Maumee River Basin Commission marks 30 years of helping reduce flood damage

Sept. 30--In March 2009, a record flood crest on Cedar Creek swamped portions of Auburn, leaving the Messenger company building full of water. Company officials contemplated closing the printing plant, which employed about 100 people.

Then Rodney Renkenberger of the Maumee River Basin Commission (MRBC) got involved. Renkenberger helped Auburn and the company secure grants to add a natural gas backup generator, move the building's air conditioning units from the ground to the roof, add several sump pump pits and, at doors, install hydrologs -- a quickly deployed protective system that keeps out water.

The company decided to reopen its plant, saving the jobs.

That is just one of the highlights during 30 years of work by the MRBC, which will celebrate its anniversary with a special program at 6 p.m. Thursday at the National Automotive and Truck Museum of the United States (NATMUS) in Auburn.

There still is a lot more work to do, however, and limited state funding makes fulfilling its mission increasingly difficult, said Renkenberger, who has served as MRBC executive director since March 1996.

"A lot of people don't realize the level of flooding we have (had) hasn't risen to the level it could," he said.

The MRBC was created in 1986 by the Indiana legislature to reduce flood damage in the Indiana portion of the Maumee River basin, which includes the watersheds of the Maumee, St. Joseph and St. Marys rivers and their tributaries. In Indiana, the basin includes Allen, Adams, DeKalb, Noble, Steuben and Wells counties, which pay for the MRBC's administrative costs.

The MRBC focuses on using non-structural flood-mitigation methods, such as restoring wetlands to hold and slow down flood waters, installing filter strips along drainage ditches to slow water runoff and reduce erosion, and installing flood gauges to provide better river monitoring and flood warning capabilities, said Renkenberger, the organization's sole employee.

In addition, MRBC helps secure federal grants to offer voluntary buyouts to home and building owners in areas likely to flood, he said.

The MRBC service area originally contained about 9,000 properties in the flood zone, Renkenberger said. About 4,000 of those properties now are protected by diking, but about 5,000 were unprotected.

To date, the MRBC has helped acquire 269 homes in the Maumee basin and remove them from land at risk for flooding, he said. Many of those buyouts have taken place in Fort Wayne and Decatur. The organization also has helped elevate or retrofit 18 homes and two commercial buildings to remove them from flood risk.

All of the buyouts are voluntary; MRBC doesn't have authority to condemn property, Renkenberger said.

To fund buyouts, MRBC works with local communities and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA will pay 75 percent of the cost if local entities provide a 25 percent match, Renkenberger said. Typically, MRBC provides a portion of the local match money, and the community provides the rest.

The MRBC has helped with about a third of the more than 220 homes purchased and removed from the flood zone in Fort Wayne, and at least two more buyout projects are in the works, said Bob Kennedy, city public works director. Renkenberger has been a big help on the MRBC-assisted buyouts, and he has strong connections with state officials, Kennedy added.

The city also has many more homes it would like to buy and remove from flood zones, especially in the Junk Ditch area in southwest Fort Wayne, said Kennedy and Patrick Zaharako, assistant city engineer and flood control manager.

If the MRBC doesn't have the funding to help communities with the local match for FEMA funds, "It definitely will put a crimp in our program," Zaharako said.

The state used to allocate $75,000 per year to the MRBC for use in flood mitigation projects, Renkenberger said. That gradually has been reduced to a current total of about $52,000 a year, half of which goes to pay for the stream gauges that allow him to monitor river levels and provide flood warnings.

That typically leaves $22,000 to $25,000 a year to make local matches for FEMA grants and other work, which isn't enough to do many projects, he said.

The Indiana legislature will begin a new session in early 2017, and Renkenberger will ask that they restore MRBC funding to $75,000 per year.

He also hopes to ask for an additional $1 million for the agency's master plan, which would allow it to accomplish many more home buyouts, add a stream gauge on Cedar Creek in Auburn and other projects that help get it closer to its goal of protecting area communities from flood damage.

More Information

30th anniversary event

WHAT: The Maumee River Basin Commission will mark its 30th anniversary with a special program.

WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: National Automotive and Truck Museum of the United States, 1000 Gordon M. Buehrig Place in Auburn

COST: No cost to attend program. It will be preceded by an invitation-only dinner. For information, email MRBC Executive Director Rodney Renkenberger at [email protected].

Accomplishments

Some of Maumee River Basin Commission's accomplishments include:

-- The Maumee River widening project, done in 1989-1991 east of Fort Wayne, lowered the flood crest in Fort Wayne by 1.3 feet. The project ended $1.3 million under budget, which the state allowed the MRBC to keep to use for other flood mitigation work, such as home buyouts.

-- Stream restoration projects have removed logjams to keep water moving downsteam.

-- Improving the accuracy of flood maps, which in some areas has narrowed what is considered the flood zone, said Rodney Renkenberger, MRBC executive director. For properties no longer in the flood zone, that likely means their value increases by 20 percent to 25 percent, which adds to a community's assessed value and property tax revenues.

In cases of voluntary home buyouts, about 99 percent of the people relocate in the same community, Renkenberger said. That puts money into the local real estate market and tends to increase the value of nearby homes after the buyout home is removed.

"I wish somehow I could convince our legislators there are economic incentives to our program," Renkenberger said.

Potential problems

Another major challenge facing the MRBC involves the federal subsidy for flood insurance.

In the past, homes in flood zones that were built before the flood maps were created in the 1970s have qualified for a federal subsidy to help people pay for flood insurance, Renkenberger said. That subsidy now is being phased out at the rate of 18 percent per year over six years.

It's only the second year of the phase-out, but the MRBC already has gotten calls from people who say they can't afford their flood insurance premium, Renkenberger said. If flood insurance gets more expensive than a homeowner's mortgage payments, some people may just abandon their homes.

Renkenberger also voices concern about future development.

Most of the best land for development already has been taken, he said. If development is allowed to creep into the flood zone, it will pinch the stream and raise water levels upstream, spreading flooding over a larger area that in the past.

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