From The Greeley Tribune (Chris Casey):
Council members sharply criticized the flood plain regulation changes being proposed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Under current rules, the city must abide 100-year flood plain precautions for all facilities, whether they’re deemed critical or not. The Conservation Board has suggested modifications that protect “critical facilities” in the event of a 500-year-flood to better ensure public safety and reduce flood losses.
If such rules were enacted, said Derek Glosson, Greeley’s engineering development review manager, the state has “a laundry list of what it considers critical facilities.” For example, he said, a road would be considered critical and thus require a bridge to be built, “which would be a major cost to the city.” He said it would be easy to ensure that new facilities handle a 500-year-flood — of which there is a two-tenths of one percent chance any given year — but retrofitting existing structures is “very dicey.” “In that analysis you have to include the cost of restricting development and the costs of that land” in compensation to private property owners, Norton said. “I think there’s a big legal question that I think is unanswered in their rather arbitrary approach to this.”
More CWCB coverage here.