Keating voices optimism about flood-map bill

By Jessica Trufant

The Patriot Ledger

Posted Dec 17, 2013

MARSHFIELD —

Keating tells Marshfield board there’s more to be done to win approval of implementation delay.

While legislators, local officials and residents have made progress in the fight to delay some changes to the National Flood Insurance Program and related flood maps, U.S. Rep. William Keating says they are not yet at the finish line.

Keating, a Bourne Democrat, attended the selectmen’s meeting Monday night, along with state Rep. James Cantwell of Marshfield, to offer an update on a bill to delay parts of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act. The act eliminates flood insurance subsidies for homes built before the creation of flood maps, causing premiums to soar.

Biggert-Waters started phasing into effect this year with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s release of new flood maps. Those maps expand flood plains and raise water elevations, requiring thousands more property owners to purchase flood insurance.

Officials and experts say the maps are riddled with errors and based on erroneous assumptions, and, if implemented with Biggert-Waters, could cause a financial crisis.

An effort to get a unanimous U.S. Senate vote on the relief bill failed Wednesday when a Republican senator from Kansas, Pat Rogers, objected. Rogers argued that the Senate Banking Committee should first review the bill, which would delay the law for four years.

But Keating is still optimistic about the bill’s chances for passage. He said the bill has 72 sponsors and a lot of bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

“The goal is to get it onto the floor,” he said. “We think the votes are there.”

Keating also explained how two coastal scientists analyzed Marshfield’s new flood maps and found that the agency used outdated wave methodology more appropriate for the Pacific coast, where the wave periods are much longer and the beaches are straighter than those on the Atlantic coast.

John Ramsey, a coastal engineer from Applied Coastal Research Inc. of Mashpee, and Brian Howes, director of the Coastal Systems Program at UMass-Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, determined that fewer homes would be in a flood zone if FEMA had developed a correct approach for New England.

Because the experts are impartial and “it wasn’t a paid study or someone with a vested interest,” the findings strengthen the argument for a map delay, Keating said.

He plans to present the findings, detailed in a technical memorandum, to FEMA in a letter asking that implementation of the maps be delayed. Seeking support, he will be circulating the letter to other members of the state’s congressional delegation.

“You have something that affects so many people annually … and also it has an effect on home property values,” Keating said. “If you’re going to do something like that, you should get it right.”