09-17-07 Meeting of Drainage and Flooding Committee

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among the departments. This review should be repeated at least every few years because of staff turn -over and changes in responsibilities. LOCATE ASSISTANCE SOURCES OUTSIDE YOUR COMMUNITY Your staff has probably received some technical assistance on floodplain management from a regional, state, or federal agency in the past, such as grants or loans for mitigation, reconstruction, or other flood -related activities. If there are flood control structures "The potential for flooding should be revisited by all local govern- within your jurisdiction, your com- ments annually, especially their police, emergency, public works, munity may have entered into cost - sharing or maintenance agreements and medical personnel. The problem is that after an event has taken for them with a federal or state place and time passes, people tend to forget or the real impact seems agency or with another jurisdiction. less vivid." — Beverly Anderson, Mayor, Darlington, Wisconsin Find out when and in what ways regional, state, and federal agencies and private groups have helped your community with floodplain-related activities in the past. Review any past agreements with other entities to be sure your community is carrying out what was intended. This will also help you find places to get advice and assistance in the future. COORDINATE WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS Floods and flood - plains are interrelated to many of the rest of your community's concerns. Just as a "[As a nation we need to] recognize the importance of continuing serious flood would affect everyone to some extent, so does the flood - to ... reduce the loss of life and property caused by floods and to pre- plain benefit everyone. There can be serve natural resources and functions of floodplains in an economically a lot of beneficial overlap between and environmentally sound manner.... [T]he natural resources and floodplain management and urban functions of our riverine and coastal floodplains help to maintain renewal, economic development, the viability of natural systems and provide multiple benefits for parks and recreation, stormwater the people." — The Presidents letter transmitting A Unified National management, and maintaining or Program for Floodplain Management to the U.S. Congress, March 1994. improving water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. Even if your community is already actively managing its floodplains, finding ways to combine those activities with other community functions can still save time and money, improve the quality of life for your constituents, and build a broader and longer -lasting base of support. page 12