This is important and matters to property owners because these new maps
are part of compliance with the federal regulations that allow people
who live in flood-prone areas to have federally subsidized flood
insurance.
These changed maps and updated land use regulations will ensure that
Waitsfield residents who live in flood plains retain eligibility for
subsidized flood hazard insurance. These flood district maps deal with
inundation -- when water goes over the banks and into fields and flood
plains -- as with a 100-year flood -- or in 1998, a 500-year flood.
The second part of this dryer than sand but very necessary change has
to do with a fluvial erosion hazard overlay district. This district has
to do with the potential for erosion when the river channel shifts and
eats away at banks, taking property, houses and other buildings along
with it.
The principle here is the growing recognition by fluvial
geomorphologists (people who study the movement of rivers through their
channels as they "morph" over time) that healthy rivers need room to
move from side to side over time whether that time is 5 years or 500.
Fluvial geomorphologists look at where a river has moved in the past
and where it might move in the future and identify property where the
river is likely to meander over time or over a single flood event.
The importance of this new fluvial erosion hazard overlay district is
that it identifies areas likely to be damaged or eroded in flood events
and limits encroachments and building in those areas.
When things are built in those areas, public money will no longer be
available to rebuild things that are repeatedly washed away, not from
the inundation but from the secondary effect of erosion.
Dry as these proposed zoning amendments regarding riparian land may be,
they are important because they impact how people use their land and
what they do with it.
The planning commission will hold a public hearing on the amendments on February 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the town offices.
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