What’s New in July: Ron Moore Back After 11 Years From our Treasurer: Stacy Scheffel, Travis County Invite t

1. River Run Texas Colorado River Floodplain Coalition July 2011 --- A Newsletter for the Texas Colorado River Floodplain Coalition: Working Together Makes Sense --- Meet Ron Moore… What’s New in July: Ron Moore Back After 11 Years From our Treasurer: Stacy Scheffel, Travis County Invite to the Annual Meeting August 12, 2011 at the LCRA Riverside Center in Bastrop Texas: 1405 Willow St., Bastrop, TX Llano County Environmental and Emergency Services Administrator, Ron Moore, hasn’t always lived in Texas or worked as a government official. The Anchorage, Alaska native agreed to serve as Region III director this year, after a long history with the Coalition. He was a charter member back in 2000 as Llano County’s technical representative. While his county is relatively small, with 19,200 people and three cities, they have major watershed concerns. “Some of the most severe flooding in the entire state of Texas takes place in Llano County,” Moore said. “The area of Kingsland, Texas is commonly referred to as ‘Flash-Flood Alley’. It’s a major intersection of rivers, where the Colorado River joins the Llano, and it doesn’t take much for those waters to get carried away. The 1997 flood was an 80 year flood; not quite a 100-year flood, but very severe. It’s pretty normal to have high water of some kind maybe three times a year, though it hasn’t happened during this current drought - this year, at least not yet!” Since 2003, Moore has worked for Llano County in his current capacity, he also served as 911 Coordinator from 1994 to 2001. Both positions included oversight of emergency management and floodplain management. Moore has also been the County’s Emergency Management Director since 1996, served as the director of the Department of Natural Resources from 1996 to 1998, and brings experience from other volunteer organizations. Moore’s former life in the media includes working as news anchor for CBS in Anchorage; to eventually becoming president of the division. River Run asked Ron a few questions: Q: How has the coalition helped your community? A: Many times in the past with technical assistance on floodplain issues, and more recently with the new mapping from FEMA that is expected to be completed for my county by the end of 2011. The last update we had prior to that was in 1991, so my current maps are pretty old. The Coalition worked with LCRA and the Corps to provide updated information for Lakes Buchanan, Inks, and LBJ. Q: Do updated maps help people? A: Sure. I use the information every day to issue permits in the County to help new development stay out of the 100-year flood plain, thus reducing future flood damages in Llano County. I also use it for subdivision development; these all benefit from those maps. Q: How good are your maps right now? My office is also responsible for the 911 coordination, so we have that map and the current FEMA maps in digital format. I use these together to generate a good map that includes the floodplain and septic jurisdictions.” 1

2. The River Run July 2011 Re-invigorating the Coalition: Board urges members to attend Annual Meeting August 12, 2011 10am – 3pm This year’s annual meeting will address several important topics requiring membership decisions by vote, said TCRFC Chairman Domingo Montalvo. “It’s important that we all attend; especially the elected officials.This is the main time we sit down and we discuss the future of floodplain management on the Colorado River and its tributaries. We want to save our communities a lot of heartache and headache in the future.” Montalvo added, “Not only will we be electing new officers, but a major change we’ll discuss is how new floodplain maps will become available to our communities in the future. We’ll hear it straight from the Texas Water Development Board. We’ll also consider the transfer of the Coalition’s administrative duties from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) to the Texas Floodplain Management Association (TFMA). As a parent organization, LCRA has gotten us off to a great start, providing funding, staff, and the current website. But now we need to stand on our own. And, we’ll be revising our by-laws. The original bylaws are set up with LCRA having fairly broad powers… now we are bringing on (former Wharton County Commissioner) Mickey Reynolds as Executive Administrator to work with TFMA. We are very appreciative to LCRA for getting us going, but the intent has always been for the Coalition to be on its own. “ According to Mickey Reynolds, the membership must approve changes in the bylaws for the Coalition to be able to achieve this. Bylaws are normally updated “every other year with the new officers, but this year we have administrative changes and we need to consider giving the Board more ability to manage mapping contracts with our communities, TWDB, and FEMA. The membership has to consider these changes and then vote!” Reynolds, who has been touring the TCRFC region in order to meet folks and to gather information about each community’s needs, adds that the August meeting “is very important as we are experiencing so many changes”. “In spite of the major changes, we have been active working for our members,” said Reynolds, who is a former board member of TCRFC. “With the help of the Texas Water Development Board, we are obtaining a grant from FEMA to implement the first year of our new floodplain mapping 5-Year plan. For the first time, TCRFC communities can help manage when they get new maps, and what is on those new maps. Another important agenda item is regarding the newly updated regional Hazard Mitigation Plan, there is some action now required by you. And, we’ll also be rolling out the new TCRFC Website!” Reynolds said “The TCRFC Directors have worked through many changes this past year to provide a real service to our communities, and should be commended for their leadership.” “Participation in the Coalition can help your community too,” Montalvo said. “As Chairman, I have utilized contacts with local, state and federal government officials to help realize the flood damage reduction goals of the City of Wharton. We are getting new levees designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We are still a long way from getting our citizens out of the floodplain, but the main issue is to help improve our communities, to help cut the bureaucracy out of these type projects, and bring back the local control. We’re under a drought now, but we all know what breaks the drought is a flood. So we definitely don’t want to be back in the position of pointing fingers at everyone and shifting the blame around after the next big one. We should continue to work together to try to find ways of solving our own problems. Come work with us on August 12 in Bastrop!” TCRFC Board planning the August 12 Annual Meeting • July 8 Meeting Summary: • planned the August 12 Annual Meeting • discussed the role of TFMA in the future • recommended hiring Mickey Reynolds • reviewed the new website and commented • reviewed billing and payments • discussed the annual budget • TFMA was there helping! Thanks! 2

