City leaders fight flood plain help

State lawmakers appear content to wrap up the 2010 legislative session without enacting badly needed flood plain management policies.

A modest flood plain management bill, which passed the Iowa Senate a few weeks ago, was stopped in the Iowa House after heavy lobbying by interest groups, including the Iowa League of Cities, whose executive board includes the mayors of Coralville and Ottumwa and city council members from Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. Also lobbying against flood plain management is the Iowa Chamber Alliance, whose members include chambers in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls, Waterloo and Iowa City.

Modest and common-sense provisions that were included in the bill that passed the Senate and died in the House:

1) Development of a model ordinance for the regulation of the 500-year flood plain. The model ordinance would include suggested language on requirements for the purchase of flood insurance, limits on new development to mitigate future flood damage and categories of development that should be prohibited.

2) Requirement that any new construction of critical facilities - hospitals, jails, emergency operation centers - in the 500-year flood plain be designed to maintain operation or be capable of being safely shut down in the event of a 500-year flood.

It's tragically disappointing that, with Iowa's flood history, legislators are facing opposition from the very entities they propose to assist with the passage of these basic policies. Iowans should be asking questions of our city leaders who are opposing even modest steps to prevent future flooding.

Marian Riggs Gelb

Executive director

Iowa Environmental Council