U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

25–918 PDF 2006

REDUCING HURRICANE AND FLOOD

RISK IN THE NATION

(109–38)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

TRANSPORTATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 27, 2005

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice-Chair

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

GARY G. MILLER, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

CONNIE MACK, Florida

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JERROLD NADLER, New York

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

BOB FILNER, California

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

(II)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, Chairman

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

GARY G. MILLER, California

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

TED POE, Texas

CONNIE MACK, Florida

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana,

Vice-Chair

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

DON YOUNG, Alaska

(Ex Officio)

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

(Ex Officio)

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS

TESTIMONY

Page

Dickey, G. Edward, Ph.D, Affiliate Professor of Economics, Loyola College

of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland ..................................................................... 8

Emmer, Rodney E., Executive Director, Louisiana Floodplain Management

Assiciation, Member, Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc. ............ 8

Galloway, Gerald E., P.E., Ph.D, Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, University of Maryland College Park .................................................. 8

Rabbon, Peter D., P.E., General Manager, California Reclamation Board,

President, National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management

Agencies ................................................................................................................ 8

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri ......................................................................... 33

Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois .......................................................................... 34

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 54

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

Dickey, G. Edward ................................................................................................... 35

Emmer, Rodney E. ................................................................................................... 39

Galloway, Gerald E. ................................................................................................. 47

Rabbon, Peter D. ...................................................................................................... 57

(1)

REDUCING HURRICANE AND FLOOD RISK IN

THE NATION

Thursday, October 27, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, WASHINGTON,

D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2167,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John J. Duncan [chairman of

the committee] presiding.

Mr. DUNCAN. I want to welcome everyone to our hearing this

morning on Reducing Hurricane and Flood Risk in the Nation. Last

week, we held two hearings more specifically related to the tragic

events associated with Hurricane Katrina. But as I mentioned at

the second of those hearings, we are starting to get requests from

communities all across the Nation.

We have seen in the Gulf region what can happen when hurricane and flood protection infrastructure is inadequate or fails to

perform. Today, we will broaden our focus a little bit and expand

it out to more national concerns, or to the Nation as a whole. What

is the condition of our hurricane and flood protection infrastructure? What should it be? Do we need to make policy changes to be

sure that we are making the best investments of taxpayer dollars?

I hope that our witnesses today will help us answer some of

those questions and give us other good advice and suggestions. We

do not know where the next hurricane or flood will hit. But we do

know that many of our major cities, including parts of this city,

and many others, have a greater probability of flooding than did

New Orleans.

And there are some facts about hurricane and flood risks that

should cause us some concern. First, more Americans are moving

to coastal areas where the risk of hurricanes and floods is greatest.

In the South Atlantic region, the coastal population grew 51 percent from 1980 to 2000, and it is expected to increase another 13

or 15 percent by 2008. Along the Gulf of Mexico, the population increased by 38 percent from 1980 to 2000. It is projected by the Government to grow an additional 12 percent at least by 2008.

Secondly, our infrastructure is aging. The National Inventory of

Dams shows that 45 percent of our Federal dams are at least 50

years old, and that over 80 percent of them are at least 30 years

old. We know even less about the status and capabilities of our levees. There has never been a national inventory of levees. Over the

decades, levees have been built by different entities at different

times and to different standards. They have been linked together
2

to provide a protective system for a city, but with such a mixture

of conditions; sort of a hodgepodge of construction. The true level

of protection certainly is in doubt.

Every day, the Nation’s engineers and scientists learn more

about the reliability and limitations of dams and levees. New techniques and materials are discovered in the laboratories. Without

investments in infrastructure, we cannot benefit from what we

have learned and take advantage of the advance that we should of

the progress that’s being made. Clearly, cities can do a great deal

to protect their citizens from floods through good urban planning

and emergency management plans. But structural measures, such

as levees and dams, will always be necessary in some situations.

We must make sure that the infrastructure we have is well maintained and modern.

Currently, Congress authorizes projects that meet the basic criteria of being in the Federal interest and are technically feasible,

economically justified and environmentally sound. Projects are

planned and constructed with non-Federal partners sharing in the

costs. With limited funds going to flood control projects, we need

to consider whether there are better ways to provide flood protection at less cost. Should budget constraints dictate the level of protection we offer to a city?

We found in New Orleans many citizens could not evacuate. Is

that a factor to consider in planning flood protection of other cities?

Perhaps more could be done to encourage cities to use their power

of zoning to reduce the need for expensive flood control projects.

Perhaps we can streamline the planning and construct some processes, so that good projects can be dealt quicker.

Are we adequately examining the full range of flood protection

alternatives? These are some of the questions that we have, and I

look forward to hearing from the witnesses on the panel today, a

very distinguished panel of witnesses.

I now recognize our Ranking Member, my good friend, Ms. Johnson, for her opening remarks.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Today the Subcommittee continues its review of issues concerning flood damage and hurricane protection. While the first two

hearings focused primarily on the aftermath of the Hurricanes

Katrina and Rita and the Gulf Coast, today’s hearing is more general. We focus on recommendations for change in the way the U.S.

addresses deadly risks of hurricanes and floods.

Too often, there is a tendency to do things the way we do them

because that’s the way we’ve always done them. I fear that the

Federal, State and local approach to flood and hurricane risk falls

into this category.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed shortcomings in U.S. policies: hurricane protection, economic opportunity, social equality,

housing and others. It is critical that we take these lessons to heart

and ensure that we do our part to correct them.

For example, we evaluate Corps of Engineers projects based upon

analysis of benefits to whom they may accrue, and have since 1936.

While there have been modifications to how and what the Corps

studies in developing projects, the basic test has remained the

same. That same 1936 Flood Control Act also stated that there was
3

a Federal interest in controlling the effects of floods where the lives

and social security of people are otherwise adversely affected.

Maybe we need to modify the test of the 1936 Act, or maybe we

need to renew the emphasis on lives and social security. These

hearings will help frame these deliberations.

Others in the debate, such as our colleague from Oregon, Mr.

Blumenauer, advocate change in the Principles and Guidelines and

some of today’s testimony also calls for review. Of course, no matter what the Federal policy is, it will be less than fully effective if

we fail to adequately fund the program.

For too long, we have tried to accomplish our infrastructure goals

while shortchanging them. The Corps’ budget is stagnant. It took

over two years of intense negotiations to extend the highway and

transit programs. And they are self-financing.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t profess to know the answers to meeting

our national goals for flood and hurricane damage reduction. I am

not even sure what the national goals are. But I congratulate you

for having today’s dialogue, and I look forward to working with you

and all the members of this Committee to ensure that we have the

best national policy and the resources and determinations to see it

through.

Thank you, and I welcome the witnesses.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Gilchrest.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. The three of us a few weeks ago went down and

flew from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, hopscotched and

stopped on a number of places along the way to look at near total

devastation. It was stunning and extraordinary, so I want to compliment the Chairman for holding a series of hearings, so we can

grasp a sense of the magnitude of the problem, so over the coming

decades the policy of this Government will be to make sure that

people are protected, stay out of harm’s way, and understand the

nature of nature and the nature of human engineering. Sometimes

they collide and exacerbate each other in extraordinary fashion.

Just very quickly, I represent the Chesapeake Bay region. The

Chesapeake Bay, in the last century, sea level rose one foot. That’s

due to sea level rise, natural sea level rise, and subsidence. Something very similar to what you have in coastal Louisiana.

Now, in the next century, the estimate is by all accounts three

feet. That is due again to sea level rise and subsidence. Now, if we

read some of the data, in the next several decades a quarter of all

the homes within 500 feet of many coastal areas will be lost to erosion and likely lost to storm surges or hurricanes. But simple erosion coming from natural forces.

I think what we are trying to collect in this hearing is some understanding about the policies we should make, basically to keep

people out of harm’s way. So I think the best way to proceed is for

you to give us some understanding of how best to collect the data

about flood plains, vulnerable coastal areas, for us to come up with

a way to communicate that data, to not only people that potentially

want to live there, but to local governments.

I think if I was the Governor of Maryland, I would say you can’t

have a real estate agent’s license unless you pass a test that in-
4

volves two things: understanding the ecological functions of the

Chesapeake Bay and understanding the ecological vulnerabilities of

building along the shorelines of the coastal areas. I don’t know if

I would get elected if that was my platform.

Collect the data on all the coastal areas, where are the erosion

rates the most, what is significant about sea level rise, and it happens slowly, but it’s a fact. And it does exacerbate storm surges,

it does exacerbate erosion, subsidence problems, communicating

that data. What kind of mapping do we need in the form of digital

mapping, so local emergency management boards know what their

region looks like and communicate that, and how much funding

might you recommend for us to have that kind of digital mapping?

Then the other thing is, I think we basically know the answer

to this, but there seems to be a clear need for us, instead of having

a policy that incentivizes people to move to the coast, we probably

need some kind of policy, looking back to 1968 when we created

Federal flood insurance, some type of policy to dis-incentivize people from moving to vulnerable areas. And pretty much how do we

do that. What would it cost to retrofit all the structures that are

in vulnerable areas right now, so they don’t get blown down again?

And some type of mechanism to steer people away from moving to

vulnerable areas.

This is a tall order. And I think we are probably at the very early

stages of understanding future ramifications for having human activity grossly incompatible with nature’s design. And we have a

huge heart for those people who lost their homes, who are trying

to move back into their homes, who lost all their possessions.

So as we go through these hearings and try to understand how

to help the people most in need, create a policy so this doesn’t repeat itself over the course of the coming decades.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Gilchrest.