3. The River Run July 2011 FROM OUR TREASURER: Stacey Scheffel, Travis County Floodplain Manager Stacey Scheffel, an Austin native with a dedicated voice in the TCRFC’s management of funds, has a unique talent – she can understand engineers, but, “I can also speak human”, she said. What is your job? I’m over permit enforcement, inspection, and floodplain management. I’m also the treasurer of the TCRFC. Prior to my employment with Travis County I was a homebuilder. Why are you concerned about floodplain management? My county has nearly 6,700 structures within the floodplain. A few of these are commercial, but they are mostly houses. In addition, we have nearly 70 miles of roads in the floodplain. Flooding is a big issue for Travis County. When was the last big flood in Travis County? You have to define big! We had a flood on Lake Travis in 2007, around July 4, with over 100 houses flooded. Back in the 1991, 1992, and 1997 floods we had several hundred homes under water! On average we have a flood every two years. If you are concerned about this current drought, please remember that back during our drought of record in the 1950’s, we had the 1952 flood when the lake rose over 50 feet in 24 hours. There really weren’t that many people living out on the lake then, but now there are thousands of homes. The population of Travis County is now over one million, ten times what it was in the 1950’s. Are the floods managed well by the dam system?  On the Colorado River, sure. Mansfield dam is a flood control structure. Without it, undoubtedly, Austin and the downstream areas would flood more. But there aren’t flood control structures on every stream that floods. Most of our creeks don’t have flood regulating dams. We do have development regulations where we require developers to take the flood potential very seriously. But counties really didn’t have any authority to require this until the mid-80s. So a lot of our problems are with homes and roads that were built prior to having and using this legal authority. Texas is a property rights state, and we like that. It’s unlike any other state in the country. You can do whatever you want on your property, but so can your neighbor, and that could impact you! When you look at the public costs of flooding, what it costs to rescue people, and to rebuild homes, we really have an important job… Does Travis County have the most updated map information in the region? Absolutely, because we have more people we could afford to invest a lot of money with FEMA for our new maps. We are fortunate to have those maps, and I’m hoping the rest of our TCRFC communities get them too. How does the new 100-year flood level information affect Travis County residents? The floodplain is what the floodplain has always been. Its just that we are getting better at measuring and mapping it. Our residents deserve to know their flood risk. Receding water levels on Lake Travis in June 2011 4

4. The River Run July 2011 TCRFC Mission The Texas Colorado River Floodplain Coalition is a partnership of cities and counties in the Colorado River basin and surrounding areas seeking better ways to reduce and mitigate flood damage. The Coalition was formed in 2001 in response to a combination of rapid growth, a greatly expanded number of homes and businesses in the floodplain, and the devastating 1990’s floods which have continued to reoccur. The Texas Floodplain Management Association now provides administrative and technical support to the Coalition, but we are continuing our partnering programs with the LCRA and Corps of Engineers while forging new partnerships with the Texas Water Development Board and FEMA. For more information on TCRFC goals and achievements, please visit www.tcrfc.org TCRFC Board of Directors Domingo Montalvo: Chair Mayor, City of Wharton Clara Beckett: Vice-Chair Commissioner, Bastrop County Stacey Scheffel: Treasurer, Floodplain Administrator, Travis County Ron Smith: Secretary City Council Place 4, Lago Vista Monica Martin: Region I Representative Floodplain Administrator, Wharton County Vickie Box: Region II Representative Floodplain Administrator, Bastrop County Ron Moore: Region III Representative Floodplain Administrator, Llano County Joe Mosier: Region IV Representative Floodplain Administrator, City of Brady 5