Wyoming Valley Levee overseer seeking to avoid flood insurance rate hikes along two reaches

The Wyoming Valley Levee overseer is fighting to avoid flood insurance rate hikes that would be “financially catastrophic” to property owners along two stretches of the Susquehanna River flood-control system.

Without intervention, the next set of flood maps would impose higher rates for property owners behind the Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre/Hanover Township levee reaches because Federal Emergency Management Agency analysis after record 2011 Susquehanna flooding concluded the freeboard safety buffer atop them is now inches below standard.

Seeking to overrule this insurance increase, the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, which manages the levee, unanimously voted last week to launch a different new evaluation of the two levee stretches by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps recently revised how it evaluates flood protection systems to no longer deem freeboard a major determining factor.

FEMA now accepts the Army Corps methodology of doing risk assessments, and the Army Corps is “pretty confident” the analysis will allow the two reaches to keep their certification and flood insurance premiums to “stay exactly where they are,” an Army Corps representative told the flood authority.

The accelerated levee system evaluation is projected to cost $796,180, and the expense must be equally split between the federal government and authority.

FEMA has agreed to put flood insurance changes on hold for the two levee reaches until completion of the study, which should take about 18 months, said authority Executive Director Christopher Belleman.

The assessment won’t begin until November because the county authority is trying to obtain a state flood mitigation grant to cover its $398,090 cost share, Belleman said.

Waiting to proceed is necessary because flood mitigation grant awards are not expected to be announced until October or November, Belleman said.

A grant is crucial for the cost share because the authority has limited funds and primarily relies on a fee from levee-protected property owners to cover ongoing maintenance and repairs of the flood-control system, Belleman said.

Authority representatives already have started contacting area legislators seeking support for the grant. Belleman said he expects a positive response from legislators because the flood insurance rate hike would financially “destroy” levee-protected property owners in Wilkes-Barre, Hanover Township and Plymouth.

“If we do nothing, the flood risk zones in the levee-impacted areas will go from Zone X (preferred rates) to Zone D (undetermined risk), and the increased flood insurance premiums in these communities could be as much as up to $12 million dollars,” Belleman said.

“It would be an economic tsunami. It would be horrible, so I’m hoping we get broad support.”

Belleman said he is “very confident” both levee reaches will be accredited through the Army Corps assessment because the stretches met all other requirements except for the freeboard one.

The failure to meet the required 3-foot freeboard standard was blamed largely on increased storms, development and river sediment and tree growth, officials have said.

The Kingston-to-Exeter levee stretch still meets the freeboard standard because it’s on higher ground, officials have said.

In other business last week, the authority:

• Extended the deadline from June 1 to Aug. 1 for 2020 levee fees to be paid without a 10% penalty due to the coronavirus.

• Awarded a $146,100 contract to M&A Coatings LLC, of the Pittsburgh area, to remove lead-based paint and apply a new protective paint coating on the Twelve Tubes Drainage Structure access platform, which was the lowest of three bids.

The structure was last painted in 2004, and the existing coating is in poor shape and has been identified as a deficiency in annual levee inspections, Belleman said.