BOARD02334

• Board Meeting Date: 3/29/1999
• Description: Flood Section - Cooperating Technical Community ‎(CTC)‎ Agreement Between FEMA and Urban Drainage and Flood Control District - Relationship to CWCB Floodplain Designations and Approvals
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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STATE OF COLORADO

.

Colorado Water Conservation Boarq
Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone, {3031 866-3441
FAX, (3031866.4474

II

Bill Owens
Governor

MEMORANDUM

Greg E. Walcher
Executive Director. DNR
Peter H. Evans
Director, eweB

TO:

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

FROM:

Larry Lang

DATE:

March 19, 1999

SUBJECT: Revised Agenda Item 24.- REVISED, March 29 - 30, 1999, Board Meeting --
Cooperating Technical Community (CTC) Agreement Between FEMA and
Urban Drainage & Flood Control District - Relationship to CWCB Floodplain
Designations and Approvals

.

INTRODUCTION:

The Board's Floodplain Designation and Approval program addresses floodplain maps prepared
by many contractors. Two major contractors are FEMA and the Urban Drainage & Flood
Control District CUD & FCD). FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program and UD & FCD's
floodplain management program produce many miles of eligible 100-year floodplain delineations
for Board consideration. Any changes in their programs are of interest to the Board.

In the development of its proposed Map Modernization Program (MMP), a program designed to
substantially improve FEMA's Flood Insurance Studies, FEMA has estimated the cost of the
entire MMP, including modernizing the maps and reports, public outreach, and other technical
and non-technical tasks, at approximately $800 million. That amount would represent additional
funding beyond current levels of funding for FEMA mapping. Funding for the Map
Modernization Program has not been secured at this time, but FEMA is proceeding with the
development of the program. The MMP proposes a large number of programmatic elements to
accomplish the map improvements. One of those elements is called Cooperating Technical
Communities (CTC's). Under that proposed element, qualified communities (local, regional or
state entities) would serve as Flood Insurance Study contractors, performing engineering for their
own studies. FEMA is currently negotiating with the Urban Drainage & Flood Control District
in the Denver metropolitan area in anticipation of signing a CTC agreement in May 1999. At
present it appears that this agreement will be the first such agreement in the country.

. The question of compliance with the CWCB's Rules and Regulations has arisen. Floodplain
studies performed by Urban Drainage have always met the CWCB's Rules and Regulations. It is
not anticipated that the CTC arrangement would lead to any problems with the CWCB's