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San Marcos Floodplain Management Plan: A Sustainable Future for Floodplain Management Application for Flood Protection Study Grant Ultimately, San Marcos' history of flooding and the associated loss of life, property, and disrnption to commerce provides the basis of need to plan for a sustainable coexistence with its floodplain-burdened geography. 13. Detailed description of why state funding assistance is needed. The flood protection issues facing the City of San Marcos are both complex and endemic to small, growing communities. New growth places pressure on undeveloped property and floodplains in the City's jurisdiction. Older residential areas were often developed without consideration of upstream hydrology, downstream impacts, and before adoption of the NFIP. The Blanco River in San Marcos is known to have effects on the secondary conveyance systems, and is hydraulically connected to the Bypass watershed and San Marcos River watershed in ways that are currently not fully understood. Developing a comprehensive understanding of all of the parts of this puzzle has eluded the City of San Marcos for many years. While the City has done much already to manage its floodplain, it has been extremely difficult for the City to "step back" from the immediate issues of site development permitting, maintaining and repairing existing infrastructure, and recovering from past flood events, in order to assess the :full picture of flood protection planning in the City and with consideration for other entities outside of its statutory jurisdiction. These immediate demands have, and continue, to consume the resources available to the City. The state assistance will provide the impetus required to truly and comprehensively address flood protection planning. Previous efforts in planning and capital improvement have been undertaken mostly in response to specific problem areas, rather than taking the entire watershed into consideration. The state funding assistance will also enable the framework for the participation of Hays County, GBRA and EAA. Further, state assistance is necessary to be able to undertake more detailed analysis of the area surrounding the confluence of the San Marcos and Blanco Rivers. Both the City and GBRA are deeply interested in the relative hydro graph timing of these two watersheds, and a more detailed hydraulic understanding through analysis of this area. Both of these "unknowns" could have significant implications for the selection of cost-effective and strategic solutions. Finally, state assistance is necessary to be able to investigate coordinated means for flood forecasting. The level of coordination required for this aspect of the proposed project (Le., coordination with GBRA, National Weather Service, USGS and communities upstream) is fairly significant relative to the City's resources. The state's financial contribution toward this initiative provides the momentum to carry each of the stakeholders to the table and find common solutions to strengthen each party's missions. M:lacttvel04POI2 $011 Marcos MD.P\Grant APplic-SMa.d~xhiljit A, