Notice2024-15814
Notice of Availability of the Draft National Levee Safety Guidelines
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
July 18, 2024
Issuing agencies
Defense DepartmentEngineers Corps
Abstract
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have made available for public review and comment the draft National Levee Safety Guidelines (Guidelines). The draft Guidelines are intended to serve as a national resource of best practices to help achieve nationwide consistency in improving the reliability of levees and resilience of communities behind levees throughout the United States. The draft Guidelines have been developed with stakeholder input as part of the National Levee Safety Program.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 138 (Thursday, July 18, 2024)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 138 (Thursday, July 18, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58355-58356]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-15814]
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers
[COE-2021-0007]
Notice of Availability of the Draft National Levee Safety
Guidelines
AGENCY: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DoD.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have made available for public
review and comment the draft National Levee Safety Guidelines
(Guidelines). The draft Guidelines are intended to serve as a national
resource of best practices to help achieve nationwide consistency in
improving the reliability of levees and resilience of communities
behind levees throughout the United States. The draft Guidelines have
been developed with stakeholder input as part of the National Levee
Safety Program.
DATES: Comments related to the draft National Levee Safety Guidelines
must be submitted on or before August 31, 2024.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by docket number COE-
2021-0007 by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Visit <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a> and follow
the instructions for submitting comments.
Email: Send an email to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#83ebf2aeefe6f5e6e6f0e2e5e6f7fac3f6f0e2e0e6ade2f1eefaadeeeaef"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="deb6aff3b2bba8bbbbadbfb8bbaaa79eabadbfbdbbf0bfacb3a7f0b3b7b2">[email protected]</span></a> and include
the docket number, COE-2021-0007, in the subject line of the message.
Mail: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District, ATTN: Levee
Safety Center--RM 221, 4155 East Clay Street, Vicksburg, MS 39183.
Hand Delivery/Courier: Due to security requirements, we cannot
receive comments by hand delivery or courier.
Instructions: If submitting comments through the Federal
eRulemaking Portal, direct your comments to docket number COE-2021-
0007. All comments received will be included in the public docket
without change and may be made available on-line at
<a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>, including any personal information provided,
unless the commenter indicates that the comment includes information
claimed to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other
information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit
information that you consider to be CBI, or otherwise protected,
through <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a> or email. The <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a> website is an
anonymous access system, which means we will not know your identity or
contact information unless you provide it in the body of your comment.
If you send an email directly to USACE without going through
<a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>, your email address will be automatically captured and
included as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket and
made available on the internet. If you submit an electronic comment, we
recommend that you include your name and other contact information in
the body of your comment and with any compact disk you submit. If we
cannot read your comment because of technical difficulties and cannot
contact you for clarification, we may not be able to consider your
comment. Electronic comments should avoid the use of any special
characters, any form of encryption, and be free of any defects or
viruses.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>. All documents in the
docket are listed. Although listed in the index, some information is
not publicly available, such as CBI or other information whose
disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as
copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be
publicly available only in hard copy form.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Tammy Conforti at 202-365-6586,
email <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#2f475e02434a594a4a5c4e494a5b566f5a5c4e4c4a014e5d425601424643"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c8a0b9e5a4adbeadadbba9aeadbcb188bdbba9abade6a9baa5b1e6a5a1a4">[email protected]</span></a> or visit <a href="http://www.leveesafety.org">www.leveesafety.org</a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Congress enacted Title IX, entitled the
National Levee Safety Program, of the Water Resources Development Act
(WRDA) of 2007, as amended, authorizing various activities led by USACE
and FEMA. The purpose of the National Levee Safety Program is to
improve the way levees are managed throughout the United States and its
territories in order to reduce the impacts of flooding and
[[Page 58356]]
improve the resilience of communities behind levees. The National Levee
Safety Program has four major components which include: National Levee
Safety Guidelines; Integrated Levee Management; National Levee
Database; and Implementation Support. These four components are
intended to work together to accomplish the goals of the program. There
are fact sheets and additional information related to each of these
components at <a href="http://www.leveesafety.org">www.leveesafety.org</a>.
As part of the development of the National Levee Safety Program,
USACE and FEMA developed a three-phased stakeholder engagement plan to
continue their commitment to seek feedback from stakeholders at various
phases of the program's development. Phase 1, which took place between
December 2021 and March 2022, was focused on gathering initial input on
the purpose and scope of the program. Phase 2, which took place between
March and June 2023, included activities focused on soliciting feedback
on options for draft products, including the National Levee Safety
Guidelines and supplemental resources. For this notice, which is
associated with Phase 3, comments are being sought on the full draft of
the Guidelines.
The draft Guidelines contain voluntary best practices that are
intended to be scalable and adaptable to local conditions. Topics in
the draft Guidelines range from basic concepts and terminology to
consistent approaches for levee-related activities throughout the life
of a levee. In addition, strategies to reduce flooding impacts to
people, property, and the environment are also covered. Finally, the
value of addressing how climate change impacts levees, how natural and
nature-based features can be integrated into levees, and understanding
the needs of underserved and overburdened communities is also
emphasized throughout the publication. The complete publication can be
found at <a href="http://www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg">www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg</a> or on <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a> under
docket number COE-2021-0007. It is available by individual chapters or
as one complete document. In preparation for release of the draft first
edition of the National Levee Safety Guidelines, USACE hosted two
webinars to provide an overview of the draft Guidelines and the comment
process. The webinars were recorded and can be found at
<a href="http://www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg">www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg</a>.
Questions to Assist in Providing Feedback: Commentors are
encouraged to consider the following questions to guide their feedback
on the draft National Levee Safety Guidelines:
1. Did you find the document to be beneficial for you or your
organization? Please explain your response.
2. Is there sufficient detail on the principles and practices
described in the draft Guidelines? If not, what additional detail
should be included?
3. Is there an activity that is missing? What should be explained
more?
4. What other suggestions do you have for improving the draft
National Levee Safety Guidelines?
Topic-Specific Webinars: To help with this effort, USACE has
conducted a series of topic-specific webinars that provide background
information on development of the draft National Levee Safety
Guidelines, more detail on related content from applicable chapters,
examples from various chapters that support the topic of the webinar,
and information on how to submit feedback. Each webinar was recorded
and posted on <a href="http://www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg">www.leveesafety.org/pages/nlsg</a>.
The topic-specific webinars include:
<bullet> Levee Operations and Maintenance
<bullet> Emergency Planning, Response, and Recovery Related to Levees
<bullet> Living with Levees: Building Resilient Communities
<bullet> Assessing, Designing, and Constructing Levees
<bullet> Environmental Considerations in Flood Risk Management
Michael L. Connor,
Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works).
[FR Doc. 2024-15814 Filed 7-17-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3720-58-P
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