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Cindy Lange-Kubick: Drowning in flood plain talk

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Sunday, Dec 02, 2007 - 05:48:05 pm CST

The city is drowning in flood plain talk.



To build or not to build where the water flows — that is the question.

Story Photo

But what is the answer?

I’m confused.

I’m confused, because a few weeks ago University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman told a reporter the university can’t build on undeveloped land on East Campus because most of it is in a flood plain.

And I’m confused because a good chunk of State Fair Park — where he wants to build a multimillion-dollar research park — is also in a flood plain.

I’m confused because the Antelope Valley Project is in a flood plain so we had to tear down houses where poor people lived so the water wouldn’t get them.

And I’m confused because Military Road, also in a flood plain, is where new housing will be built so other poor people will have a place to live.

It’s also interesting, although not terribly confusing, that there are some people who live in flood plains who sue the city because they didn’t know they lived in a flood plain.

But there are other people, like Dave Landis, who live in flood plains and FLAUNT (flout: means to show contempt for; flaunt means to exhibit ostentatiously) it at City Council meetings.

The city’s urban development director says he’s willing to take the risk of a “wet basement.” And I believe him.

He also says flood plain decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

And the city issues about 150 permits a year for folks to build in flood plains.

So maybe it only seems complicated to those of us who don’t have the Comprehensive Plan by our bedsides and haven’t kept up on the policy recommendations that came out of the Mayor’s Flood Plain Task Force.

Or maybe not.

Two people who served on that task force just took the city to task for the Military Road housing project for low-income and mentally ill residents.

“Surplusing city-owned flood plain land, handing it over to a developer with no competitive free market bid process, using public money for a project and approving it all with no back-up technical date as to how it will all work, is a REALLY bad idea,” Patte Newman and Foster Collins wrote on this newspaper’s editorial page.

They don’t seem confused.

Nor did City Councilwoman Robin Eschliman, who wondered why people didn’t have “tornado terror?”

“I don’t think it’s about flood plains,” she said to a development opponent at a public hearing. “I think it’s about not wanting this kind of housing.”

I’m not sure the tornado analogy works here, but I have learned some flood plain basics.

I know that if I live in a 100-year flood plain and have a 30-year mortgage on my house, I have a 26 percent chance of getting water where I don’t want water before I make my last payment.

Put another way: A 100-year flood plain has a 1 percent chance of a flood in any given year.

The flood plain itself is like a bathtub filled with water, but not overflowing.

Put a brick in the tub, water splashes over the edges.

In the tub, you’d have to open the drain to keep water from sloshing over. To keep water from flooding a building on a flood plain, you have to take extra care to both build up and dig down, to compensate for the “lost flood storage.”

And lots of people who know a lot about these issues, some of them elected, some appointed, make decisions on what to build where and how to make it work.

To build or not to build?

Passing out permits for building on city-owned property in a flood plain is not a “one-size-fits-all issue,” says Landis.

“It’s a balancing act.”

That makes perfect sense to a citizen who sometimes reads the newspaper with her eyebrows raised, pondering the words of politicians and developers and chancellors.

I imagine I’ll continue to be occasionally confused about how decisions are made and why.

And who benefits and why. And whether you and I would get the same consideration as the people with lawyers on retainer.

And just what is the plain truth.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.


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russell wrote on December 2, 2007 8:06 am:
" The floodplain regulations ARE PRO-BUSINESS because they are designed to protect the investors (private homes & business) that have been established for decades from higher floodwaters and increased insurance expenses. The concept that new ventures trumps established buildings is self-defeating in the long run. An example is Lincoln Plating, a major employment center, was out of the floodplain when built but is now in. When the big flood comes will they chose to rebuild in Lincoln or will they move to a city that takes better care of them? "

 jimmy chap the man wrote on December 2, 2007 8:09 am:
" i drown every day from the pain of my job when do i get a story about me "

