Kellogg submits flood map proposal

KELLOGG — The city of Kellogg officially submitted its letter of map revision (LOMR) plan earlier this week to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The city of Kellogg, in conjunction with Shoshone County, the city of Smelterville, and Silver Mountain are hopeful that the LOMR will be approved which could potentially alleviate the costs of flood insurance to property owners inside the targeted area of study.

The city used engineering firm Alta Science and Engineering to conduct a very complex flood study, that included 160 cross sections of the South Fork Coeur d’Alene River between Elizabeth Park and Pinehurst, near the river’s confluence with Pine Creek.

Over the years homeowners in Kellogg, Smelterville and Pinehurst have existed within a floodplain as designated by the FEMA, which in turn has forced them to pay extremely high premiums for annual flood insurance on their properties.

The study itself came with a hefty price tag, but submitting it to be reviewed is coming with an additional $8,000 cost — which is being covered by the participating entities.

“It has been such a monumental task for something like this to be submitted,” said Shoshone County Commissioner Mike Fitzgerald. “It’s really unbelievable how much time, effort and money have gone into this over the years.”

It was released in July of last year that the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) had accumulated data over the years that could potentially change the floodplain maps on the western end of Shoshone County.

This data, along with the study conducted by Alta was then packaged into the LOMR, which will now be put under the FEMA microscope.

Alta’s study showed some dramatic changes in the number of property parcels that would be considered in the floodplain including an overall decrease from 1,118 (in 2008) to just 523 total properties, and 760 acres affected instead of the former 2,500 (in 2008).

FEMA would have to certify the information from the USACE in order for the maps to be changed, and according to Rod Plank, a special projects manager for the city of Kellogg, the project has been going on for several decades involving several entities.

“We worked with the Basin Commission prior to that on the initial study work which actually began back in the early 2000s,” Plank said in a previous interview. “That work along with the most recent work done by Alta Science & Engineering has all been financed by the Basin Commission and the city of Kellogg at a total in excess of $50,000.”

The mandatory flood insurance is rooted directly with flood maps from FEMA, where it shows the possibility for 10, 50, 100 and 500-year flood events.

The number of years in flood terms are probabilities. The numbers come from historical data including rainfall and stream stage, and represent the probability of a river hitting flood stage within a certain period of time.

For example, a 100-year flood indicates a flood of a certain magnitude that has a 1 percent chance of happening in any year.

In any given year, a 10-year flood has a 10 in 100 chance of occurring, a 50-year flood has a 1 in 50 chance of occurring, a 100-year flood a 1 in 100 chance, and a 500-year flood a 1 in 500 chance.

The current maps used by FEMA in Shoshone County are exceptionally dated and utilize projected river flows in cubic feet per second (CFS), and due to their lack of recent information it shows that a 100 and 500-year flood water flows as potentially disastrous to much of the Kellogg, Smelterville and Pinehurst areas, and thus require flood insurance.

Flood insurance policy prices vary depending upon flood area and structure characterizes.

In general, the range is from just over $300 to thousands of dollars annually per property according to representatives at the Shoshone County Courthouse.

“The goal is to help our homeowners,” Plank said. “There’s a lot of folks who pay a lot of money annually and if we can ease that burden in any way, then we’re going to do what we can.”