Our panel today consists of Mr. Peter D. Rabbon, who is here

representing the National Association of Flood and Stormwater

Management Agencies. He is the General Manager of the California Reclamation Board. He is here from San Francisco.

Representing the Association of State Floodplain Managers is Dr.

Rodney Emmer. He is the Executive Director of the Louisiana

Floodplain Managers Association, and he has come to us from

Baton Rouge. As Mr. Gilchrest mentioned, we had 11 members who

went down to view the damage in Louisiana and Mississippi and

Alabama, and we were in Baton Rouge just a little over three

weeks ago.

Dr. Gerald E. Galloway, who is a Professor of Engineering at the

University of Maryland at College Park; and Dr. G. Edward

Dickey, who is an Affiliate Professor of Economics at Loyola College

in Maryland, and he is here with us from Baltimore. We appreciate

very much, gentlemen, each of you taking time out from your various busy schedules to be here with us this morning.

Before we start with your testimony, we are always honored to

have the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Mr. Oberstar,

here with us. I would like to give him a moment to make any comments that he has.
5

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My hat is

off to you for persisting in this series of inquiries into flood control,

flood protection, getting the facts out on the table. As I said and

as you confirmed in our tour of the Gulf States, we were there and

we are here to find facts, not fault. There will be plenty of time to

do the latter. What we are pursuing now is the how and the what

to do.

This Committee and this Subcommittee and its predecessor, the

Rivers and Harbors Subcommittee, has been engaged with the flood

control needs and the navigation improvement needs of the whole

Gulf, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway System, the Mississippi River

system, the Port of New Orleans as the most important grain export facility in the world since the origins of the Congress. In 1789,

the first committee created was the Rivers and Harbors Committee, which undertook the responsibilities of opening the interior of

the Nation to human expansion and to commercial development.

There was a great deal of discussion, I recall in my first two

terms in Congress, on this Subcommittee, about what to do with

New Orleans. Should the levees be built to withstand the most extensive, powerful hurricane yet known, which was somewhere in

the range of a category 3, category 4, there were very imprecise

compared to today measures of hurricane forces at the time. There

was also concern about the underlying strength of the sub-soil as

we have today, there was great concern about rebuilding the wetlands as the buffer zones. We will continue that discussion in the

course of these hearings and meetings.

What is at greater issue though is the whether, whether we

should invest financial resources to rebuild New Orleans. We had

quite a discussion about this last week in your very fine hearings,

Mr. Chairman. You really gathered an array of people.

I want to put a little historical perspective on it this morning. A

book that I read a few years ago, which I commend, one of the few

books that Stephen Ambrose hasn’t written about American history, is the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson and America’s

First Military Victory. The book opens, ‘‘It was a battle that

changed the course of American history, a battle that convinced

Americans they had earned the right to be independent, and that

their sovereignty would be respected once and for all around the

globe. It was a battle that thundered a once-poor, wretchedly educated orphaned boy into the White House, Andrew Jackson.’’

Two hundred pages later, the book concludes, ‘‘The great Battle

of New Orleans produced a President and an enduring belief in the

military ability of free people to protect and preserve their society

and their way of life. The last six months is the proudest period

in the history of the Republic, declared Niles’ Weekly Register. We

demonstrated to mankind a capacity to acquire a skill in arms, to

conquer the conquerors of us all, as Wellington’s Invincibles were

modestly styled. Who would not be an American? Long live the Republic, last asylum of oppressed humanity.’’

That is what the Battle of New Orleans meant, that is what this

region meant. It brought America together. The historian writes,

‘‘From this moment on, Americans believed wholeheartedly in the

superiority of American institutions, representative government, a

society that rewarded talent and individual initiative instead of
6

class and bloodlines. They also believed this kind of society would

spread around the globe and its institutions would lift people out

of their humiliating subjugation to kings, emperors and czars.’’

That is what is at stake in the rebuilding of New Orleans. This

historical legacy that launched the New Republic, that consolidated

America, that brought Americans together. We must not let it fall

apart. Its historical significance is too great for all Americans.

The only question then in my mind that remains is the how. And

these hearings will point us in that direction. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Oberstar. PBS started a series several years ago called The Presidents. It must not have been very

successful, because they had a group of us down at the White

House for a lecture on Andrew Jackson by that gentleman. I have

always remembered that one of the last things he said was that

Andrew Jackson became obsessed with paying off the national debt

at that time and leaving the Country debt-free. He got it paid off

and the national debt at that time was $4 million.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. It is now over $8 trillion. That’s a lot of difference.

I read an article this morning about one of the champion

marathoners in the Congress, Mr. Blumenauer. We are glad to

have you with us this morning. Do you have any comments?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I must commend you, our Committee leadership, for focusing in

on this. And I appreciate our Ranking Member, Mr. Oberstar, establishing the historic context. I think the more we understand history in the full context, the better we will be.

I was struck by the one line there about how people, as a result

of this, were convinced of the strength and power of our institutions, to paraphrase. Well, I think what you are doing with this

work here is for us to hold a mirror up and look at some of our

institutions, some of our practices and some of our programs. Because I think what we will hear from our witnesses today is they

haven’t necessarily kept pace with what we know about the

science, about hydrology, about best practices.

And sadly, Congress has been in the middle of the problem. We

haven’t done a very good job of being able to deal with the priorities and focus in and hear from the many experts who have appeared before us. I appreciate what the Subcommittee is doing to

look critically at how we deal with New Orleans, how we deal with

the great Mississippi in the context of not only history, but where

we go forward from here.

I look forward to our panel. I won’t share more of my own biases,

other than to say that I hope that we will be able to look more aggressively in the tradeoffs in investments. I hope that we will be

able to gather their wisdom to look at some of the non-structural

alternatives, that we will be able to do a better job of prioritizing

what Congress will do with the vast investments that are before

us.

I hope that someday we will even update the Principles and

Guidelines that date back to 1983. I am sure under the leadership

of this Committee, we will be able to drag them into the new century.
7

I appreciate the hearing, I appreciate the opportunity and I look

forward to hearing from our witnesses.

Mr. DUNCAN. I told my staff yesterday, Mr. Blumenauer, that

you would mention the revision of the Principles and Guidelines.

I am glad you didn’t let me down.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I never want to let you down, Mr. Chairman.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. Judge Poe.

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m from southeast Texas. Jefferson County is one of the counties

that was hit by Rita. The people in Jefferson County, specifically

Port Arthur, Texas, are just as important as the people in New Orleans. The 40 year old levee in Port Arthur, Texas, did not break,

that was built by the Corps of Engineers. I hope that we can shed

some light on how we can equalize the recovery of the entire Gulf

Cost, not just concentrate on one city of New Orleans, but the damage that was created by Hurricane Rita as well.

So I look forward to the testimony.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Ms. Schwartz.

Ms. SCHWARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just very

briefly say I look forward to your remarks. Also I would associate

myself with most of Mr. Blumenauer’s remarks. I don’t know as

much about the regulations he is wanting to update, but I hope

that we can look both structurally and environmentally at the ways

we may be able to be hopefully smarter and more creative as we

look to both remediate and rebuild and prevent future flooding.

So I would be interested in some of the accelerating wetlands

conservation as a part of the discussion that we have about infrastructure demands as well. I hope we can hear some of that in the

course of this panel and as we move forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Ranking Member Oberstar mentioned that in his first two terms

in office while serving on this Subcommittee, that flood protection

for New Orleans was discussed at that time. The Congress did approve in 1965 a barrier protection plan for New Orleans that the

Army Corps and some others think might have prevented much of

the flooding that occurred there. It was stopped and not carried out

because of a series of lawsuits with some local opposition.

But I am hopeful that after we have all of these hearings and

we have gone to the scene that some of this leads us to take appropriate action. I hope we can reach consensus on some of the things

that need to be done.

I have introduced the panel, and gentlemen, each of your full

statements will be placed in the record. You can summarize. Most

subcommittees give the witnesses five minutes. I give you six minutes. But if you see me raise this gavel, I want you to stop because

that is in consideration of other witnesses and also in consideration

of the members of the panel who want to ask questions.

So Mr. Rabbon, you may begin your statement.
8

TESTIMONY OF PETER D. RABBON, P.E., GENERAL MANAGER,

CALIFORNIA RECLAMATION BOARD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

ASSOCIATION OF FLOOD AND STORMWATER MANAGEMENT

AGENCIES; RODNEY E. EMMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOUISIANA FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION, MEMBER,

ASSOCIATION OF STATE FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS, INC.;

GERALD E. GALLOWAY, P.E., PH.D, GLENN L. MARTIN INSTITUTE PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK; G. EDWARD DICKEY, PH.D, AFFILIATE

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, LOYOLA COLLEGE OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE

Mr. RABBON. Thank you, Chairman Duncan. On behalf of

NAFSMA, we want to thank you for the opportunity we have

today. I personally want to thank you for the comments I have

heard. It demonstrates clearly you are concerned, but also you understand the issue before you. We hope that NAFSMA can provide

you some recommendations that you think may be worthy of consideration.

We have six key recommendations we would like to submit.

There is a common theme in all of them, and it is basically safety

first. We do recommend that you review the Principles and Guidelines for the Corps of Engineers with an eye toward safety first.

The P&Gs are a very comprehensive document, yet they miss one

item. They miss the fact that you cannot place a value on life by

looking at a cost benefit formula.

For example, what that means is, it is possible to have a beat

flooding situation for a population of a given size that may be economically depressed, where you would not have a viable project or

Federal interest. On the other hand, you could have that same size

population in a shallow flooding area of a prosperous neighborhood

that would qualify for a Federal project because of the way your

benefit cost ratio works in the policies and guidelines.

