Looking to prevent flood damage, Jefferson County says new development must divert less water

Jun. 14--In Jefferson County, it can be hard to keep straight all the floods from recent years.

"There's so many of them, I can't keep up," said Charles Groeteke, chairman of the county council, discussing past cycles of flood damage and recovery.

The Meramec River hit its two highest crests on record within an 18-month span, from late 2015 to 2017. And this year, Groeteke said some county residents have spent the last few weeks kayaking to their homes on flooded roads, with the Mississippi River reaching its second-highest level on record for the area -- the latest in a series of its own major flood events this decade.

The only thing worse than seeing residents hit by flood damage once is to see it happen repeatedly, local officials say -- especially to people who live in areas that, until recently, did not have a history of flooding.

"The devastation in their faces was just heartbreaking," said Renee Reuter, another county council member, describing victims of flooding in late 2015 and early 2016. When near-record flooding struck again less than 18 months later, she said the reaction transformed into "terribly melancholy resignation that you saw in property owners' faces at that point."

Looking to prevent future flood damage, county officials have now amended the legal code to reduce the amount of water that new development is allowed to displace. Until now, for instance, structures were allowed to push water elsewhere, as long as the flood impact to other areas was less than one foot, as outlined by Missouri law. But in unincorporated parts of Jefferson County, that limit is now lowered to one inch, based on an amendment to the county's "flood damage prevention ordinance" signed May 30.

Some hail the move as an example of "the main thing local governments can do to make better flood policy in the region," according to David Stokes, executive director of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, a nonprofit group focused on river management issues.

For years, Stokes and other flood policy critics have called for local governments, including Jefferson County, to adopt stricter guidelines than the state's one-foot allowance for flood impact. Despite those calls, Stokes said Jefferson County, located immediately south of St. Louis County, is the first place in Missouri to do so.

States like Illinois and Wisconsin, for instance, have long had stricter policies about permissible flood impact -- respectively allowing effects of just one-tenth of a foot or none whatsoever.

Reuter, who sponsored the amendment and whose district includes the flood-affected communities of Arnold and Fenton, said recent episodes of high water helped illustrate the need for Jefferson County to pursue change.

"The Meramec River was flooding at a rate we'd never seen before," she said, referencing recent floods. "We looked up and down the river and you could see there were developments going in, displacing water."

"Offsetting water by a foot each development, it builds up," she added.

Similar reasons for support were voiced by Groeteke, whose district encompasses Kimmswick and other areas that are currently flooded.

"The water can't go where it used to go, so it's going to get higher somewhere else," said Groeteke. "This is an issue that needs to be addressed in my view, not just in Jefferson County but in other cities and counties."

Although the amendment ended up passing 4-2 among county council members, Reuter says there was some opposition to the change.

"I was accused of being anti-development. I'm not anti-development at all, I'm just for good development that's sustainable and doesn't hurt other people," she said.

Reuter explained that developers can take reasonable measures to reduce the flood impact of a given project.

"You can minimize a lot of that by having larger retaining ponds, (and) retaining areas for water on the property," she said.

"And there are some places where you just don't need to build," she added, addressing development that sits directly in river floodplains. If anything is destined for the floodplain, she expressed support for communities that reserve it as public space for athletic fields or even amphitheaters that are suitable for taking on water.

Reuter considers the new amendment "probably the most significant piece of legislation" passed in the county council's history, since the area first adopted that form of government in 2011.

Various Jefferson County officials and outsiders like Stokes all expressed hope that similar measures will catch on throughout the region. But they said that may not be possible in many Missouri counties, since state law forbids such policies in places that do not have their own planning and zoning officials.

"We need to change the state law," Stokes said. "You should be able to do something like this without adopting planning and zoning for your entire county."

Reuter said the goal is all about protecting residents and preserving fairness. It's one thing for homeowners to buy a property with a known history of flooding, but another to buy a place "that becomes flooded because of what your neighbor is doing," she said -- something she said is becoming more common in Jefferson County.

"It's just not fair," she said. "This just helps people protect their investment."

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