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By Josh Margolis
CHINOOK, Mont. (NMB) – With the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) expected to produce new flood insurance rate maps for the entire Milk River Watershed in the coming years, community leaders along the Hi-Line are working to ensure their levee protection systems will remain in compliance with updated standards.
For the city of Chinook, this means that their West Levee, which stretches southeast from the Edgar G. Obie Airport down to 10th Street and Stockyard Road, will likely need some substantial upgrades.
Shawn Higley of WWC Engineering is the floodplain administrator for Blaine County and Chinook and says a study of the levee is ongoing.
“We need to determine what condition that levee is in. Get FEMA involved, get the U.S. Army Corps (of Engineers) involved, and see if we can bring that levee up to the current standard. Because as it sits right now, that levee protects the community against flooding and it also provides, since they are out of the floodplain because of the levee, they don’t have to pay flood insurance … It’s kind of a twofold thing. It’s an insurance thing and a flood protection thing.”
The study was funded through a grant procured by Bear Paw Development, and will determine potential encroachments to the levee as well as ownership.
“We can start communications with local landowners that their property is impacted by the levee, that’s actually part of the levee.”
As the process moves along, Higley says they will be in communication with FEMA to figure out how encroachments will need to be dealt with.
Wednesday’s public meeting at the Blaine County Courthouse represented the beginning of outreach efforts with the community, which are expected to continue as the project progresses in the coming years.
If upgrades are not made in the coming years, landowners that are in the new floodplain would be required to purchase costly flood insurance.
“Yes, 2027 is when the new mapping is anticipated to come out,” says Higley. “I don’t see that as a hard and fast deadline to fix the levee and get it accredited. We do have a little time there to get the levee fixed, accredited, get it in compliance with FEMA even beyond that and get some mapping updates in play that’ll show that the city is out of the floodplain.”
It’s unclear how much this project will cost at this time. Local government could end up using some American Rescue Plan Act funds for some of the project, but plans remain in their early stages.
Although the study is ongoing, project stakeholders are waiting to receive data from the federal government which will determine the new base flood elevation.
“A lot of landowners are going to be involved. The Montana Department of Transportation is going to be involved, FEMA, DNRC, USACE, County, City, all the local community. It’s just going to take a collaborative effort to go through that process, really determine what needs to be done to bring that levee up to the right regulatory standards to make it meet FEMA’s accreditation process.”
The first Chinook floodplain map was created in 1976. It was last updated in 1987 and was converted to a digital format in 2006.
For more information, visit floodplain.mt.gov/milk.