 Henri wrote on December 2, 2007 8:22 am:
" I think it is certain the people who decide these issues will never roll up their pant legs if they had to help people in a flood plain nor worry about floods in their neighborhoods. More likely they will roll up their sleeves as they pat themselves on the back. It is nice someone with some insight knows how to put a finger in the dike before it leaks. They certainly won't help with the flood plain insurance and other issues surrounding our moving flood plains for what was it called.....Developement!!! Thanks for the information and comments.... "

 Peace Frog wrote on December 2, 2007 10:28 am:
" The plain truth is it is safe to build in a flood plain as long as you do it right. And what is being proposed for the Military Road low-income housing is building right. It's liberal zealots like Patte Newman, who would rather run people out of town instead of watch Lincoln grow healthily and steadily, who try to misinform the public as to what's best. "

 good word choice wrote on December 2, 2007 10:29 am:
" Cindy made a very good word choice linking Mr. Landis and FLAUNTing. I wonder what Mr. Landis's attitude would be if he had relocated from Havelock to South Bottoms which has 2 feet of flood water instead of a "wet basement'. "

 The Dole wrote on December 2, 2007 5:09 pm:
" When you accept government housing on the taxpayers' nickel, you can't be too picky about what and where it is. If you want to live in a good part of town, pay for it yourself. "

 For Goodness Sake wrote on December 2, 2007 6:07 pm:
" Thank you Peace Frog for interjecting some rational talk about this issue. As someone who works in the environmental field I continue to hope that there are those out there who do understand the concepts behind flood plain storage and that it can be acceptable to build there if you exercise the correct amount of fill. I'm disappointed that those on the Mayor's Taskforce do not temper their comments, I had assumed they understood the science. "

 Confused wrote on December 2, 2007 10:23 pm:
" It's not surprising that Cindy is once again confused. "

 llb wrote on December 3, 2007 7:23 am:
" After all the planning, we all should have been confused when, during the flooding this year, we saw news film of a car afloat at about O and 14th Streets. What does that tell you? "

 plainsmart wrote on December 3, 2007 8:19 am:
" Leave it to Councilwoman Eschliman to ask the ludicrous question as if it were intelligent! Why don't we have tornado terror -- as if we had the same options! There are NO scientific variables, or design options to control for tornadoes, there are for flood plains. Design smart, to minimize the risk of misguided water! Including: ban all construction in flood plains. Mother Nature did it right. Developers can find their fortunes designing in harmony with nature instead of the Eschliman Plan to enrich the private sector in every conceivable way, shift the cost to the public sector, then cut the public revenue "streams", & complain that public employees didn't contribute to the United Way like she thought they ought to. Can we PLEASE get someone to run against this LIBA clone? Someone with the public interest in mind & with higher order thinking skills? "

 Really wrote on December 3, 2007 8:30 am:
" So, Peace Frog, you are an expert in floodplain issues and can make this determination? Hmmm...interesting how you call yourself "Peace Frog" yet criticize Patte Newman as a "liberal zealot." Peace - liberal - seems those two generally go together. I would recommend you speak to your area of expertise, but perhaps you are doing that if your profession is armchair critic. What do you do for a living? Let mw make some ignorant comments about an issue in your field. Frog legs anyone? "

 Mellow Toad wrote on December 3, 2007 8:48 am:
" The frog is partly right. But the issue for 10th & Military wasn't building in the floodplain, but rather taking land that is held in public ownership and allowing streets and rooftops to reduce its ability to hold floodwater. There's also a question about giving special treatment to the President of LIBA and his brother, the president of the Lincoln Homebuilders, who are the developers. A proposed project for housing for the elderly in the same place was turned down just a few years ago because the area is floodplain and publicly owned. That was the right policy, not to be applied "case by case" as Dave Landis says, but uniformly and fairly, especially for land right next to the levee on Salt Creek. "

 whatever wrote on December 3, 2007 12:17 pm:
" Building next to a levee is just dumb and poor public policy no matter how you try to spin it. At some point Lincoln is going to have the "big flood", statistically it's overdue. A lot of these lakes around Lincoln have very old damns. The Journal Star might want to do a story on how often the damns around Lincoln are inspected and what the average lifespan of such damns are. "

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