WASHINGTON, D.C. >> Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and congressmen John Garamendi (D-Fairfield) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) announced the release of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report they requested titled “National Flood Insurance Program: Additional Guidance on Building Requirements to Mitigate Agricultural Structures” Damage in High-Risk Flood Areas is Needed.”
The GAO report looks at the impact of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) on agricultural producers in floodplains. GAO researchers met with producers in Sutter and Yolo counties, in addition to other counties across the country, to learn more about their experiences with the NFIP.
The three members of Congress also sent a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate, telling him that building requirements under the NFIP are so inflexible that they are forcing some producers in California “to forego plans to construct important agricultural structures in floodplains currently used for producing crops or livestock.”
These farmers are currently unable to expand their operations unless they flood proof buildings or build structures above the base flood elevation (BFE), according to Matthew Kravitz of Garamendi”s office. In some areas of Northern California, the BFE is 15 feet above the ground and building barns or processing facilities on stilts 15 feet high is just not feasible. The letter urges FEMA to issue guidelines with additional flexibility for agricultural producers within one year.
“These inflexible regulations are like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole,” Garamendi said. “My constituents in Sutter and Yolo counties and residents across Northern California are constrained by rules that don”t make sense. As a result, it is completely impractical and unaffordable for them to build or repair a variety of structures.”
Garamendi and LaMalfa have introduced H.R. 3315, the Agricultural Structures Building Act, which will amend the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 and allow repair, expansion and construction, without elevation, of agricultural structures located in special flood hazard zones.
