County adopts revised floodplain ordinance

Sixteen months after Douglas County's floodplain management was called into question by the federal government, county commissioners Thursday unanimously approved a new document ending months of debate.

Community Development Director Mimi Moss said the ordinance was the culmination of six workshops and input taken at three county commission meetings.

Thursday's meeting was the "third second-reading" of the ordinance, reflecting the attention paid to the document.

She outlined some of the final changes, "with consensus on changes, we felt were very good as a result of the workshops."

County staff has been working on revising floodplain management for a year due to a May 16, 2007, letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that administers the National Flood Insurance Program.

The letter advised then-County Manager Dan Holler that the county might lose its 20 percent discount on flood zone insurance policies.

The ordinance was declared unconstitutional by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Sandoval who ruled the ordinance gave the county's community development director "unfettered discretion" in deciding whether to certify that a project met community floodplain management requirements.

Engineer Rob Anderson thanked staff for its hard work.

"Your staff worked very diligently with practitioners," he said. "This is a good result. It's substantially more definitive with concessions practical and applicable."

Anderson said he represented several property owners "who extended their appreciation for the extra time you allowed us to work through these issues."

Engineer Chuck Armstrong said he worked with several floodplain management ordinances in Northern Nevada and "this is one of the better ones."

"Adoption makes it quite a bit easier to work in this field," he said.

The ordinance is to change county code to add definitions, change the way floodplain permits are issued, set requirements for hydrology and hydraulic studies for certain projects, and set requirements for when documents are required that set map revisions.