Levee meetings not open to public

Jan. 23--Federal and local officials will meet Friday to discuss two stretches of levee in Luzerne County that no longer meet criteria to qualify for lower flood insurance rates for nearly 6,000 properties, and a former Wilkes-Barre mayor wants the meetings open to the public.

A spokesperson at the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed on Wednesday that FEMA representatives will have two meetings -- one with officials from Plymouth and the other with officials from Wilkes-Barre and Hanover Twp.

Chris Belleman, executive director of the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, which owns the levee systems, said he, too, will attend the meetings, which will take place at the authority offices.

FEMA spokesperson Corey DeMuro said in an email that the agency has been engaging with several communities in Luzerne County about levee systems to ensure that "communities and residents understand the

protection provided by a levee and that our flood maps accurately reflect the risk of flooding."

In response to a request that the press be allowed to attend Friday's meetings, DeMuro deferred, saying they are "working meetings intended for current local officials and are pre-decisional," and offered to provide an update after the meetings.

"In the future there will be an opportunity for the public to participate in the process and attend additional meetings," DeMuro said.

Belleman said the meetings are "for the benefit of the municipal officials and bringing them up to speed, especially (Wilkes-Barre Mayor George) Brown," who took office less than three weeks ago.

Those responses didn't sit well with former Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom McGroarty, a certified flood plain manager who had been assisting previous mayor Tony George's administration with flood control issues and improving the city's community rating system, which affects discounts on flood insurance premiums.

"What is the reason for having it private? It should be a public meeting and everybody should know what's going on," McGroarty said.

He said federal guidelines call for "a whole-community approach" in emergency management and suggested that members of the public might be able to offer creative solutions to problems.

FEMA has published documents advocating for a "whole community approach," which the agency defines as "a means by which residents, emergency management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests."

McGroarty recently informed the newspaper of the meeting with Wilkes-Barre officials and noted that FEMA now considers the levee in South Wilkes-Barre to be non-accredited.

Brown said he's not up-to-speed on the status of the levees and is looking forward to Friday's meeting.

Belleman said he learned over the summer that the Wilkes-Barre-Hanover Levee System, which is about 5 miles long, and the Plymouth Levee System, which stretches about 2 miles, no longer meet federal accreditation requirements because of a new federal evaluation method and other factors.

DeMuro said FEMA regularly updates Flood Insurance Rate Maps throughout the country because flood risk changes over time due to a variety of factors including changes in rainfall amounts and land development, and a recent study of the Susquehanna River has shown "significant changes in flood risk along the river."

"We are working with communities that have levees all along the river to evaluate how this increase in flood potential impacts the protection provided by the levees. Each levee is unique, so we work with each community to do detailed engineering analysis of flood risk around the levees," DeMuro said.

Belleman said it was "too early" to include the public in discussions because there is still only limited information available. He said he's still waiting to receive the scope of work that would need to be completed for FEMA to reaccredit the levee systems.

If FEMA adversely updates the Flood Insurance Rate Maps for Luzerne County to reflect the two non-accredited levee systems, it would impact nearly 4,000 properties in Wilkes-Barre, over 1,000 in Hanover Twp. and over 700 in Plymouth, Belleman said.

Belleman said he's reasonably confident and optimistic that FEMA wouldn't take action that could cause flood insurance rates to increase before the authority had the chance to take action toward having the levees reaccredited.

But, he said, he couldn't guarantee it.

Contact the writer:

smocarsky@citizensvoice.com,

570-821-2110, @MocarskyCV

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