Floodplains_Content Page_Mitigation and Grants

Mitigation and Grants

Mitigation

While it is not possible to prevent natural hazards, it is possible to reduce their consequences. We have tools and techniques which, when put into effect in a timely fashion, allow us to avoid the worst-case scenario when a hazard does occur. These tools and techniques are known as mitigation.

The goal of floodplain mitigation is to lessen the impact floods have on people, property, and the environment. In practice, mitigation can take many forms. It can involve actions such as:

  • promoting sound land use planning based on known flood hazards;
  • buying flood insurance to protect your belongings;
  • relocating or elevating structures out of the floodplain;
  • developing, adopting, and enforcing effective building codes and standards; and
  • developing and implementing a plan in your business or community to reduce your susceptibility to hazards.

Floodplain mitigation can be either structural or non-structural. Structural measures keep the floods away from people and buildings, non-structural measures keep the people and buildings away from the floods. Non-structural measures such as zoning or retrofitting are less expensive than structural measures such as levees. Retrofitting examples include:

  • Elevation: raising your home so that the lowest floor is above the flood protection elevation. This is the most common way to avoid flood damage
  • Wet floodproofing: making uninhabited parts of your home resistant to flood damage when water is allowed to enter during flooding
  • Relocation: moving your home to higher ground to protect it from flooding
  • Dry floodproofing: sealing your home’s exterior walls to protect your home from flooding
  • Levee and floodwall: constructing barriers to prevent floodwaters from entering your home
  • Demolition: razing your home and rebuilding the structure on the same property or rebuilding elsewhere

FEMA and Wisconsin Emergency Management are excellent sources for mitigation information.

Grants

Municipal flood control grant program

Recognizing that we have a responsibility to protect life, health and property from flood damages, the DNR officers the Municipal Flood Control Grant Program. It is an assistance package to all cities, villages, towns and metropolitan sewerage districts concerned with municipal flood control management. Assistance is provided in two ways:

  • Local assistance grants that support municipal flood control administrative activities; and
  • Acquisition and development grants to acquire and remove floodplain structures, elevate floodplain structures, restore riparian areas, acquire land and easements for flood storage, construct flood control structures and fund flood mapping projects.

Flood mitigation assistance grants

Communities are encouraged to develop flood mitigation plans, which assess flood risk and identify actions to reduce that risk. Floodplain mitigation grants are available to communities that have flood mitigation plans in place and are approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as Wisconsin Emergency Management.

For more information, contact:
Wisconsin Emergency Management

There are two types of grants available to communities:

  • Planning grants - grants to communities to develop or update flood mitigation plans.
  • Project grants - grants to communities to implement measures to reduce flood losses. This could take the form of such things as elevating, relocating, or dry flood-proofing of insured structures.

Hazard mitigation grants

The Pre-Disaster Flood Resilience Grant (PDFRG) is a state grant program to provide assistance to eligible applicants for flood resilience assessment and implementation projects.

The purpose of PDFRG is:

  • To identifying flood vulnerabilities
  • To identifying options to improve flood resilience
  • To restore hydrology to reduce flood risk and damages in flood-prone communities

Grants provide up to 75% of eligible costs. The remaining 25% is a required local match. Funding availability is identified in the State biennium budget.

Eligible applicants are:

  • Local government unit (Federally recognized tribal nations, City, Village, Town, County, Regional Planning Commission);
  • Nonprofit on behalf of local government unit, and;
  • Private consulting organization on behalf of local government unit

Examples of eligible projects are:

  • Hydrologic and hydraulic study;
  • Culvert inventory;
  • Wetland restoration, and;
  • Design, engineering, and permitting

Eligible projects are required to demonstrate financial soundness.

Eligible applicants apply for the PDFRG through Wisconsin Emergency Management.

For more information, contact:
Wisconsin Emergency Management

The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) is a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant program intended to provide hazard mitigation assistance to eligible applicants when approved as a part of a federal disaster declaration.

Objectives of the HMGP are:

  • To prevent future losses of lives and property due to disasters;
  • To implement state or local mitigation plans;
  • To enable mitigation measures to be implemented during immediate recovery from a disaster; and
  • Provide funding for mitigation measures that benefit the disaster area

Eligible applicants are:

  • state and local governments;
  • Certain private, non-profit organizations or institutions; and
  • Federally recognized tribal nations

Examples of eligible projects are:

  • retrofitting, such as flood-proofing;
  • acquisition and relocation of structures from hazard prone areas;
  • development of standards to protect structures; and
  • structural hazard control such as debris basins or floodwalls

Eligible projects are required to demonstrate:

  • the project is financially sound;
  • the project is environmentally sound;
  • other alternatives have been considered; and
  • the project is the best alternative and will actually solve a problem and is a permanent solution.

Eligible applicants apply for the HMGP through Wisconsin Emergency Management.

For more information, contact:
Wisconsin Emergency Management

Funding for mitigation projects is available from the DNR through Municipal Flood Control Grant Program and from Wisconsin Emergency Management through its Hazard Mitigation Assistance Programs.