Kenny Miller, presenting the Weber County pre‑disaster mitigation (PDM) plan, told the Ogden City Council work session on Dec. 2 that the multi‑jurisdictional document identifies local hazards and mitigation priorities and must be adopted by local jurisdictions and approved by the state and FEMA for communities to remain eligible for federal mitigation funding.

Adoption is procedural and nonbinding: Miller said the plan is a five‑year working document covering early 2025 through 2030 and ‘‘just kind of states right off the get go, hazard mitigation involves any sustained action to reduce or eliminate long term risk to human life and property from hazards.’’ The plan catalogues 14 hazards most relevant to Weber County and lists candidate mitigation projects ranging from stormwater and sanitary‑sewer repairs to large water‑infrastructure replacements that would likely require federal assistance.

Why it matters: local adoption maintains eligibility for federal mitigation grants and signals project priorities to state and federal funders. Miller advised the council that some federal grant programs change from year to year; he noted the BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grant was not available this cycle, reducing immediate opportunities but leaving the city positioned to compete if funding returns.

Council members pressed staff on specific resilience topics. One member asked whether electromagnetic pulses or ‘‘space weather’’ are included; Miller said the city's hazard‑vulnerability analysis does not rank EMPs or space weather as top priorities but that the city has IT redundancies and the water system can be operated manually if SCADA communications are lost. Justin (public works/engineering) added, ‘‘we can operate our system manually … we would just have to manually go and visually look’’ at certain pump stations if remote alarms were unavailable.

The discussion also covered the state's new House Bill 48 concerning the wildland‑urban interface (WUI). Fire‑prevention leadership said the department will not send staff to perform state‑mandated property assessments for fees, has developed an internal WUI map with ArcGIS, and plans to reduce mapped WUI area within city boundaries by 10% over three years while holding town halls to explain resident impacts. Miller said the plan does not force the city to implement every listed project: ‘‘just because it's in here doesn't mean it has to be done,’’ he added.

Staff gave examples of past federal funding tied to mitigation priorities, citing river widening and flood‑control projects and roughly $150,000 received after 2023 flooding to recoup certain costs. Miller emphasized that very large projects (he cited an example figure in discussion of roughly $70 million) would depend on federal grant support.

Next steps: staff indicated adoption and submission to the state office of emergency management and FEMA are the next steps to preserve grant eligibility; no formal council vote was recorded in the work session transcript. If adopted, the plan will be used to prioritize mitigation projects and to support future grant applications.