implement recommendations made by the 1994 Galloway Report and other similar and related recommendations by the National Research Council, Government Accountability Office and others to improve the nation’s floodplain management and to update key guidance such as the 1983 Economic and Environmental Principles and Guidelines (P&G) and the 1979 Floodplain Management Executive Order 11988 to incorporate lessons learned, including the lessons of recent coastal disasters; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that pending the updating of national floodplain policies, the National Wildlife Federation urges Congress and the Administration to adopt a general policy to avoid the promotion of new levee projects that separate existing natural floodplains from adjacent rivers and that encourage substantial new at-risk development; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation urges Congress and the Administration to provide adequate funding for hazard mitigation, to require the identification and mapping of the 500-year (.2 percent annual chance) floodplain through the current NFIP Map Modernization program, and to establish higher standards for existing urban area flood protection, including standards to provide (where practicable) at least standard project flood level of protection and to locate critical facilities such as schools, hospitals, eldercare, police, fire, and other public facilities, important roads, bridges, and transportation facilities outside the 500-year floodplains, concurrent with stronger policies to avoid placing future development in high-risk floodplain areas.