So we suggest, number one, for safety first, review the policy and

guidelines to start looking at what you are trying to do, which is

protect the public from flooding. Number two, incentive-based cost

sharing. We recommend that you look at your cost sharing and provide incentives to develop more balanced programs, not just providing funding for structural projects, but what about if you took a

more balanced approach of structural and gave consideration or incentive for non-structural approaches too?

Not only does that improve public safety, but that can improve

your quality of life. If you are going to recognize and give incentives to local projects where they say, provide recreational areas or

provide open space or improve the environment, that not only improves quality of life, that also has set aside areas where you will

not be putting more people at risk. So a more balanced approach

through incentive cost sharing can help put public safety first.

Item number three, streamlining the permitting process. Once

we have a Federal project in place, it needs to be operated and

maintained for perpetuity. You cannot drive a car without maintaining it, you cannot continue to live in a house without maintenance. Nor can you expect to live behind a federally authorized

flood control project without maintenance. So we are recommending, if you want to put public safety first, that we look at stream-
9

lining the process necessary to obtain permits to operate and maintain the federally authorized projects that the non-Federal entities

are asked to maintain.

Number four, NAFSMA supports a national levee study. We

would like to see the Federal Government commit to assess the

State’s flood management projects, not just those that are federally

authorized, but all flood control projects out there. Because if it is

federally authorized, or a local project, if there is a failure, there

will be a Federal agency out there after the failure. You will see

the Corps there or you will see FEMA there.

So we would suggest, it is better than you first go out, know

what is out there, then determine the status of that project and

then go even further if there is a necessity to do it, to repair that

or bring it up to more current standards. Again, this put the public

safety first. It gives you an advantage to get out there and be

ahead of the problem, so it is not a surprise to you.

Number five, we suggest raising the funding limit on the Water

Resource Development Act for Section 215 projects. This section allows a non-Federal sponsor to do construction on their own on

projects that are federally authorized and then seek reimbursement

from the Corps. This too puts public safety first. By allowing us to

build the project in advance before the Federal Government receives funding, we can get the public safety projects in faster, it

will most likely be cheaper because we are going to be beating inflation. So again, public safety can come first if we look at something even as simple as raising the limits for the Water Resource

Development Act Section 215.

Number six, creation of a flood management technical advisory

committee. Here what we are suggesting is the Corps of Engineers

take the lead on an advisory committee to facilitate and coordinate

the Federal policies and programs related to flood management.

That will allow the Federal Government to act as a single government versus separate entities, and it will include integration of the

programs.

Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Rabbon. Some very good

suggestions there.

Dr. Emmer.

Mr. EMMER. Thank you. I grew up in New Orleans and live in

Baton Rouge. Over the past two months, I have had a number of

guests in my house, and family, friends, dogs and cats. In fact, the

front yard looked like a Wal-Mart parking lot. So I bring personal

experience to today’s session.

The fact is, I tell colleagues throughout the United States, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi have had better Septembers and Octobers. But hurricanes happen, survival is planned, and it is time

we move on and look at the future.

The Association has had many members who are active in responding to the impacts of the recent hurricanes. These tragedies

are reminders to us that we are susceptible to the natural hazards

that exist along the coastal zones. Therefore, we must have problems, policies and institutions that can adequately handle these

events, efficiently use taxpayer monies and build a more sustain-
10

able community. We thank you for the opportunity to present our

ideas to you today.

The Association envisions a number of key legislative policy

changes to strengthen the programs of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We believe that these initiatives will reduce future flood

losses of life and property due to flooding. First, there needs to be

immediate action to stabilize the communities and the people. The

magnitude of the disasters in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is

so great that efforts must be taken immediately to stabilize the

population and return these people to some sense of normalcy.

The recovery options include: repair and stabilize all flood protection works to pre-Katrina design; engage, support and encourage

State and regional authorities in the creation of long term visions

for redevelopment from the impacts of the storms; to fund programs for coastal Louisiana for the continued enhancement, creation and restoration of the coastal wetlands and the natural barriers that protect the development within coastal Louisiana; and

design new structural and non-structural works to provide a more

realistic level of protection. Urban areas and critical infrastructures

could be at the 500 year level of protection, or in the case of New

Orleans, the levees raised to withstand category 4 or 5 hurricanes.

The Nation needs an integrated national levee policy. Federal

agencies, such as the Corps of Engineers and Natural Resource

Conservation Service build levees using different guidelines. FEMA

produces flood maps for 20,000 communities in the Nation, many

of which rely on these levees. The Association believes that these

levees should be considered an option of last resort and used only

to protect existing communities. Levees should not be used to protect undeveloped land in anticipation of new development that will

be placed at risk within them.

Damageable structures behind the levees should be elevated or

take other mitigation steps to avoid catastrophic damage in the

case of levee failure overtopping, such as was seen recently. The

Corps should be tasked to lead a Federal-State-local work group to

develop an integrated national levee policy.

National levee programs, the U.S. has no national inventory of

levees. Property owners behind levees assume that they are protected and so are surprised, angry and often financially ruined

when levees fail. We see this most recently in New Orleans and

southeast Louisiana.

The Corps of Engineers should be charged and funded to immediately undertake a national levee safety inspection initiative as

part of the floodplain management services program. This initiative

would be similar to the inspection and inventory the Corps performed at the instigation of the Nation’s flood dam safety program.

Just as in dam safety, the Federal Government should not have

continuing or long term responsibility for levee safety. This is really the responsibility of State and local governments.

We should undertake wetlands restoration. This is a key to structural protection. Experts agree that wetlands provide significant

flood protection. It was suggested that if wetlands had not turned

to open water that that damages to New Orleans would have been

significantly less. We urge Congress to fund the appropriate elements of the coastal Louisiana project that will provide wetlands
11

protection, enhance or create these wetlands or restore them to

help protect the cities and the levees that surround the cities.

The level of protection provided by levees is of concern also. In

highly urbanized areas, in particular, where the consequences of

failure can be catastrophic, a 1 percent standard we feel is insufficient. Therefore, the Association supports the concept that in urbanized areas, and for critical infrastructures where the impact of

flood damage or catastrophic Federal flood control projects should

be designed to provide protection at or about the 0.2 percent or 500

year flood level.

We should reduce the adverse personal economic impacts to people who are flooded, develop approaches to provide property protection and financial security to those people who believe they are protected by structural works and hence think they are not at risk.

These people have a false sense of security, as we saw in New Orleans, in thinking that they will never flood, and as such they have

not purchased insurance and not taken the necessary actions to

protect themselves.

To help with this, we think the Corps of Engineers should be directed to work with other appropriate Federal agencies, such as

FEMA, Natural Resource Conservation and NOAA, to design a program to manage the residual risks associated with these projects.

There should be sufficient additional Federal funding for the planning assistance to States and floodplain management services.

There should also be revisions to the Principles and Guidelines.

We would hope that we could reestablish the mitigation funding

from 7.5 to 15 percent, as it has been in the past.

We thank you for the opportunity to make our presentation to

you today and will be happy to answer questions.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Emmer.

Dr. Galloway.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a

privilege to be here today.

I come to you as a professor, but I have 38 years’ experience in

the U.S. Army, including service as a district engineer and 7 years

on the Mississippi River Commission. In reality, I think I come to

you today because in 1993, I was assigned to the White House to

prepare a study that looked at why did we have the 1993 Mississippi River flood and what should we do about it.

For the most part, the lessons we learned in that study of the

Mississippi flood are the same lessons we are learning today from

Katrina. The message is very simple: The massive flooding that occurred in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina was in part a reflection of a growing lack of attention to our national flood damage

reduction program.

The United States, for much of the latter half of the last century,

had both a well understood national flood protection policy and an

equally clear program that followed from that policy. Unfortunately, we have allowed this policy and those programs to atrophy

over the last 20 years.

We would say, as a result of this study and actually the experience from Katrina, that people and property are at risk in floodprone communities across our Country. Major floods and hurri-
12

canes are going to continue to occur. We can expect with climate

change flooding to get worse.

New development in the floodplain, without a specific need to be

there, should be very much discouraged. When we do provide protection, it should represent a combination of structural and nonstructural approaches, including wetland restoration. The level of

protection we now provide to many flood-prone communities is less

than is needed and leaves at risk those who are provided this inadequate protection.

We recommended that governments provide a high level of protection to those that live in existing population centers and pay

special attention to critical infrastructure as just described. We recommended that in these population centers, the urban areas, that

they be protected against the standard project flood, the 500 year

flood or greater.

When the Nation started its flood control efforts in the 1930s, the

mission was pretty straightforward: prevent catastrophes. Over the

last 70 years, we have lowered the protection level provided by

many Federal projects to the 100 year level, a year that has a 1

in 4 chance of occurrence in the lifetime of a 30 year mortgage. In

the Netherlands, governments provide 10,000 year protection on

the coastline, or a hurricane equivalent, and 1,250 year protection

along the major rivers.

Can our Nation afford to risk losing another metropolitan area?

Sacramento sits behind one of those 100 year levees. People who

live behind levees face a residual risk and really should be part of

the Federal flood insurance program. They need to recognize that

residual risk and deal with it.

We must recognize the inherent vulnerability of levees and flood

walls. Now, levee is not a four letter word in my opinion. I believe

you can do well constructed and well maintained levees, and that

they can provide sound protection.

But the issue is the level of protection they provide, and whether

or not we are maintaining those levees. There are thousands of

miles of levees throughout the Country, some built by the Federal

Government, by State governments, locals and developers. We have

no accurate measurement of the location and integrity of many of

these levees. We didn’t have it in 1994 when we did the study, we

still don’t have it.

The conduct of a national evaluation of levees should have high

priority. We should also, as we suggested in this report, have

FEMA continue to identify flood-prone areas throughout the United

States.

