{"id":15249,"date":"2024-12-10T10:05:01","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T15:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/?p=15249"},"modified":"2025-12-04T13:23:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T18:23:54","slug":"ahead-of-the-2025-general-assembly-here-are-3-ways-to-build-flood-resilience-in-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/2024\/12\/10\/ahead-of-the-2025-general-assembly-here-are-3-ways-to-build-flood-resilience-in-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahead of the 2025 General Assembly, here are 3 ways to build flood resilience in Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia Conservation Network, a statewide coalition of 170 conservation partners, released its <\/span>2025 Common Agenda<\/a> this year<\/span>, providing a comprehensive overview of Virginia\u2019s environmental policies and priorities to lawmakers and stakeholders. Detailed in the agenda are three key opportunities for lawmakers to continue progress on flood resilience initiatives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While hurricane season officially ended on November 30, many Virginians in the southwest region are still recovering from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene.\u00a0 We stand with those communities as they recover and must remember that now is not the time to lose focus on reducing the risk of increasing climate-driven storms and disasters. According to the agenda\u2019s co-authors from EDF\u2019s Climate Resilient Coasts & Watersheds Virginia program, <\/span>the following three flood resiliency opportunities should be a critical focus in the coming year.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. Safeguarding our wetlands<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the country, wetlands are at risk of losing vital federal protections after a 2023 Supreme Court majority opinion <\/span>drastically narrowed the scope of wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act. According to a new peer-reviewed analysis by EDF published in <\/span>Science<\/span><\/i><\/a>, the risks of losing federal protection extend to as much as 938,000 acres of wetland habitat in the Commonwealth.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why do wetlands matter?<\/span><\/a> In addition to being home to wildlife and contributing to the economy, wetlands act as giant sponges that slow and absorb flood waters. They are essential in protecting Virginia communities from flooding and minimizing downstream damage from disasters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Virginia currently has some of strongest state-level wetlands protections in the U.S., but with development pressure, a changing climate and fewer federal protections, it is even more critical to safeguard our current polices and look ahead. We encourage the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Quality to continue enforcing Virginia\u2019s <\/span>\u201cno net loss\u201d<\/span><\/a> approach to wetland protections and for leaders to allocate additional financial and technical resources for state agencies and wetland boards.\u00a0 Additionally, a new permanent workgroup, similar to a group proposed last year, would give the state the capacity to develop a comprehensive plan to protect, enhance and create tidal and nontidal wetlands in the face of climate change impacts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Safeguarding our wetlands<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

2. Ensuring long-term flood resilience\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Virginia has taken many significant steps toward building flood resilience. In recent years, leaders have developed and are continuing to work on updates to a <\/span>Coastal Resilience Master Plan<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and have established a standalone Chief Resilience Officer position in the government. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Aileen Devlin | Virginia Sea Grant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Additionally, Virginia has a statewide program called the <\/span>Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF)<\/span><\/a> which awards funding to local and regional governments to advance resilience planning and projects. Since 2021, more than $150 million has been awarded through the CFPF, with more than 60 percent of funding going to low-income areas. But demand for the program is consistently higher than what the CFPF has been able to provide, and until a one-time appropriation in 2024, those funds came exclusively from Virginia\u2019s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Last year, Governor Youngkin removed Virginia from RGGI and while a <\/span>recent court ruling<\/span><\/a> determined this decision was illegal, Virginia\u2019s path to re-joining the initiative is unclear. In the meantime, the General Assembly needs to ensure there is funding available for the program to continue helping communities reach the Commonwealth\u2019s resilience goals. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving forward, it is also important to ensure critical investments in resilience, like the CFPF, are strategically tied to achieving resilience goals and implementing resilience plans in order to effectively manage limited resources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ensuring long-term flood resilience<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

\u00a03.<\/strong> <\/span>Making flood disclosure more available<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, there is a big opportunity to align stakeholders and ultimately <\/span>pass updated flood disclosure laws<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Right now, 36 U.S. states have strong laws put in place that aim to<\/span> protect buyers, renters and manufactured or mobile homeowners by ensuring information about a property\u2019s flood zone, flood damage history and flood insurance status is accessible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Flood disclosure legislation was introduced in Virginia\u2019s 2024 General Assembly, but unfortunately, it did not pass and was instead sent to the Virginia Housing Commission for consideration. The Housing Commission will now consider recommending a revised bill to the General Assembly, which will help provide critical information to potential homebuyers in Virginia, increase awareness of flood risk and reduce that risk statewide.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Flood disclosure for potential buyers would be life changing for so many residents, as it would offer much-needed transparency for families to make more informed decisions about their biggest investment.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Making flood disclosure more available<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

Moving into 2025, leaders have the chance to advance these three big opportunities and continue building flood resilience and reduce climate risk for the Commonwealth. Doing so will help protect Virginia\u2019s communities and significantly reduce costs and heartache involved in future storms and flood disasters. To learn more about ways to build resilience and reduce climate risk, check out <\/span>Virginia Conservation Network\u2019s 2025 Common Agenda.<\/span><\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detailed in Virginia’s 2025 Common Agenda are three key opportunities for lawmakers to continue progress on flood resilience initiatives.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147774,"featured_media":15256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107017],"tags":[107027,120376,120536,120499,4679],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coasts-watersheds","tag-climate-resilience","tag-coastal-flooding","tag-flood-disclosure","tag-flood-resilience","tag-wetlands"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147774"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15249"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16262,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions\/16262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15249"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}