FEMA drawing flood maps as if Big Ditch doesn't exist

FEMA has notified area cities that it has started drawing new flood maps without the Big Ditch system, a move that could require thousands of homeowners to buy flood insurance or pay higher rates for existing policies.

Decertification of the Big Ditch, formally known as the Wichita-Valley Center Floodway, was expected. The new maps will be drawn as if the more than 100 miles of levees protecting parts of Wichita, Park City, Valley Center and Haysville don't exist.

Sedgwick County and Wichita leaders still think they will complete about $10 million in repairs necessary for the levee system to be certified before the new maps are finished.

An e-mail county assistant public works director Jim Weber sent to city and county officials hints that FEMA is working in step with the city and county to ensure the system is certified before the maps are finished.

"We have not been able to get a written commitment from FEMA to this effect — in fact they would prefer that word of their cooperation not get around," Weber wrote in the e-mail. "Our best course of action is to not attract unnecessary attention to this issue."

Weber told The Eagle on Friday that FEMA "has a schedule their process will follow, and we have a process we're following. If you lay the two side by side, what you find out is that the two things mesh together. The data we need to produce comes available before they have to take a step that's bad for us. They integrate really well.

"We believe at the staff level that this is going to work out just fine."

The Big Ditch is the first levee system in the country to undergo federal accreditation, part of stricter guidelines put into place after levees broke in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The Big Ditch was completed in 1959 for $20 million and was designed to protect people and property from a 100-year flood, which is a flood so severe that it has only a 1 percent chance of occurring each year.

The deadline for certification was Feb. 2, 2009. FEMA said then that new flood maps would be drawn in the next 18 to 24 months. The maps will show the areas of the county that could flood after a 100-year rain. Mortgage companies frequently require homeowners in flood-prone areas to purchase flood insurance.

Barb Sturner, a public affairs officer for FEMA Region VII in Kansas City, said Friday that the agency expects to have maps completed by January 2012. The maps could be done before then, she said.

Asked about Weber's e-mail, Sturner said, "I can't comment on somebody else's perception or e-mail that they sent to someone else. We are not delaying this process in order for the city to make those repairs."

Three levees — near 46th North and Salina, Washington and I-35, and 61st South and Madison — as well as some control structures are being repaired. The county and Wichita are splitting the cost of the project.

Wichita public works director Chris Carrier called the certification process "very detailed."

Because the Big Ditch is the first system in the country to undergo accreditation, "nobody knew how to do it," he said. "We've kind of blazed the trail on that for other municipalities and counties to follow what we've done."

Carrier said he also thinks the work will be done before the maps are finished.

"We'll do what we need to do to get the project certified as soon as possible, but then there will be more follow-up work later," he said. "It's been a good thing for us to go through."

This story was originally published February 14, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "FEMA drawing flood maps as if Big Ditch doesn't exist."