County works on hazard mitigation plan
NORWICH – About 40 representatives from most municipalities in the county turned out Tuesday night for a hazard mitigation fact-finding workshop held at the Chenango County Office Building.
The gathering was the second in a series of several meetings planned by the county’s hired consultants, Tetra Tech EM Inc. of New Jersey. The firm was hired in November for $95,000 to write a countywide mitigation plan.
The Federal Emergency Management Association last year made such plans a pre-requisite for individuals and governments in order to claim damages from natural disasters. It is intended to demonstrate a county’s commitment to reducing risk and serve as a guide for decision makers as they commit resources to minimize the effect of natural hazards, the consultants say.
Tetra Tech completed plans recently for Tompkins, Delaware and Broome counties.
Each jurisdiction was asked to assign a point person to provide regional details to the consultants. Work on the risk assessment section of the plan has begun and the hazards that pose the greatest risk to the county have been identified. There are: Flooding, severe wind storms (including tornadoes), severe winter storms (blizzards and ice storms), ice jams on rivers, extreme temperatures and drought.
“We are going to be spending the most effort on the hazards that can cause us the most trouble. Flooding is number one,” consultant Jonathan Raser said during a phone call Wednesday. Chenango County was declared a national disaster area just last year after record-setting floods in June. Many areas were damaged again by rising flood waters in November.
Raser said each town needs to identify every possible situation. He said representatives suggested Tuesday that dam failure and hazardous materials transport might be included in the list.
“They were concerned about hazardous materials going through people’s backyards on the railroad or highways. We need to decide about that one,” he said. The possibility of disasters such as epidemics and terrorism attacks, for example, won’t be considered in the plan. “If you do that, all of the sudden your plate will be over-loaded,” he said.
“It is appropriate to identify as many mitigation actions that you can do that are appropriate to address your risks, but you have to realize that towns have only so many resources to work with,” he said.
The Chenango, Unadilla and Susquehanna rivers make the county particularly vulnerable to rising water and drainage issues. As a result - and part of the final mitigation plan - new studies of all three river corridors are underway. Bill Nechamen, chief of flood plain management for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said FEMA studies of the Chenango River from Earlville to Binghamton, the Unadilla from just north of New Berlin to its confluence with the Susquehanna, and the section of the Susquehanna in Chenango County should be completed in a year to 18 months.
To obtain a more defined scope of the flood plain topography, Nechamen said FEMA will use fly-over technology, called LiDAR. “We will be comparing the information with 10, 50, 100 and 500-year flood flows and elevations. The boundary conditions will be more accurate,” he said.
Raser said as the risk assessment step is completed, the group will go onto developing mitigation strategies. The DEC and FEMA data, as well as data from The New York State Emergency Management Office, Cooperative Extension, Soil & Water Conservation and Army Corps of Engineers, will be folded into Tetra Tech’s final mitigation plan.
Raser said the final plan won’t affect a town’s liability if a risk hasn’t been identified. “They wouldn’t affect (their) liability unless they (the towns) put in the plan that they would undertake action and don’t do it,” he said.
However, one result of the plan might be more land use regulations, such as zoning. “We are going to find a lot of towns are going to have to improve on their ordinances, code enforcement and planning. I don’t mean to be disparaging, but Chenango County will have to grow up. People can’t just build wherever they want to.”
“One of our final solutions will be for jurisdictions to try to start controlling development in hazardous areas,” he said.
The gathering was the second in a series of several meetings planned by the county’s hired consultants, Tetra Tech EM Inc. of New Jersey. The firm was hired in November for $95,000 to write a countywide mitigation plan.
The Federal Emergency Management Association last year made such plans a pre-requisite for individuals and governments in order to claim damages from natural disasters. It is intended to demonstrate a county’s commitment to reducing risk and serve as a guide for decision makers as they commit resources to minimize the effect of natural hazards, the consultants say.
Tetra Tech completed plans recently for Tompkins, Delaware and Broome counties.
Each jurisdiction was asked to assign a point person to provide regional details to the consultants. Work on the risk assessment section of the plan has begun and the hazards that pose the greatest risk to the county have been identified. There are: Flooding, severe wind storms (including tornadoes), severe winter storms (blizzards and ice storms), ice jams on rivers, extreme temperatures and drought.
“We are going to be spending the most effort on the hazards that can cause us the most trouble. Flooding is number one,” consultant Jonathan Raser said during a phone call Wednesday. Chenango County was declared a national disaster area just last year after record-setting floods in June. Many areas were damaged again by rising flood waters in November.
Raser said each town needs to identify every possible situation. He said representatives suggested Tuesday that dam failure and hazardous materials transport might be included in the list.
“They were concerned about hazardous materials going through people’s backyards on the railroad or highways. We need to decide about that one,” he said. The possibility of disasters such as epidemics and terrorism attacks, for example, won’t be considered in the plan. “If you do that, all of the sudden your plate will be over-loaded,” he said.
“It is appropriate to identify as many mitigation actions that you can do that are appropriate to address your risks, but you have to realize that towns have only so many resources to work with,” he said.
The Chenango, Unadilla and Susquehanna rivers make the county particularly vulnerable to rising water and drainage issues. As a result - and part of the final mitigation plan - new studies of all three river corridors are underway. Bill Nechamen, chief of flood plain management for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said FEMA studies of the Chenango River from Earlville to Binghamton, the Unadilla from just north of New Berlin to its confluence with the Susquehanna, and the section of the Susquehanna in Chenango County should be completed in a year to 18 months.
To obtain a more defined scope of the flood plain topography, Nechamen said FEMA will use fly-over technology, called LiDAR. “We will be comparing the information with 10, 50, 100 and 500-year flood flows and elevations. The boundary conditions will be more accurate,” he said.
Raser said as the risk assessment step is completed, the group will go onto developing mitigation strategies. The DEC and FEMA data, as well as data from The New York State Emergency Management Office, Cooperative Extension, Soil & Water Conservation and Army Corps of Engineers, will be folded into Tetra Tech’s final mitigation plan.
Raser said the final plan won’t affect a town’s liability if a risk hasn’t been identified. “They wouldn’t affect (their) liability unless they (the towns) put in the plan that they would undertake action and don’t do it,” he said.
However, one result of the plan might be more land use regulations, such as zoning. “We are going to find a lot of towns are going to have to improve on their ordinances, code enforcement and planning. I don’t mean to be disparaging, but Chenango County will have to grow up. People can’t just build wherever they want to.”
“One of our final solutions will be for jurisdictions to try to start controlling development in hazardous areas,” he said.
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