It is also critical that governments provide adequate funding to

support maintenance and necessary upgrades of flood damage reduction works. The need for upgrades and improved maintenance

of the New Orleans system was well-known and the same can be

said for structures defending many other places in the Country.

Over 300 miles of mainline Mississippi River levee are below design grade and section and need funding.

We need a clear national policy with respect to flood damage reduction goals and responsibilities. The responsibility among levels

of governments for conceiving and for funding and maintaining

these flood damage reduction projects is not clearly defined.
13

Funding and management of protection activities in the floodplain is a shared responsibility of all those levels of government

and those who live there. Flood damage reduction should not just

be a Federal activity. We urge Congress and the Administration,

together with the Governors, to define these responsibilities so

there can be no seams and no dropped balls.

As part of this effort, we need to define what our ultimate objective is in water resource planning. As it is found in the Principles

section of the Principles and Guidelines, it is focused almost entirely on national economic development. As my colleagues have

said, we need to stretch it further to consider the environment and

the social effects that we saw in the eyes of the people of New Orleans.

We recommend a floodplain management act to spell out national

goals and responsibilities. Flood issues need to be dealt with on a

watershed basis, in a comprehensive matter. When we deal with

New Orleans flood damage reduction and recovery, we also need to

tie it in to what needs to be done with navigation, with water quality, with water quantity in the New Orleans area. We also need to

include in there environmental restoration.

Flood catastrophes are national security issues. They affect our

people, our economy and our environment. How to deal with them

has been the subject of many studies, and over the years we keep

coming up with the same recommendations. We need to take an approach to flood damage reduction that brings all the players to the

table in a collaborative approach that shares responsibility and

shares funding.

Given the tragedies we have seen over the last few weeks, the

governments and the public must be prepared to take action to do

it right this time, to take recommendations out of the ‘‘too hard’’

box and move ahead. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and

members of the Committee.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Galloway.

Dr. Dickey.

Mr. DICKEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here today. I have testified before this Committee many

times in the past, and wearing many different hats. Today I am

happy to report nobody cleared my testimony.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DICKEY. From the very beginning of its authorization, the

civil works projects have been developed based on site-specific studies containing recommendations tailored to specific circumstances.

These studies incorporate hydrologic, engineering, economic and for

several decades now, ecological, cultural and other environmental

knowledge and analyses. The Corps’ feasibility study process has

served the Nation well and has provided us with extensive infrastructure that is essential to the effective functioning of our economic system and continuing economic growth.

However, it has not been perfect. Not all projects have performed

as predicted or have been as productive as anticipated. Modifications have been required to accommodate changing conditions, new

scientific knowledge, technological change and changing public values. Insufficient attention was paid historically to interactions between engineering structures which extensively modified hydrologic
14

regimes and the physical and biological environment. Equally important, insufficient attention continues to be paid to the impact of

hazard reduction on human behavior.

These shortcomings have been amply demonstrated in southern

Louisiana. Extensive engineering works for managing the Mississippi River and numerous large-scale coastal navigation and

storm damage reduction projects have caused widespread and ongoing changes in physical landscapes and ecosystems. These changes

were not foreseen or if anticipated, were considered to be a necessary consequence of economic advancement.

In addition, these works allowed new patterns of economic activity and changed where and how people live and work. The historic

focus of storm and flood damage reduction project development was

on reduction of inundation damages to property. Clearly, as in the

case of New Orleans, insufficient attention was paid to residual

risks and to the vulnerability of the occupants of protected areas

when the provided protection proved inadequate.

The potential for disruption of human activity within protected

areas and the economic consequences to the rest of the Nation were

not addressed in any detail. The devastation wrought by Hurricane

Katrina is a compelling demonstration of the reality of residual

risks and necessity to include its management in water resources

planning and project implementation.

There are, however, no cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all environmentally sensitive solutions to flood and storm threats or any other

mix of water-related activities. Congress has long recognized that

fact, and has generally required a Corps of Engineers report to be

submitted for its consideration before it takes action to authorize

and fund a project.

This approach to public decision making allows Government to

function at its best, making informed choices among competing values as identified in a feasibility study. Now, situation-specific feasibility studies are important from several perspectives.

State, Federal and local governments not only face conflicts

among competing values, such as economic growth and environmental and social preservation, in virtually every resource management situation, they also confront the fact that there are more demands for their respective budgetary resources than they can possibly satisfy. The reality is that many problems must be un-addressed or incompletely solved and many opportunities left to the

future. It behooves us, therefore, to make the best use we can of

our limited resources.

Analysis as practiced by the Corps of Engineers plays an essential role in decision making throughout the water resource planning process. The Corps of Engineers is required to go well beyond

the calculation of a benefit-cost ratio for a recommended project.

Incremental analysis as required by the U.S. Water Resources

Council’s Principles and Guidelines is at the heart of the Corps’

plan formulation process. Projects of different scales and scopes are

systematically considered so that trade-offs among alternative

mixes of project purposes and alternative solutions can be identified and the relative merits of different plans for resource use be

systematically evaluated in the light of prevailing economic, environmental and social values.
15

So we have heard discussion today about changing the Principles

and Guidelines, and I would have something to say about that later

if it becomes a question. I do want to emphasize that project planning is important not only at the project level, but at the programmatic level. We know we can’t fund all the projects that have

been authorized. And it is only by having the information that is

specific to each investment opportunity can Congress choose wisely

among competing investments.

And so to that end, I would like to mention four recommendations. One is to manage the total flood risk. Certainly we have paid

insufficient attention to that. Secondly, we need to do a better job

of quantifying benefits, and that is certainly within our capability.

It is merely a question of policy.

Thirdly, we need to understand the impacts of resource investments on the location of human activity, and that needs to be specifically addressed in the planning process. And fourthly, I would

affirm the recommendation of others here that in the case of a

project where there is residual risk, and that is in every project,

people who are protected by the project need to be required to have

flood insurance.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Dickey. Certainly you

hit the nail on the head with the key problem that we are dealing

with, and that is what is the best use of resources that are not unlimited.

I am going to reserve my questions until the end so we can get

to as many members as possible. I will go first for questions to Mr.

Gilchrest.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to say welcome to Dr. Dickey. We have

worked before on a number of occasions, he had a different hat on,

and he didn’t pay attention to whoever he reviewed his speeches,

which was always appreciated.

I don’t know if you know Dr. Hans, if he is still there at Loyola

College. But he was the head of a program that I was taking a

masters course from. I went five years at night, but then I ran for

Congress, never finished it, didn’t get my degree. So I wondered if

you could see him and see if I could get any credit for being in Congress 15 years.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DICKEY. I will speak to him, sir.

Mr. GILCHREST. I would appreciate that. And welcome, Dr. Galloway, from the University of Maryland, Dr. Emmer from Louisiana

and Mr. Rabbon from the west coast.

We appreciate all these recommendations. We will sift through

them, and I think with the Chairman’s leadership, we will come up

with the kind of policy that will integrate all your ideas to better

management of the flood systems that we have out there, given

they be levees or berms or dams or whatever it happens to be, and

try to not encourage people to move into vulnerable areas, sensitive

environmental areas, flood-prone areas, storm surge areas, by creating an opportunity to offset the actual cost of the flood damage

through insurance premiums. So there is just a whole lot of things

out there that we want to make sure that we do appropriately.
16

The question I have, I guess, for all of you, is the Corps of Engineers does a lot of this. And I know there is a lot of work to be

done in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, along the coastal areas of this

Country and so on. But Dr. Emmer, if I could focus in on just the

coastal problems in lower coastal Louisiana and New Orleans, I

think it would be very helpful for us, because this is the bulk of

the dollars where it is going to be spent in the short term.

There was 2050, there is now Coastal Louisiana Restoration, or

Coastal Louisiana whatever it happens to be called, LCA or whatever. And there is CWPRA, there is a whole bunch of programs

going on out there that it looks like we are going to give the Corps

of Engineers a lead on, because they are the ones that would get

the money for much of that restoration and evaluation.

And you talked about restoration of natural barriers, sediment

dispersal, and all of those things. What would be helpful for us is

if you could come up with what the restoration projects are, as specific as possible, the wetlands, the coastal barriers, the sediment

dispersal, all of those things and the kinds of structures that you

will do with that.

Number two, an estimate of the cost that that’s going to be. Recently, I talked to Greg Smith from U.S. Geological Survey, I

talked to Dr. Twilley from the Louisiana State University and a

number of other people.

The last thing, which I think is as important as anything, is the

entity that is overseeing that. I don’t think, in all due respect, it

can be just the Corps of Engineers. I think a collaborative effort

with the Corps of Engineers as part of this team and probably Fish

and Wildlife to have a number of projects going on down there,

U.S. Geological Survey has an important part to play. NOAA has

an important part to play in that. The State has an important part

to play in that. Certainly the university people.

So the entity that will oversee that restoration project, and each

one of those entities with the Corps of Engineers must have an

equal voice with the Corps of Engineers. The entity, the restoration

project and the cost of that project as best as you can give that to

us. Because on the Senate side, when they made this proposal,

Senator Landrieu and Senator Vitter, it is about $25 billion, they

have $14 billion, I believe, for the restoration effort. But there are

no specifics attached to that. And there are no real guidelines for

how that is going to be done, how long that is going to take.

It seems to me that, it is my understanding that by 2050 lower

Louisiana could lose 500 square miles of coast, 500 square miles.

And the projects now on the drawing board to offset that can only

offset half of that. So there is some understanding that you will

still lose 250 square miles of lower Louisiana. So I think some of

those things, if you could provide to the Committee, would be very

helpful.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.

