Conference Seeks to Demystify Flood Insurance and Endangered Species Act Connections

SEATTLE, Wash. - Over two  hundred floodplain managers, watershed and land-use planners, flood and diking district officials and environmental specialists will meet at the Edmonds Conference Center in Edmonds, 1-2 March 2011 to attend the Demystifying National Flood Insurance Program Alignment with the Endangered Species Act conference.  The conference is hosted by FEMA, NOAA, Washington State Department of Ecology, and the Puget Sound Partnership, and supported by the Washington Association of Cities and Washington State Association of Counties.  According to FEMA Regional Administrator Ken Murphy, the collaborative panels and workshops should prove invaluable to Puget Sound floodplain, shoreline, fisheries and environmental stakeholders.

This News is a service of:
       

"The NOAA biological opinion on the National Flood Insurance Program, the Endangered Species Act and some Pacific NW salmonid species, impacts over 122 Puget Sound NFIP communities, numerous tribes and multiple government agencies," said Murphy. "We've been working closely with our federal, state, tribal and local partners to develop a slate of options for affected communities to demonstrate full compliance with both the NFIP and the Endangered Species Act, and this conference is designed to provide definitive access to those options."

NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Will Stelle, concurs. "We've worked closely with FEMA as it works to implement our recommendations on how to adjust the flood insurance program to protect Puget Sound floodplain functions," said Stelle.  "This conference is designed to increase communications between interested sectors of the public, and provide the affected communities with practical information and tools to promote timely and effective compliance with both the Endangered Species Act and the NFIP."

Registration and agenda details are available online at: http://client-ross.com/FloodPlainWorkshop. Details on the NOAA NMFS biological opinion and information on FEMA's implementation of the opinion's RPA are available online at: http://www.fema.gov/regionx/nfipesa.shtm.

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.