Wilkes-Barre gets grant for levee work to prevent flood insurance hikes [The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.]

The City of Wilkes-Barre received a $400,000 state grant to help fund a levee project needed to reduce flooding risk for Brookside residents, which could affect flood insurance premiums.

Mayor George C. Brown’s administration applied to the Commonwealth Financing Authority for a $500,000 grant from the Local Share Account grant program in September to help fund the Brookside Levee Accreditation Project, which is estimated to cost about $1.2 million to complete.

While the City received only 80% of the amount requested, city fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Jay Delaney said it's enough to get the project moving along

The levee system currently has provisional accreditation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which allows owners of properties within the flood inundation area to enjoy a lower rate on flood insurance premiums.

Wilkes-Barre gets grant for levee work to prevent flood insurance hikes

FEMA informed city officials in 2012 that certain work had to be completed on the Brookside levee system for it to achieve full accreditation, Delaney said last week.

“In 2012, FEMA said you have to get this accredited, or else,” Delaney said, adding that FEMA could rescind the provisional accreditation.

City officials have made only minor progress on the project over the last decade.

“We are required twice a year to give FEMA an update on our progress, and we've done that. But, it came to the point where FEMA had said, ‘We want to see substantive action to get the full accreditation,’” Delaney said.

Effect on premiums

Mortgage companies may require homeowners to purchase flood insurance for properties located in flood zones, and Chris Belleman, executive director for the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, said flood insurance premiums are based on assessed risk.

Belleman said the Brookside neighborhood is designated to be in a Zone X — “area with reduced flood risk due to levee” — on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Map.

"If provisional accreditation was removed, Zone X would become Zone D — “undetermined risk” — and flood insurance premiums would increase significantly," Belleman said, adding that "levee accreditation or non-accreditation is a factor, but not the sole factor, in determining flood insurance premiums."

Melissa Wiehenstroer, spokesperson for FEMA Region 3, said the agency made significant changes to the way it rates flood insurance policies in 2022.

"In the past, rates were based on the zone designation indicated on the Flood Insurance Rate Map. In many instances, having a rating of Zone D “undetermined risk” could led to higher rates. However, starting in April 2022, FEMA revised its rating method to be based on the risk factors for each specific property," Wiehenstroer said in an email.

"When levees are involved, the National Flood Insurance Program does factor in protection from levees regardless of whether they are accredited. Any changes to premiums would be based on physical changes to the levee or modeling information about flood risk around the levee contained in the National Levee Database," she said.

In the case of the Mill Creek Brookside Levee, Wiehenstroer said FEMA has been working with the City of Wilkes-Barre as they move forward to take the necessary steps to have the levee accredited. And, in the interim, the preliminary flood map for the Upper Susquehanna River in Luzerne County that goes into effect June 20 will continue to show the levee as protecting the Brookside neighborhood.

"While the accreditation status will not directly impact premiums, the overall risk of flooding along the Upper Susquehanna is increasing, and recent modeling used for the new Flood Insurance Rate Maps shows that future flooding could be expected to rise higher. This is called the base flood elevation or the expected height of the flood water in a 1% annual chance (100-year) flood," Wiehenstroer said.

"The goal of the accreditation process is to encourage communities to make sure their levees continue to provide adequate protection against the 1% annual chance flood," she said. "We are glad that Wilkes-Barre is moving forward in this process."

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The Brookside levee along Johnson Street in Wilkes-Barre, seen here, will be raised 6 inches as part of a levee accreditation project. A $400,000 state grant will help fund the project, which is shovel-ready.

Project details

FEMA has four main requirements for the levee system to attain full accreditation:

* The height of the 14-foot levee must be increased by about 6 inches to meet freeboard requirements. Freeboard is the vertical distance between the top of a levee and the base flood elevation, also known as the 100-year-flood elevation. It's a safety measure that accounts for uncertainty in analytical methods and future conditions that could cause flood heights to be higher than expected.

* Upgrades to a flood gate system that closes North Washington Street during a high-water event are necessary. North Washington Street normally passes through a gap in the 2,600-foot-long earthen levee, and the flood gate closes that gap.

* Modifications must be made to the stormwater and sanitary sewer conveyance systems, including installation of an emergency generator at the Weir Street pump station.

* An access road must be constructed from Wilkes-Barre Boulevard just south of the North Cross Valley Expressway to a basin area behind the pump station, and a gate at the basin area must be repaired or replaced.

Delaney said the road is necessary in order to access a gate at the basin area that is currently frozen shut because of a lack of maintenance. The gate restricts access to a basin area from which a large pipe conveys stormwater to the pump station.

Shovel-ready project

Finding funding for the accreditation project has been an impediment over the last decade, and Brown made it his top priority when applying for LSA grants last year, Delaney said.

He said the administration arranged for project engineering work to begin in July 2022, and he started applying to agencies including the Luzerne Conservation District, the state Department of Transportation and the state Department of Environmental Protection for the numerous permits necessary for the project.

“And here it is, May 2024. It took us all this time to get all of the engineering and the permitting done. And now, we’re what we call shovel-ready. We’re ready to move dirt,” Delaney said.

Contractors interested in placing bids to perform the project work met for a pre-bid conference on May 23. Those bids are due and will be opened at 12:30 p.m. Friday.

“No one else has been able to get us this far as Mayor Brown has. It really was an all-hands-on-deck effort. He looked at all our senior staff at the meeting and said we absolutely need to get this done,” Delaney said.

More funding needed

Delaney said that project construction work can start as soon as city council awards the bid and the winning contractor acquires the supplies and stages the necessary equipment, even if the city doesn't have the full $1.2 million to complete the project.

Borton Lawson, the project engineer that has since been acquired by Verdantas, designed the project so it could progress in stages as additional funding is secured, Delaney said.

Increasing the height of the levee is the first part of the project, he said.

Joyce Morrash Zaykowski, the city's director of Economic and Community Development, and Mark Barry, the city's grant coordinator, are working to secure funding for whatever part of the project cost the LSA grant doesn't cover, Delaney said.

"The administration is laser focused on this," Delaney said. "And we're gonna get this done."

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