Ms. Johnson.

Ms. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield to our Ranking Member, Mr. Oberstar.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. I thank the gentlewoman.
17

I too welcome Dr. Dickey back to the Committee. I recall his

many appearances on behalf of the Secretary of the Army and the

Corps of Engineers in the 1990s. You were a regular presenter at

our Committee.

The issue that this panel has addressed, I think, and each of you

in a separate way, has been the how and the values involved in reclaiming New Orleans. I have listened to testimony over several

weeks and over 30 years in this Committee, there is a tendency to

sort of focus on stovepipe solutions, one group sees this as an answer, another sees a second approach as the answer.

We need an integrated plan for short term and long term responses. Both in the short term and the long term, all the factors

have to be integrated. I want your reaction, the panel’s reaction to

non-structural, including hard choice that New Orleans itself is

going to have to make, relocation of homes. That comes to the benefit-cost issue.

But it is one that we should not be making, but the city and the

State have to make. Are you really going to invite people to come

back to live in a place that you know cannot be protected? Or can

be protected only with, as Dr. Galloway said, the Netherlands approach of a 10,000 year protection plan, or 1,250 year protection

plan? We don’t have that, and we may not have the money to do

that. Somebody has to make those value judgments.

Wetlands restoration, levees, and balancing that against the notion of protecting undeveloped land in the anticipation that it

might at some future time be developed, that is just simply not acceptable. So let me get your thoughts, and start with Dr. Dickey

and then move from my right to left.

Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Oberstar, you raise of course some very difficult

policy challenges. First of all, inherent in the process that we have,

we don’t treat all alternatives comparably in terms of cost sharing.

I think that was talked about. If you do non-structural but costs,

if you will, in other words, if you prevent people from living in the

flood plain, the people who pay for that are the people who lose

their property values, have to travel further, etc. The incidence

falls on those people, as opposed to if you build a structural solution, then the Federal Government picks up a very large share of

the cost.

So you have this inherent bias in the process. And so the cost

sharing inherently affects our choices and the pressures which the

Federal Government feels. So that is certainly one problem.

The basic principle, it seems to me, and I think this gets at some

of the points that Congressman Gilchrest raised as well, is to internalize risk, to place as much risk as you can on the people who are

going to live in the floodplain, so they can make rational responses.

And we don’t do that now. So that would be the first thing I would

suggest.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Let’s move on to Dr. Galloway.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Very quickly, I think one of the issues we have

to face is the coordination of Federal programs and State programs.

We have on one hand FEMA’s mitigation program, which can help

deal with some of these non-structural issues, relocation of people

out of the flood plain. We need the vehicles to mesh those with ongoing Corps of Engineer projects. There is a variety of those issues.
18

Second, there is the issue of collaboration in the planning, as has

been suggested. The most heartening thing to me is, I went to visit

the New Orleans district two years ago and I walked into a room,

and in the room were cubicles with maybe 20 different people.

There were 20 different emblems from the Federal and State agencies in that room working together. They didn’t wait until the

end—this was LCA, sir—they didn’t wait until the end of the

project to do it, they were collaborating every day. That is something we need to carry forth.

I think the issue of restoration of the wetlands and the whole

issue of coastal Louisiana, we need to do coastal Louisiana restoration whether or not it has a direct bearing on flooding. It certainly

does have a bearing on flooding, but it is an ecological necessity,

but it is also necessary for the protection of far more than coastal

Louisiana in the New Orleans area, the whole issue of the infrastructure in that region.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Dr. Ehlers.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Could I just ask the other two to respond?

Mr. DUNCAN. Sure.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Dr. Emmer?

Mr. EMMER. Yes, on the issue of non-structural, I think it is essential that we mix and match the available Federal programs. I

don’t see this as being very effectively done today.

For example, in the case of relocation of homes in Orleans Parish, we estimate there are some 30,000 vacant dwelling units right

now where you could ask people in unsafe conditions to move to

these areas and use the open space as open space. They do it in

Tulsa, we can do it in Louisiana. And move people to safer, better

homes, upgrade these homes through existing Federal programs,

and move them out of the flood-prone areas.

I would also look at elevating homes that have been modified, essentially restricting the use of slab homes in Orleans and southeast

Louisiana within the levee systems. We have traditionally built up,

we know it works. We should look at it again and use the traditional way of building within the leveed systems.

And Mr. Gilchrest, I will answer your questions as soon as you

all tell me I can answer your questions.

Mr. OBERSTAR. On that score, I would just point out that homes

built over 100 years ago and longer in New Orleans escaped the

flood. They were built on berms, because in that time, those builders knew they had to elevate homes away from the damage that

they anticipated was inevitable to come from hurricanes and flooding. So your point is well taken.

My wife’s older brother has a home that was 100 plus years old.

It got water up to the threshold. Her younger brother has four feet

of water in his home, built in another area of New Orleans along

Jefferson Davis Parkway. It’s gone, it’s hopeless.

Mr. Rabbon?

Mr. RABBON. Thank you.

What I think you are referring to is the need for a balanced program with structural and non-structural solutions. There will be

places where you have to have a structural solution, you have to
19

have a levee. There will be places where you can do non-structural

type. But it needs to be balanced.

And to do that, I think it is extremely critical that at the Federal

Government level, not only that they coordinate and collaborate,

but that they are forced to actually integrate their programs. We

frequently work with the Corps or FEMA. Yes, they are coordinated, but I think they would be even more effective if they truly

integrated their programs so it was if we were working with a single Federal Government instead of two separate agencies with two

separate programs.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Good advice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the

extended time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. Dr. Ehlers?

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is very

similar to the previous two. Therefore, I hesitate to ask it, but I

just haven’t gotten the answers, and perhaps it is because I am totally ignorant of the situation down there, one of the few people

who have not been down to look at it.

I come from Michigan. This past winter we had an unusual

freeze-thaw cycle. We had a bad ice jam on the river, and there was

substantial flooding of a group of homes. Those homes are basically

ruined. The Federal Government came in and said, we will buy

your homes on the condition that you deed the property over to us

and not build there again.

They paid off the cost of the homes and said, you are not going

to build, no one is ever going to build there again. And that is the

policy of the Flood Insurance Program.

That is a little hard for me to understand, why people are talking

about reconstructing an entire city in a floodplain, when you know

you can’t possibly build 100 percent protection. Even the Netherlands, which does the best job in the world, and has no choice, because there is no place else for them to go, they had a disaster in

1953, which is probably greater than the New Orleans disaster.

They did rebuild, because as I said, they have no place else to

go. But disasters are going to happen. So why would our Country,

which does have alternative spaces to build, provide the funds to

rebuild a city which we know at some point in the future is going

to flood again? We can put a lot of money into flood protection, rebuild the levees and so forth. But you know as well as I, at some

point, if you are living in hurricane country, something is going to

happen in the future. It may be somewhat different in nature, but

it is going to happen.

So who really is responsible for making that decision as to what

is going to happen there, and what is the role of the Federal Government? If the Federal Government says, we don’t want to have

to pay for this again, and so we are going to establish a policy, we

will simply not pay a second time for damage done through a flood

to this area, because it is in the floodplain, does the city make the

decision as to whether or not we are still going to allow construction in that area? Is the State going to make that decision or are

the individual citizens going to make that decision and live with

the potential loss of everything they have?

I am just trying to get a handle on this. It just doesn’t make

sense to me to put a lot of money into building in a floodplain. I
20

have no problem, even if the floodplain is just a foot deep and you

can put a berm in, as Mr. Oberstar mentioned, that is fine. That

is a pretty safe bet.

But when you are talking about an area, a city that is sinking

about a meter or a yard per century, you know the problem is not

going to get better, it is going to get worse. And at what level are

you simply going to say, I am sorry, there is too much danger here,

we are not going to let you build? I would appreciate answers from

anyone. Dr. Emmer?

Mr. EMMER. I know in Louisiana we have traditionally practiced

retreat from the coast. New Orleans was founded in 1718. In 1722,

a hurricane came through and destroyed one of the first German

communities just upriver from New Orleans. That community was

relocated to higher ground.

We can look at the hurricanes of 1893, Cheniere Caminada,

2,000 people died, people moved inland. We look at Betsy in 1965,

same thing, people relocated out of the lower areas in the communities such as Manila Village in Jefferson Parish. It was destroyed,

people did not go back to live in these areas.

We are seeing right now retreat on a voluntary basis from the

more flood-prone and hazardous areas. After Hurricane Andrew,

people moved from below Houma up into the Houma area and continued to move north. I would suggest that we will see basically the

same thing today. It is an evolutionary process.

I think that what we in Louisiana are saying is that we need to

draw the line for several reasons. That line is in and around New

Orleans. We need that because we need to restore the wetlands

that are in front of New Orleans. Without the wetlands, they support a significant part of the fisheries resource in the Gulf of Mexico. We need that for not only economy of Louisiana, but it supports the shrimping industry in Mississippi, the fishing industry in

Texas and on around the Gulf of Mexico.

It also supports the infrastructure for the oil and gas industry.

The fact is the pipelines come onshore, and those pipelines were

built to be within wetlands, not in the high energy conditions of the

offshore. So if we don’t restore the wetlands, we are exposing our

petroleum resources as we are bringing them in from the Gulf of

Mexico.

The port facility is there. I don’t see us relocating the port to Mobile. Some activities will go to Mobile. The banana industry left

New Orleans back in the 1960 and went to Gulfport. Some of the

container ships are going to Houston. But the rest, the bulk cargoes I see staying in New Orleans. In order to protect that port,

we need to have the wetlands which support and have multiple

functions and values for the Nation, and also protect the city itself.

