Statewide Flood Funding Yet To Flow

Director of the State Resiliency Office (SRO) Robert Martin presented to the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding Sunday about efforts the SRO is making to prepare for flooding disasters and propose preventative plans — although funding for those plans has remained stalled for decades.

The state created the SRO in 2021, in response to 2016 flooding disasters. The office was tasked with reviewing a 2004 statewide preventative plan for flooding, with an initial annual review in 2022.

“[S]trengthening floodplain management in the State will not be accomplished tomorrow, next week or next year,” the 2004 statewide flooding plan wrote. “Successful deployment of the strategies recommended in this Plan will take many years of sustained effort and require significant amounts of Federal, State and local funds.”

However, significant state funding for SRO has yet to arrive.

In the meantime, Martin said the three-person office has collaborated with other government agencies and local groups. Those efforts include studies on flooding risks with organizations like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, dependent on SRO grant funding.

During the interim meeting, lawmakers focused on community organizing, developing plans with stakeholder input and preparing for the potential of land buyout programs in flood-prone areas.

As of October 2023, the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service  offered 30 McDowell County floodplain homeowners voluntary buyouts and 27 accepted.

“We didn’t realize completely how NRCS was involved in buyouts,” Martin said of the SRO’s efforts to coordinate between federal and state agencies in the last year. “We’ve been working with them recently because they’re doing some more buyouts down in the southern part of the state, in McDowell County.”

“We want to move you out, but we want to be able to move you within that community, if all possible,” Martin said.

Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, asked Martin about the potential uses of eminent domain in future state property acquisition. After the meeting, Nelson said he would like the legislature to acquire data on the process and bring community members affected to speak to the particulars of a potential buyout plan.

“I know we have other members that really are completely against the use of eminent domain, period,” Nelson said. “I’m in the middle. Just give me the data, and let’s discuss it and see where we go.”

“We do not want this to be detrimental to people,” Martin told the committee. “We have more people wanting to move and get out of the property that they’re in that faster than we thought we would be able to take the property.”

Martin also said new grant funding will support starting and maintaining local long-term recovery groups, which have dwindled in recent years even as disasters, including those not federally recognized, have continued.

“We’ll be going out to the counties and creating long term recovery groups there, working for both communities, providing training and disaster case management,” Martin said.

Martin said the SRO will host an event on the second floor of the Capitol rotunda on March 11, with involved agency and community group representatives presenting.

The 2024 West Virginia Flood Resiliency Plan. Credit: State Resiliency Office