July 18, 2024

Angela Davis

Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

600 East Main Street, 24th Floor

Richmond, Virginia 23219

RE: Public Comment Notice: Round 5 Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF) draft manual

On behalf of Appalachian Voices, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Rappahannock, Lynnhaven River NOW, Potomac Conservancy, Rockfish Valley Foundation, Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc., Southern Environmental Law Center, The Nature Conservancy, Virginia Association for Parks, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, Virginia Floodplain Management Association, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, and Wetlands Watch, we jointly offer these comments on the 2024 draft manual for the Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF).

The manual that guides the implementation of this important flood resilience funding program plays a crucial role in determining its effectiveness in administering the key priorities detailed in the statute that establishes the CFPF. In the past as now, we appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft guidance and DCR’s willingness to hear and incorporate many of our comments in the past. We hope that you will again closely consider our joint comments on this updated manual as outlined below.

Availability of Short and Long-Term Loans

• The amount of grant funding available in Round 5 should be increased to $70M^[1]; we propose that this increase should be achieved by reducing the amount of long-term loan funding to $10M, and the amount of short-term loan funding to $5M. While we appreciate that the CFPF offers a variety of funding options to eligible applicants, our collective outreach efforts have indicated that many localities are just beginning resilience planning work and some are still planning for projects that are not yet shovel-ready. Grants serve as a critical catalyst for local governments seeking resources, capacity, and legislative support to prepare for resilience project implementation. This is also evidenced by the observation that no applications were made to the loan options offered by the CFPF in Round 4. There has been a clear and evident over-subscription to CFPF grant funds since its inaugural year, with applications well exceeding available funding in Rounds 2-4. We anticipate this gap will continue to grow as more localities become aware of the CFPF, begin resilience planning work, and position themselves to implement shovel-ready projects.

In response to the growing and nearly overwhelming demand for community resilience planning, the General Assembly allocated $100M to the CFPF for FY 2025, allowing this critical program to march forward in its purpose to address community-scale flooding and resilience challenges across the state. Until more localities have completed DCR-approved resilience plans, we continue to advocate for recurring allocations into the CFPF and recommend that DCR maintain a greater emphasis on the availability of grant funding in response to the growing demand.

Transparency

• A formal, committed timeline of CFPF application and award processes should be published on the DCR CFPF webpage, and significant effort should be made to address the outstanding delays in the release of final contract agreements. We are greatly concerned with the delays in providing CFPF Round 4 awardees with final contract agreements due to potential ripple effects on localities’ implementation timelines and overall sense of security of this funding program. These delays pose significant conflicts with expectations of when to begin work, and can create even greater challenges for communities with limited capacity to front the cost of work for seasonally-sensitive projects, such as the planting of nature-based solutions. We strongly urge DCR and VRA to collaboratively review, critique, and adhere to a published timeline that provides awardees greater security in knowing when they can expect to begin work, and to ensure the timeline of activities detailed in their application or consultancy agreements – the development of which often takes significant strategic planning effort – can be followed per DCR’s expectations.
• The finalized CFPF manual or DCR’s CFPF webpage should provide more information on the Review Committee, including a list of the specific agency departments and staff that will serve on the committee. We appreciate DCR’s commitment to transparency and commend the success in codifying the advisory Review Committee for the CFPF program. We urge DCR to publicize more information about the committee, such as who serves on the committee and their affiliations, as a complement to these transparency commitments.

Definitions

• Federally and state recognized Tribes and Nations should be reinstated as eligible applicants to the CFPF. In Rounds 1-3 of the CFPF, the definition of “Eligible Applicants” included both local governments and Tribes. We are unsure why this change occurred and request an explanation, as Tribes and Nations are also in need of community-scale resilience planning and nature-based project funding.
• In our Round Four CFPF Draft Manual comment letter, we suggested that the manual clarify and soften the burden on localities to repair or replace projects at their own expense when failures occur before the projected life span. We appreciate DCR adopting language that localities need only repay for projects that fail “outside of normal operating conditions”, however we believe more defined clarity is needed for what constitutes a “failure” of a project under these conditions. We recommend that DCR include a specific definition^[2] of project failure where the locality is required to cover expenses by including language that improper or negligent installation must be clearly responsible for the failure. The potential risk of repayment or project replacement could be a strong deterrent for localities to seek these funds, and particularly for those under-resourced localities that do not have the budget to consider undertaking these projects without CFPF. More clarity on the definition of “failure” could help in overcoming this challenge and improving the approachability of preferred nature-based project applications.

