Protecting Floodplains Can Help Alleviate Flooding Woes

CREP and FEP Can Help Protect Floodplains

WINAMAC, INDIANA — March 25, 2009 — News articles about flooding in northern Indiana are becoming increasingly common. Heavy rains earlier this month led to heavy flooding of almost every creek, river and ditch in our area. This flooding in turn, led to damaged homes, roads, and multiple travel inconveniences. This isn’t the way it has to be, says The Nature Conservancy, whose Wabash Rivers Initiative office is based in Winamac. The Conservancy office focuses its efforts on the Tippecanoe River.

Hydrology is the science dealing with the properties, distribution, and circulation of water on and below the earth's surface and in the atmosphere. Though not a word that comes up in daily conversation, the flooding of the past month has brought it to the front of our minds, whether we realize it or not.

“As we build more infrastructure and increase the efficiency of our drainage, we have greatly altered the way that water moves across our land, and altered the time it takes for that water to get from our farm fields or yards to the creeks and ditches, and ultimately the river.” says Chad Watts, Tippecanoe Project Manager for The Nature Conservancy. “In the past, water was simply able to soak into the ground, was stored in wetlands, or was taken up by trees and other vegetation that was native to the landscape. Because of the changes we have made, we are encouraging water to move more quickly from the land to the receiving waters.”

What this does is cause the river to receive water more quickly after heavy rains, causing the river to rise more quickly after rain events. This leads to greater flood events, as the water that was once metered out to the river by these natural features, now arrives at the river much more quickly.

There are several opportunities out there right now that can help to alleviate flooding issues. There are several government agencies that can help farmers and landowners protect and restore wetlands on their property. Wetlands help to provide some storage of the water on the land, and help to meter out the water as it moves towards the river. This will help to reduce the time it takes for the rainwaters to reach the river, and help to reduce flooding peaks.

Also, protecting floodplain forests is an important step in helping to reduce the costs of flooding. By protecting floodplains from development and helping to protect the forest in the floodplains, we can confine the flood events to areas that have historically been well suited for flooding and are free from manmade structures that will sustain damage.

There are several programs available to help landowners investigate flood-reducing best management practices. The local Soil and Water Conservation District office in your county is a good place to start. They have programs that can help to protect and restore wetlands, as well as access to engineering and planning expertise that can help landowners to plan and install practices that can help to alleviate flooding.

Also, there are programs available to permanently protect floodplain forests. These programs use conservation easements, which place restrictions on the land that help to protect and maintain healthy floodplain areas that are free from development. Payments are made to landowners who are willing to place their floodplain areas into permanent easements to protect the values of the floodplain.

In the Tippecanoe River watershed, there are two floodplain protection programs. They are the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) and the Floodplain Easement Program (FEP). These programs both make one-time payments to landowners for each acre that they are willing to place under a protective conservation easement to protect the floodplain forest on their property. Both programs work very similarly, with each program having a different payment amount, and each having somewhat different criteria for acceptance. The local SWCD in your county is the place to go to investigate these programs. However, the FEP is a limited time offer that ends on March 27th, so interested landowners are encouraged to sign up quickly.

The Nature Conservancy is interested in protecting floodplains and wetlands in the Tippecanoe River watershed to help protect the species in the River. They work in concert with the local agencies to help put landowners in touch with the programs that will help to protect floodplains and restore wetlands. Their primary interest is in protecting the river as a place for rare, threatened and endangered species. The Tippecanoe River is well known throughout the country for the many species that it holds in its waters.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.