77-802 0-81-43

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Soil Conservation Service

Fiscal Year 1980

National Summary Estimates

Non-Federal Contributions of Funds and Services to

STATE CON PR/DSG CON PR/APP PRO and Water Conservation Districts Program

Table 3

CON PLAN

WATERSHED

RC&D PROJ

SNOW SURVEY

OTHER

TOTAL

FLOOD PLAIN MANAGEMENT

Mr. WHITTEN. One thing I am opposed to is controlling land use from Washington. I realize in some parts of the world such as Luxembourg they have used up the available land, and I would not like to see that happen here. By the same token it also is bad to see someone in a town sell lots because they are cheaper and the first time you have high water you have problems.

Do you make the soil surveys to obtain information that is useful to the average county seat? Do they have a place where they can go to find out whether a spot can be used as a building site or not? Can you make this information available to cities that are interested, or do you deal with this at all?

Mr. BERG. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. First of all the soil survey is good data to have. The soils themselves are formed under conditions that would indicate it is in a flood plain or on higher land. We can learn from the soil survey itself as to the characteristics of that particular landscape.

We further have been working in past years, and we are going to be finishing that work up on making studies of flood plain potential damage. I would like to ask Joe Haas to explain briefly how we operate that program. It has provided very valuable information. We could continue to get reimbursable funds to do this except we have dedicated our personnel to a higher priority because we never get the people to go with the money.

Mr. WHITTEN. Do you have a plan that you could submit for the record as to what you would like to do along these lines if we were able to finance it?

Mr. BERG. Mr. Chairman, we can do that. I would like Mr. Haas to tell you what we have underway.

Mr. HAAS. Flood plain management has been carried out in basically two kinds of programs. One has been financed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and now it is under the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse the Soil Conservation Service for making flood hazard studies in communities. In addition, we have had our own program carried out under the River Basin account which we have used in the neighborhood of about $2 million per year to identify flood hazards within communities at their request.

In addition to identification of the flood hazard we also provide some land use recommendations which complement the Soil Conservation Service programs.

Mr. WHITTEN. We would like to have you enlarge your answer for the record and cite examples of where you have done this. Mr. BERG. We will provide that for the record.

[The information follows:]

FLOOD PLAIN MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

SCS flood plain management studies conducted with River Basin Survey and Investigation funds are performed at the request of local communities and state agencies. Priority is given to rural and urban fringe communities. These studies are of short duration-2 years or less-at an average cost of $60,000, and would rarely cover more than a county. The primary element of such studies is to identify the flood hazard potential. Also included is the identification of natural and beneficial values in the flood plain which includes prime farmland. The program is being broadened to encourage the identification of flood plain management alternatives,

both structural and nonstructural, and provide follow-up assistance in interpreting the study results. Our goal has been to fully integrate this program with other SCS activities. These studies provide needed input to the watershed program, RC&D planning, and our general assistance program to conservation districts.

We have also been performing flood insurance studies under reimbursable agreement with the Federal Insurance Administration-FIA. These studies also identify the flood hazard potential but are not as broad in scope as our flood plain management studies. They do not include the natural and beneficial values of flood plains or identify_management alternatives. Also, we only would perform these studies where the FIA has a need for the data. Therefore, the results are not always useful in other high priority activities of USDA. In 1980 we received $1.2 million from FIA to fund 25 staff-years of work on these studies. This service will no longer be provided after fiscal year 1982.

As of March 26, 1981, there were 51 ongoing flood plain management studies in 23 states funded from River Basin Surveys and Investigation funds. There were 105 reimbursable flood insurance studies underway in 17 states. The flood insurance studies should all be completed by the end of fiscal year 1982. No new flood insurance studies have been started since the end of fiscal year 1979. Over 3 million acres of 100 year flood plain have been mapped with both River Basin funds and reimbursable flood insurance funds along 16,000 miles of streams by SCS during the last 10 years. I will provide a copy for the record of our latest State Summary Report which shows where this work is taking place.

[The information follows:]