So yes, we are retreating, it is on a voluntary basis and people

accept that. But the line is drawn that New Orleans, because of its

many values to the Nation, the Midwest, but the Nation as a

whole, should be protected. And for the other resources that the

coastal system provides for the Nation as a whole, not just for the

people who happen to live in Louisiana.

Mr. EHLERS. Is the State or the city going to simply draw a line

and say, you can’t build on the other side of this line?
21

Mr. EMMER. The line is drawn. The line is the artificial levees

that are in place.

There was a proposal in St. Charles Parish on the west bank

within the last five years, developers and special interests on the

west bank decided they wanted to build. They proposed a levee to

the Corps of Engineers which said, we want to go out this far.

The Corps said, to their credit, that is a ridiculous line, you cannot build out that far, because it consumes the wetlands and exposes you to the problems that are associated with building in hazardous areas, and forced the levee back to the more acceptable conditions, closer to the natural levee, where we have better foundation conditions. That levee is being built today, but it is to the credit of the Corps that they stood firm and decided not to allow for

extension of the levees.

One problem we do have is that when levees are built, we occasionally will issue permits at the Federal and State level for filling

the wetlands that exist within the leveed systems. Those areas that

were supposedly set aside as stormwater detention systems, as

habitat. There is an issue that we really need to be addressing, is

to crank up some backbone and say, hey, look, these wetlands were

set aside for fisheries resources, for habitat, for stormwater detention. And we mean it when we say no more permits in these areas.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much, Dr. Ehlers.

Mr. Blumenauer.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I loved the last sentence about growing some

backbone so that we don’t end up compounding the felony. I am

hopeful that the pattern that we are going to have here will end

up with reinforcing the ‘‘voluntary retreat.’’ I hope there is an opportunity to do a big look from east Texas to the Florida Panhandle

about what the sustaining capacity is to help in that effort.

I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I would like to commend all of

the panel. This is extraordinarily helpful testimony. A number of

you represent groups that have been working for years, the floodplain managers, God love you, on the flood insurance reform, the

tortuous five year process would not have happened without the

professional input. I deeply appreciate it. Maybe someday we will

implement the bill that we passed.

I am distributing to each of you a series of principles that I have

been working on as a way to think about the recovery from

Katrina. There isn’t time now and I don’t want to spring it on you,

but I would like to leave you with a copy of these principles that

I am working on, thinking about, seek to bring to the Committee.

I would appreciate any reactions that you might have to them.

Dr. Galloway, I appreciated your testimony. I think you are spot

on. But you reference the fact that you were a part of a very important process a dozen years ago that pointed towards a number of

the solutions that we are talking about here and didn’t quite make

it. I wondered if you would care to reflect on why we didn’t quite

get there, based on the good work that was done in 1993 and 1994,

any advice that you want to give the Committee in terms of the implementation. And time remaining, I would appreciate any of the

other panelists responding to that.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Thank you, sir. It is an interesting case. Immediately after the flood, just as with any action concerning the flood,
22

everybody is interested in coming up with a solution. The half-life

of the memory of the flood is very short. And for the first year, we

had a committee that worked with all the Federal agencies and we

had a draft executive order and we had revisions to the Principles

and Guidelines set up, and we had people looking at all of these.

Soon, not very long afterwards, 11, 12, 15 months, they began to

fade away. We didn’t act on them quickly. And other priorities

moved in their place in the White House and the Federal agencies

and on the Hill. I met and testified before committees and there

was a great attempt to move ahead right at that point in time. We

had a change in the Congress in 1994, priorities again shifted. It

just fell behind.

And that is the challenge. We recognize these, you have seen my

colleagues talk about agreement with most of these sorts of recommendations. But the problem is getting them acted on. And it

really falls in the halls of the Congress to make some of these decisions, to decide what are the policies, the Administration to deal

with the objectives that we found in Principles, part of the Principles and Guidelines.

The processes of the Federal agencies are certainly amenable to

change, and the agencies are willing to deal with many of these

issues, but there are constraints that need to be lifted, and there

is coordination and integration among the Federal agencies, as Mr.

Rabbon said, that need to be addressed. We don’t have a single coordinating element for water issues in the Federal Government

right now in the Administration. We haven’t had it since the Water

Resource Council was abolished in 1983.

So I think the challenge is to move quickly to get everybody on

the team and to address, instead of addressing the easy issues

first, address the hard issues first.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I see I have 30 seconds. I don’t

want to abuse the privilege. Let me just say that the point Dr. Galloway made about the attention span, we are already seeing in

terms of the amazing media attention, that it is starting to drift

away. I think that that is very important counsel to us to guide,

Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member, in terms of how soon we

can move this forward.

I do sense it already, because there are many other issues that

are moving forward. If we are able to build on this superb set of

hearings that we have had, the consensus actually that is emerging

from the expert witnesses, if we are able to move that in a timely

fashion, I think that may be one of the most elements that I take

away from this and I hope we can accelerate.

I appreciate you moved quickly, but I think time is running short

for us to have the impact that the public needs.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much.

Dr. Boozman.

Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Rabbon, can you tell us about the other cities

that are at risk like New Orleans?

Mr. RABBON. Yes. I do come from the city of Sacramento. I live

behind a levee. I would be flooded 10 feet deep if the levee failed.

I also happen to have a boat in my garage.

[Laughter.]
23

Mr. RABBON. Sacramento is an area that is protected completely

by levees, surrounded by levees. In the central valley of California,

there are over 1,600 miles of levees that are federally authorized.

Literally every city or town in the central valley of California is

protected by some type of flood control system.

So I am just speaking from my experience as general manager

of the reclamation board. NAFSMA, we have over 100 organizations. They all, almost essentially all of them have some type of

federally authorized flood control project, or are working on studies

or activities with the Corps of Engineers. So in terms of levees, it

is a major issue across the U.S.

Mr. BOOZMAN. How accurate are our flood control and our floodplain maps? How up to date are they?

Mr. RABBON. They are accurate the date they are published.

Mr. BOOZMAN. When were they published?

Mr. RABBON. Each one would vary, but once they are published,

from that point on, the way that maps are developed, the go out

of date. A map, especially, you’re referring probably to the FEMA

map, is just a snapshot in time. Once you have taken that snapshot, development will continue, development will modify what

those maps look like. Hydrology changes, many people here on the

Committee have talked about the changing climate, the sea level

rise. All those things will impact the maps.

As another local example, for Sacramento, when Folsom Dam

was built, we had 250 year level of protection. It dropped down to

as low as a 70 year level, and the only thing that changed was the

hydrologic data. Nothing else changed.

Mr. BOOZMAN. Isn’t it a significant problem that the maps that

we have now aren’t up to date, and that people in good faith, that

are trying to do the right thing, can’t do it because they don’t have

the information to make that determination?

Another thing is, how do we solve that problem?

Mr. RABBON. Those maps do need to be updated. There is a remapping program through FEMA that does need additional funding in order to update those maps.

Mr. BOOZMAN. You mentioned, and again, this is for the panel,

I think most of you feel like we need to go to a 500 year flood whatever. You mentioned the levees. In many cases, the levees aren’t

going to get it. Is the panel suggesting that we need to look at additional dams and things of that nature?

Mr. GALLOWAY. Sir, I would argue that it could be a combination.

I think you have to look at each case and decide what is the comprehensive approach to it. Because if you do something in this particular area, you may affect the people downstream.

That goes back to the issue of a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach. There are floodways being considered, upstream storage

and wetlands. There are many ways to do it. I think in each case,

you need to see what is the appropriate approach that you need to

take in this particular region.

Mr. EMMER. I would suggest in our case, and in cases such as

Port Arthur and California, where we live behind levees, is that we

strengthen our first line of defense, but internally we have to take

responsibility for ourselves. We need to start looking at elevating

houses within the community and simply looking at those areas
24

that are too low to protect, and should you choose to live with these

areas, build up, but you accept the risk if the flood is higher than

the height of the elevation of the structure that you choose.

But there needs to be some personal acceptance of responsibility

when you live inside the levee system to take care of yourself.

Mr. BOOZMAN. I guess I would argue, and I hope that you will

support us, that in order to really figure out what you need to do,

you have to understand the risk. And if you don’t have accurate

floodplain data, which we don’t, it doesn’t appear, it create difficult

situations.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Sir, the FEMA floodmap modernization program,

which Mr. Rabbon mentioned, is the real giant start on a program

supported by ASFPM and NAFSMA to get the program going. It

is in the second year of what is envisioned to be a five year, but

certainly will last longer with the new-found emphasis. But there

are modern techniques. We are finally able to capture the strength

of GIS and computer data bases and LIDAR to go and found very

accurately what elevations are.

The one challenge we still have in that is, how do you know

about the integrity of the levees that are there. That is the toughest job. Walking along the surface of a levee, you don’t see very

much. So it is a complex job that is going to require a lot of effort

and each of the panelists have mentioned that.

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.

Ms. Johnson.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much.

I appreciate all the witnesses, I think that all of you brought a

great body of knowledge. As I sit here listening, however, I fully

recognize that where we are in terms of the temperature of the

water and all that, we are subject to have other catastrophes and

when, we don’t know. But I do have a concern that building back

New Orleans before we get an opportunity to improve the levees

might place us in the same position that we are now. And that is

the whole Gulf Coast.

The other thing is, we have had hearings on the possibility of a

tsunami for California, or warnings and what have you. We look

at Florida and we have had some tremendous floods in New Jersey

and all. I just wonder if we need to do a nationwide inventory and

start to perhaps alter housing. Because I don’t know that we will

ever have enough money to build these floodplain areas to the

point of not flooding. And if we even had enough money, it takes

a while to get that done.

