Tuesday, April 23, 2024
The Coryell County Commissioners Court approved a short-term plan to seek a contractor to help with floodplain management issues, while also talking about the possibility of adding the position to the county in the future.
That action and discussion took place at the March 28 meeting of the court in which County Attorney Brandon Belt talked about the county's responsibilities regarding floodplain management.
"The flood damage prevention document specifies the environmental coordinator is the floodplain administrator, and obviously we don't have that position filled anymore," Belt said. "There are a lot of things involved in citizens being able to acquire (federal) flood insurance, and we need a floodplain administrator."
Commissioner Scott Weddle said that wasn't included in the budget for the 2023 fiscal year, "but we've talked about the need to fill that position."
County Judge Roger Miller said the best option for immediately meeting requirements is to contract with a local engineering firm to provide floodplain administration services.
"I believe in the short-term it's warranted to authorize the county attorney to send questions to an engineering firm," Miller said.
Belt said there are several items to consider.
"There are a lot of things that need to be addressed regarding floodplain management," he said. "In the absence of an administrator, I believe that falls to the commissioners court.
"Looking at the (federal) documents, there are a lot of things we're fixing to have to address that we haven't addressed before. It's because of development. I'm not sure we'll be able to keep that 13-year line in the sand of no residential development in floodplains. That's the line we drew in 2010."
Belt added that there is "nobody to review tracts in residential areas that have floodplains," and said government agencies and insurance companies want verification that floodplain regulations are being met.
"We're doing the best we can with what we've got, but we need some floodplain regulations in place," Belt said. "Cities don't have any floodplain management authority in their ETJ (extraterritorial jurisdiction - the area immediately outside a city limits).
"I think the best place for this would be in either the emergency management coordinator's office or the road and bridge department. There is a big piece (of floodplain management) related to emergency management and a big piece related to construction."
Belt said it's important to have an expert who can answer all floodplain questions.
"As we move forward and deal with growth, we're going to have to have somebody with different credentials than we've had in the past," he said. "I think we're going to have to amend the flood damage prevention order to deal with construction in floodplains. We're going to need more authority than we've had in the past."
Belt said there are documents that are 91 and 68 pages related to floodplain issues for someone to closely review.
"There's just a lot of stuff going on and there's going to be even more going on," he said. "I think the time has long since passed for the county attorney's office to deal with floodplain items. I think that should be with the development department.
"There are (Community Development Block Grant) funds available to deal with floodplain issues, and I think we need to look at some of those - we definitely qualify."
Judge Miller said he didn't want to place the extra burden on the road and bridge department.
"Obviously there's some tasks we need to do," Miller said. "I hesitate to put it as an additional requirement for road and bridge at this point. I think they're pretty well engaged with other tasks and they will be for quite some time."
Weddle asked Belt if he thought there was enough work for a floodplain administrator to stay busy on that task 40 hours a week.
"No," Belt said.
"So, we need to combine it with another position," Weddle said. "In the meantime, we need something. Do you believe an engineering firm would suffice?"
"Yes," Belt said. "We've been talking about this for a year now, maybe longer. We need to get this addressed and filled and our ordinances updated."
Miller suggested coming up with a short-term, mid-term and long-range solution.
"I think the short-term solution is to reach out to an engineering firm," he said. "Then at budget time we need to look at a long-term course of action.
The commissioner approved seeking assistance from an engineering firm to help deal with floodplain issues.
