BOND AND EMERSON CONCERNED WITH REPORT

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a joint letter to the Interagency Floodplain Management Review Committee, 8th District U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson and Missouri Sen. Christopher Bond have outlined concerns they have about the panel's draft report.

The letter, dated Tuesday, will be filed as part of the public comment period on the report. It was sent to Brig. Gen. Gerald Galloway, executive director of the review committee in Washington.

Emerson and Bond stress the importance of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to agriculture and the overall economy in the United States. They point out that future flood-plain management must take into account the value of farm land along the rivers, have respect for private property rights, and should provide a reasonable balance in dealing with environmental issues.

The inter-agency committee is drafting what will be a new approach to floodplain management and Bond and Emerson urged the panel to take human and national economic factors into consideration.

"We are concerned that the pendulum is swinging dramatically in the wrong direction, away from the original purposes of providing protection to the people who make their livelihood within the floodplain," they wrote.

"We are also concerned with the exact meaning and future interpretations of your recommendation to give `full weight to social, economic, and environmental values and assure that all vulnerability reduction alternatives are given equal consideration.'

"Ultimately, such major policy decisions must be made by Congress and the people who we represent. We object to any tactics that would prevent modifications by Congress. We do not believe, as stated in the report, that if Congress does not act, the executive branch can move forward with its proposals."

The two officials also fear that proposed guidelines in the report will lead to the loss of productive farm land along the rivers and jeopardize the nation's "first rate navigation system" to get products to market.

When flood-plain management is discussed, they stress that a major consideration should be the costs involved to the people who live and work within the system.

Some of the land use proposals in the report could jeopardize the future of family farmers in the country, say Emerson and Bond.

They point to two "dominant and recurring themes we strongly oppose: The obvious promotion of environmental restoration to a co-equal status to flood protection and navigation when evaluating flood plain management strategies, and the shifting of responsibilities for flood control from the federal government to individual states and local communities."

They point out that the second approach could negatively shift the cost-sharing burden of flood protection against poor, rural communities throughout the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys, which already cannot afford their 25 percent share.

In the letter, Bond and Emerson also take exception to prognostications outlined in the draft report.

"It is misleading to the public at large to use phrases like `floods equal to and greater than the flood of 1993 will continue to occur.' Does this mean that the Midwest will flood on a yearly basis? Implying that floods of this size will continue to occur is not based on any scientific analysis but simply a matter of opinion injected into these remarks."

Six specific recommendations in the report are cited by Emerson and Bond as major concerns they have.

They agree with a statement in the report that "levees did not cause the flood of 1993. We hope this point is not taken lightly as this debate continues," they wrote. "Too many in Missouri and other states along our rivers depend on access to and production of this land to survive."

Tuesday was the deadline for comments to be filed on the committee's report.