If we could get a current inventory around the Nation and the

danger which we might see, because we did know about the possibility of New Orleans, but there was nothing that we found ourselves being able to accomplish to address it prior to it happening.

We have a bill that was passed out of the House about three

months ago that had quite a bit of money for the area. And I am

not saying that if we had it appropriated, it would have prevented

that.

But I am saying that to emphasize the length of time it takes

to implement whatever we appropriate for. And I think the Corps
25

of Engineers probably has done the best they could do with the

money they had and the situations. But we do have to improve it.

Now, we have had some of these computerized projections of

what downtown Dallas is going to look like over the Trinity River

corridor. And we have had some pretty dangerous floods, but we

are vulnerable now. I think probably we will have it by the time

we get any attention given to it.

But how do we approach this? I would just like to hear from each

of you and your opinions of how we go about it and what kind of

money would it take and just give us your degree of expertise. Let’s

start with California. We could move that whole State out, I guess,

the whole State is vulnerable.

[Laughter.]

Ms. JOHNSON. How would you start now to try to protect?

Mr. RABBON. You are correct, time is of the essence. And the

State of California actually has issued a report entitled Sudden

Management Crisis, it actually calls it a ticking time bomb. I don’t

have a great solution, but one thing that I do offer is the idea of

a national assessment is critical, that we will start to get our arms

around it.

But I think the Corps of Engineers has their cost-sharing program. That has basically said, those that are serious at the nonFederal level, step up, put your money on the table, we will work

with you.

I think if you take that into consideration, that might help address the timing concern. Those at the local level that know they

have a problem, that are serious about helping to get their problem

solved, if they step up to the table, you are going to see those areas

go quicker. That will be the urban areas. Those will be the ones

that probably have a tax base where they can put money on the

table.

So that’s the one item I offer to try to move things quicker, is

look at cost sharing.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Mr. EMMER. As we rebuilt New Orleans, there are a lot of homes

that simply don’t exist any more, that were simply destroyed, others that need to be torn down. I believe that when these are rebuilt, they should all be elevated, there should be no slab houses

left or allowed in those areas where we had inundation.

We know that is acceptable to live at least to a plus nine feet

above surface elevation with a New Orleans type basement house,

where the first floor is actually open space, essentially, where you

park your car and that type of thing. These houses have existed in

New Orleans since the 1910s and 1920s, an acceptable, traditional

way of building.

We can build on piers. When I rebuilt my house after a fire, I

built on piers, because I don’t like slab, obviously. I think that has

come across. But it only added about 2 percent to the cost of the

house. Once you start moving the house up, it is like making reproductions of paper. The first 500 costs you something, but everything after that is essentially paper, so you are moving up 2 percent to do the first 18 to 24 inches, after that it is just some minimal amount of money to get it up to almost any height that you
26

want. It is whether it is culturally acceptable. That can be done

now.

The second thing is, we can offer people a chance to move into

some of these vacant houses, get them back on the tax roll, upgrade them through other Federal programs, such as HUD, and

give people the opportunity to have safer homes in less flood-prone

areas.

So I think there is plenty we can do right now as we look at upgrading our levee systems. We don’t have to wait until the levees

are done.

Mr. GALLOWAY. I would comment that I think education is a very

important part of this, knowing the risks that you face. I compliment the State of California, and actually the media in California, which has put a lot of attention on getting this word out, that

you are at risk. We have recommended in the past national inventory of flood-prone structures and equally important, an inventory

of what is the risk to Federal facilities in the floodplain.

OMB has chosen not to press that issue, but I think it needs to

move ahead, because there is a risk. All of that says, if you know

where the risk is, then a rational person may well avoid moving

into that area. That would be the first big step. The other step is

to avoid building in the floodplain new areas, as Mr. Emmer mentioned, when you don’t need to, when there are alternative locations. Yet we see day after day people wanting to build something

in the floodplain and throw a levee around it and say that they are

protected. I think we need to educate the populace.

Mr. DICKEY. I think an enormous contribution could be made by

requiring people to buy flood insurance even though they live outside the 100 year floodplain, let’s say, up to the 500 year floodplain.

That would be a very effective way of informing people and reminding them every year of the risks that they really in fact face.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, to all of you. My time has

expired.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. Mrs. Schmidt.

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. This is directed to the panel.

Today, many people have talked about migration away from the

floodplain when a natural disaster occurs as a way to handle not

rebuilding in the floodplain. My concern is, people have a short

term memory and they will come back.

I am also concerned that with the rebuilding, there is not a uniform building code along that portion of the coast that has been

devastated. So there is an inability to control what is being built

in a responsible way.

Do you have any suggestions?

Mr. EMMERS. In the case of Louisiana, I know unfortunately

many parishes do not have building codes. So your brother-in-law

can go out there and put in the wrong size wire and burn the house

down. Why we choose not to do that, I am not sure. It seems like

a pure family safety factor.

But that is some initiative that the State needs to seriously take

and implement, a building code that would satisfy and address the

issues of health, safety and storm surge and flooding. It is something we in Louisiana definitely need to address. How we force the

legislature to do it, I am not sure.
27

Mr. GALLOWAY. The House committee that was dealing with this

after the Mississippi floods came up with that very same question:

what do we do? And the answer is, it is very difficult to seem unkind to the people that are at risk. Yet reality is that you need to

get the people who are at the local level and the Federal officials

all agreeing that you need tough love in this post-disaster period.

You need to be able to tell people and to pass emergency legislation

at the local level that says, you may not rebuild in here unless you

adhere to new codes.

That is tough. And people have been reluctant to do that. But

that is the only way we will prevent it. Because right now, there

are so many incentives and so many programs that are helping the

people ‘‘get back on their feet,’’ we may put them back on their feet

but in the wrong place. So we need coordination and we need some

tough love.

Mr. RABBON. I would like to add one other item. I had discussed

an incentive-based cost sharing with the concept that the Corps of

Engineers consider not just structural but non-structural elements

of a federally-authorized flood control project. This could work very

well for your concept, be it if the Corps was doing a federally-authorized flood control project, if they had an incentive-based cost

sharing that would say, well, if you reserve this area as part of the

project for open space and make sure there is, for perpetuity, no

longer construction in this area, we are going to give you some special consideration and cost sharing on your larger project. So by

changes in the policy and guidelines, there could be potential to address your concern.

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Baker.

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. I want to express a particular welcome to Dr. Emmer. He and

I have labored in the floodplain fields for many, many years, and

I have regard for his opinions.

I just wish to make a comment, I really don’t have a question unless a member of the panel wants to respond. But I have introduced H.R. 4100, I appeared before the Committee some time ago

relative to the Louisiana Recovery Corporation. The bill is now

filed. It creates an off-budget corporation which, through a financial mechanism, basically issues Treasury debt that can fund improvements in the Katrina-affected area, over a period of time getting us out of the Congressional appropriations cycle where you

have to come in and ask for huge chunks of money, because we will

require timely, year over year, expenditure, not one lump sum,

which lends itself to other problems.

Secondly, the opportunities afforded to an adversely-affected

homeowner from being a partner in the redevelopment and taking

no money from us, but getting a reclaimed lot on which they can

rebuild at a future time, to taking a cash settlement and moving

on, to taking a cash settlement and having the first right of refusal

on a lot they buy back at some subsequent time, in other words,

a lot of options that the homeowner determines what is best for

their family to have a bottom-up plan.

But the corporation is vested with the responsibility to acquire,

as best possible, all the tracks that are adversely affected, not like-
28

ly to be reclaimed or rebuilt, and do the levee restoration, simultaneous with the environmental remediation, and then bring in free

enterprise developers to bid on those reclaimed tracts, which provide some repayment to taxpayers on the back side of the deal. So

the Federal taxpayer investment is a bridge loan against which

payments from the sale of lots to developers in future years will enable some reduction in the overall Federal liabilities.

All that works. Now, some people say, why go to the trouble, and

to Mrs. Schmidt’s observation that people do come back, well, in

our case, there is economic necessity for people to come back. Thirty percent of the Nation’s oil and gas, 30 percent of the Nation’s

seafood, the port, which exports 70 percent of everybody’s grains

and corn, those are good jobs. People are going to come back for

good jobs.

So if people are going to be there, how do we mitigate against

the potential of repetitive loss? One, of course, the obvious, is levee

restoration and integrity. But I would point out in New England

two weeks ago, we had a dam failure. And although not of the cataclysmic scope of Katrina, the consequences were very similar. You

had people who had never flooded, you had a structure that was

well over 100 years old, looked like something that was built

around the Civil War, that was to protect them from invasive floodwaters.

Well, that is no more responsible than people living south of New

Orleans. So we have to be very careful about saying, you can’t live

there, because if there is a danger, we have to truck you out somewhere. We are all going to wind up on a hill in the middle of Oklahoma somewhere, and we are going to be watching for tornadoes.

That doesn’t make economic sense.

At the same time, we have a flood insurance program which, on

its face, seems to work better than any other natural disaster response. Nobody has taken affront to the fact that when a natural

disaster occurs somewhere else in the Country, we write checks directly out of the Treasury with no hope of repayment. That is not

a problem. We have a flood insurance program which collects premium, which since about 1988 has repaid every dollar advanced on

a line of credit, plus interest. And that is a defective program. I am

missing the logic to these arguments.

What we need is, rather than having Louisiana as the second

highest conforming flood insurance participant with slightly over

40 percent of the people in the floodplain paying premium, we need

to get everybody in, mandatorily. If you live there and it is surveyed as in the floodplain, you are going to pay.

