City expectation of millions from FEMA tied to flooded Sinclair and hydro plants takes big hit; city promises an appeal

UPDATE: Friday, 4:30 p.m.

CEDAR RAPIDS - City Hall has taken a hit to its flood-recovery plans.

On Friday, city officials learned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will not pay the city some $30 million from the agency's special “alternate-project” and “improved-project” funding programs, money FEMA has available for flood-damaged public facilities that no longer can be used.

City Council member Chuck Swore said the city would appeal the decision to the FEMA regional office in Kansas City, Mo., and told FEMA officials as much at a meeting in Cedar Rapids on Friday morning.

The City Council had been operating under the notion that FEMA would provide the city with about $18 million for the former Sinclair meatpacking plant, which had housed a few small businesses and some warehousing at the time of the flood, about $13 million for the city-owned hydroelectric plant at the base of the 5-in-1 Bridge downtown, and another $2 million for the former Quality Chef plant in New Bohemia.

However, Bob Josephson, external affairs officer in FEMA's Kansas City regional office, on Friday said that most of the what city officials had expected from the Sinclair plant will not be forthcoming and none will be for the hydroelectric plant.

Swore said FEMA now puts funding for the Sinclair plant at about $5 million. Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, said Friday that FEMA also has decided not to provide any alternate-project funds for the Quality Chef plant.

As FEMA's Josephson explained: The city had based its expectations at the Sinclair plant on a calculation of the size of the Sinclair plant at 625,000 square feet. However, FEMA has calculated that only 225,000 square feet of the building was in use at the time of the 2008 flood, and it is only that amount of space that figures in FEMA's funding calculation. Additionally, FEMA must deduct $500,000 from any award to the city for each building on the Sinclair site because the buildings sat in the 100-year flood plain and did not carry flood insurance. FEMA has determined that the site has 22 buildings, and FEMA will deduct $500,000 from the city's award for each of the 22 buildings.

As for the hydroelectric plant, FEMA has determined that the plant was not operational at the time of the flood and that the city did not have plans to bring the plant back on line. Thus, it is ineligible for alternate-project money, Josephson said.

The City Council has been working almost gleefully to identify which projects were to benefit from the FEMA alternate-project money.

In contention for the funding have been a new downtown parking ramp; a riverfront amphitheater; the establishment of a Time Check area “greenway; a downtown trail system; a year-round farmers market; a new west-side fire station; a new animal care and control facility;  a community/recreation center; and wind turbines at one of the city's water plants.