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Benton County weighs FEMAs draft NFIP/ESA plan as staff prepare formal comments
Summary
Benton County staff and FEMA Region 10 discussed a draft implementation plan that would add a riparian overlay and new mitigation requirements inside mapped floodplains; county commissioners asked staff to prepare jurisdiction-specific comments for the May 5 deadline and gave the chair authority to finalize them.
Benton County commissioners and planning staff spent a large portion of their May 2 meeting assessing FEMA Region 10s draft implementation plan to align the National Flood Insurance Program with endangered species protections. County floodplain administrator Toby Lewis told the board the plans proposed 70-foot riparian overlay inside mapped floodplains could cover roughly 37,000 acres of mapped flood hazard area and include about 1,300 structures outside city limits, including approximately 200 dwellings.
The proposal, developed as part of a biological opinion, aims to reduce development-related impacts to listed species by increasing mitigation and…
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