Eligible Activities; Periods of Performance

• Localities should be eligible^[3] to apply for Planning and Capacity Building funds to update their Resilience Plans to incorporate the new requirements for such plans, and the Resilience Plan update requirement should be extended from 3 to 5 years. Even if localities have received CFPF funding in prior rounds to create a Resilience Plan, they should still be eligible to apply for additional funding to incorporate the new Resilience Plan components that the proposed revisions to the CFPF manual would require. If DCR continues to alter the requirements for Resilience Plans but does not allow CFPF funding to be allocated to a previously awarded activity, localities will need to address the shifting guidance without an incentive of additional funding to pursue the required changes. Extending the update from 3 to 5 years would allow localities to strategically align priorities with other state and federally-required planning efforts, such as Hazard Mitigation Plans, and would allow for a more cohesive approach to resilience planning efforts in the community.
• Extend the Scope of Work for project completion from 3 to 5 years from the date of the executed agreement. Alternatively, if a 3-year Scope of Work is maintained, allow for extension requests of up to two years, instead of one year^[4]. This increase in the project timeline ensures that planning and operations are better aligned with project partners, especially federal agencies. Additionally, applicants will be able to utilize CFPF funds for federal grant matches more easily with this extension.

Assistance for Lower-Resourced Applicants

• In our previous comment letter revising the draft Round Four CFPF Manual, we advocated for allowing low-income communities to request 50% of their award up-front and this request was not adopted. Assuming 50% was too high a threshold, we request that low-income communities should be able to request up to 25% of their full award upfront^[5]. We appreciate DCR’s continuing commitment to prioritize funding for activities in designated low-income communities, which has far exceeded the statutory mandate of 25% of CFPF awards. However, to further the equitable accessibility of the CFPF and to help communities with limited on-hand funds to initiate work, more flexibility is needed. We understand that the procurement process can create challenges for upfront funding awards, but we recommend that the CFPF allow for funding advances of up to 25% for grant awards in low-income geographic areas to advance the equity goals of the program.
• In our Round Four CFPF Draft Manual comment letter, we recommended that the $2M requirement for a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) be eliminated due to the significant capacity burden on the locality. While BCAs can serve a very useful purpose in many contexts, they often fail to adequately capture many of the often difficult-to-quantify benefits of projects in low-income communities as well as the multiple benefits that nature-based solutions provide to communities and ecosystems. If DCR feels strongly that a BCA should be a component of the application, we continue to urge DCR to commit to making staff available to provide technical assistance for localities that request assistance in developing the BCA.

Application Logistics

• The WebGrants application submission process requires document organization that poses a significant time burden on localities. Please consider allowing for submission of combined documentation files OR provide clear guidance throughout the grant manual that aligns file management with the documentation submission requirements.
• We recommend DCR expand Appendix F - Elements of Resilience Plan to include guidance for how to obtain the necessary data, potentially by providing a template resilience plan. Localities can be overwhelmed by the scope of information required; however, these communities can often meet many of the resilience plan requirements by utilizing data provided by DCR.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important draft manual for the CFPF, the only statewide flood risk reduction program that provides resources at an accessible magnitude that begins to meet the flood risk reduction needs among Virginia’s localities and soil and water conservation districts (and Indigenous Tribes, upon the reinstatement of their eligibility to apply for CFPF funding). Our organizations feel strongly that the manual should be designed to maximize the significant flood preparedness and prevention funding opportunities that this program provides, while advancing the key priorities that are outlined in the statute that establishes it.

We look forward to continuing collaboration with DCR to build awareness of these programs and make them as effective as possible.

Sincerely,

Peter Anderson

Director of State Energy Policy

Appalachian Voices

Jay Ford

Virginia Policy Manager

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Victoria Higgins

Virginia Director

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Emily Steinhilber

Virginia Director, Climate Resilient Coasts & Watersheds

Environmental Defense Fund

Brent Hunsinger

Advocacy and Coastal Programs Director

Friends of the Rappahannock

Karen W. Forget

Executive Director

Lynnhaven River NOW

Ken Wright

Virginia Policy Director

Potomac Conservancy

Peter Agelasto III

Executive Director

Rockfish Valley Foundation

Hope Culpit

Executive Director

Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc.

Morgan Butler

Senior Attorney

Southern Environmental Law Center

Nikki Rovner

Associate State Director

The Nature Conservancy in Virginia

Tim Kennell

President

Virginia Association for Parks

Rev. Dr. Faith B. Harris

Executive Director
Virginia Interfaith Power & Light

Kristin Owen
President
Virginia Floodplain Management Association

Blair St. Ledger-Olson

Director of Advocacy & Campaigns

Virginia League of Conservation Voters

Mary-Carson Stiff

Executive Director

Wetlands Watch