Now, we can screen this even better. If it is your primary residence, you pay one rate. But if you are down there buying a suntan

on the sunny coast of X, Y or Z, and it is your second home, you

ought to be paying actuarial rates. Or else you have no business

being there. That is logical.

Why we won’t do it, I don’t know. And what I have learned this

morning, most troubling, and the reason why I am not my customary calm self, Mr. Chairman—

[Laughter.]

Mr. BAKER.—is FEMA has the statutory authority now to constrain rebuilding activities in Louisiana and Mississippi and simply
29

is not exercising their statutory obligation to say, don’t build here

again under these circumstances, and paying people and hinting

it’s okay to rebuild.

I just came from Financial Services, where that subject just came

up. I have signed on to a letter with Mr. Frank, Chairman Oxley

and others, and I am going to suggest to Chairman Oxley he get

that letter over for your attention. If FEMA has the authority to

preclude repetitive loss and is simply not exercising their authority,

that is just inexcusable.

Mr. Taylor and I and others in the affected area are willing to

step up and tell our constituents there has to be a different way

of conducting our business. But if we already have the authority

to preclude inappropriate conduct and we are not exercising that

statutory authority, that is just inexcusable.

So I would say, Mr. Chairman, we would modestly suggest in

Louisiana, we want to pay our proportionate share. This storm has

exhausted all available revenues to the community, to the State.

New Orleans has no revenue. The State has already expended a

billion and a half dollars that it does not have in response to the

storm. So we are totally reliant on your good generosity to resolve

the circumstance.

But we must recognize that people out of economic necessity will

return, that there are appropriate remedies that can be posed and

some voluntary, many mandatory, that we should take. And that

at the end of the day, we can have a fully funded, required flood

insurance program that provides repayment to the American taxpayer over time when these calamities occur. And they are certainly going to occur again.

I give up, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Baker. As I have

mentioned in here one other time, all of the delegation that went

down to Louisiana was so impressed with your handling of the entire situation. You have had to go through things in the last several weeks that none of us would wish on our worst enemies. It has

been a very difficult and time consuming thing. Certainly, I think

you are absolutely correct in the comments that you have just

made.

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, I hate to interrupt, but I just want

to point out, not that I am down on my luck, but I actually paid

good money for tickets to the fifth game of the World Series. I just

want you to know that.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I hope it starts turning around for you. And

I was rooting for Houston, so that didn’t do much good.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I said a few minutes ago that Dr. Dickey had

brought up the most difficult part of this whole process, and that

is that we have to try to figure out what is the best use of very

limited resources. As we have pointed out in here before, the Federal Government has an important role and it has a leadership

role. But it can’t do it alone.

I have some questions in that regard. But first, Dr. Dickey, I did

mention my friend Earl Blumenauer has brought up in this Subcommittee frequently the Principles and Guidelines. Do you think
30

that the Principles and Guidelines are so inflexible that they need

to be thrown out and we ought to start over again? Well, let me

ask you this, instead of me saying that.

Do you think that most people who study these needs feel that

we should take in a whole lot more into consideration than just the

cost benefit or benefit cost considerations?

Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Chairman, first of all, the Principles and Guidelines are very, very flexible. They are simply a framework for systematically looking at alternatives and can accommodate a wide

range of objectives. So I am very wary, frankly, of changing the

Principles and Guidelines.

There are lots of details about how they are implemented, but

that is within the discretion of the agencies. I think you open a can

of worms, frankly, and it is noteworthy that when people say they

want to change them, you ask them, well, how do you want to

change them. You get different stories. OMB wants to change

them. They said that in a recent statement of position. They want

to make it harder to justify projects.

Other people I think want to make it easier. Other people want

to add another objective, talk about environmental quality. Well,

we had experience with environmental quality as an objective in

the Carter Administration, and it just produced an enormous

amount of confusion.

Mr. DUNCAN. Right. What about the cost benefit analysis considerations? What I am getting at is people are saying that we need

to take into consideration safety first, as Mr. Rabbon said. We need

to give priority to human life. Nobody would dispute that.

On the other hand, I would assume that none of the four of you

on this panel think that we should just totally throw out the window cost benefit, or as some people refer to it, benefit cost considerations. What do you say about that?

Mr. DICKEY. I would hope not, Mr. Chairman. Again, the Principles and Guidelines, if you read the Principles, you can accommodate other concerns, whether it be loss of life or environmental values, whatever. Those all can be accommodated. The Corps is accommodating them. In fact, if you look at the Everglades Restoration Project, there is no BC ratio for that. For Coastal Louisiana,

there is no BC ratio for that.

The reason we haven’t incorporated human life into evaluations

is because we have just chosen as a policy not to do it. People are

wary about, for 9/11, the value of human life was quantified. EPA

quantifies it, incorporates it into benefit cost analysis. It is merely

a practice of the agencies. There is no reason to have to change the

P&G to change that.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, you have mentioned two of the three biggest

projects that we had in the WRDA bill that we passed a couple of

times here now in the House, and it has gotten bogged down in the

Senate. We had huge amounts of money for funding of Everglades

restoration and work along the Gulf Coast and Coastal Louisiana.

Dr. Galloway, I think everybody was so impressed with your testimony. You certainly have knowledge of this, especially from your

1993 study. But let me ask you this. You mentioned in your testimony the 1,250 year protection in the Netherlands along the rivers

and the 10,000 year protection along the North Sea Coast.
31

That sounds good, but, it just wouldn’t be possible for us to do

anything like that all around this Country, would it? Do you have

any idea how much that would cost for the United States to do

something like that? You aren’t advocating that, are you?

Mr. GALLOWAY. No, I am not advocating a 1,000 year, 1,250 year

protection. But I am advocating for, as our report did, and my colleagues have, that we have an increased amount of protection provided for major population centers.

Mr. DUNCAN. And I would agree with that.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Sir, I think that the issue becomes one, in the

1930s, after the 1927 flood on the Mississippi that really got us

started, they said, let’s figure out what is the worst storm that we

can have and let’s protect against it. That is what has been in

place on the Mississippi River since 1928.

I think that we need to examine each of the areas and see what

it is that is appropriate, taking other steps like flood insurance to

protect against residual risks. No, I am not suggesting that we provide 10,000 year protection, but I think it is rather interesting that

we have very high level of protection on the Mississippi River side

of New Orleans, and a considerably lower level on the hurricane

protection side, Lake Pontchartrain.

So I think we need to go around and see what our program is.

That is why I have advocate, and in our report we advocated this

inventory to see what really is the challenge. There is a study of

the National Flood Insurance program underway that looks at

many of these issues and what is the right level of protection and

those sorts of issues have been addressed.

So I think it is opening the dialogue to say that we should not

accept 100 years as the standard. We ought to decide where it is

we want to have the higher level.

Mr. DUNCAN. I am presently reading a real interesting book

called Storm of the Century about the hurricane that hit the Keys

on September 2nd, 1935. A lot of people just don’t realize that the

worst year was 1933 while the worst decade was the 1940s. Anyway, it is a fascinating subject to me.

Dr. Emmer, my understanding is the State of Louisiana has requested 500 year protection for the entire coast of Louisiana. What

do you say about that? And how much would that cost, do you

think?

Mr. EMMER. Cost-wise, I do not have an estimate of what that

would cost. There was, in the New Orleans Times Picayune on

Tuesday a map that was reproduced showing what was supposedly

the barrier plan that would extend from St. Tammany Parish

across to below the Atchafalaya. The Governor’s Coastal Commission received reports from a Congressional delegation and also

some internal reports. I did not, or do not have those detailed figures, but there is a very big writeup in the New Orleans Times Picayune this past Tuesday on that.

Do I see it as working? Realistically probably not. I see protecting the areas where we have existing development. But when we

looked at the barrier plan back in the 1980s, a conscious decision

was made to go with the levee alternative, not to put a barrier

across the Chef and the Rigolets.
32

I think that upgrading and protecting the areas where we life,

as was indicated before, we protect what we have, we rebuild the

wetlands and the fact is we have to accept that there is only so

much habitable land within the State of Louisiana, at least in the

coastal zone. That is where we are.

Mr. DUNCAN. Have you looked into this business about the soil

erosion or the levees giving way underneath?

Mr. EMMER. I am not an engineer, however, I do have a background in geology. If you look at the soil surveys for East Jefferson

Parish and for Orleans Parish, you see that there are lenses of

peats all the way across. These have been identified since the soil

surveys were published. They should have been anticipated. As I

said, I am not an engineer. I don’t know why or how they were

missed.

I will say that I was surprised that the sheet pile were only 15

feet long. I would have thought that they would have been much

deeper than that. But again, I am not an engineer, so I cannot

speculate on any of that.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, Mr. Rabbon, we have to close this out. I

have to be in another meeting in about five minutes, but I am

going to give you a chance. You have heard all these questions and

comments here. Any closing thoughts? I am going to give you the

last word here.

Mr. RABBON. My thought is, with all the effort you have put in,

I certainly hope that we seize upon this opportunity that is before

us to make some improvements for public safety.

Mr. DUNCAN. You know, I think we will. I think that we will

take some actions. As bad and horrible and terrible as all the

things that have happened with Katrina and Rita, as I have said

at some of these other hearings, we have to do everything we can

to make sure that the money that we have sent down there is not

spent in scandalous or wasteful ways and the taxpayers don’t get

ripped off.

But I do think that this Country is better at bringing good out

of bad than any other Country in the world. So, as critical as some

people have been about things that have happened, or some of the

response, no other Nation in the world would have responded as

quickly or in such a wonderful and big way as we did in this Country to a disaster or to disasters of the magnitude that we have

seen.

Well, you have been outstanding witnesses and we certainly appreciate your help to us in this regard. That will conclude this

hearing.

[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63Æ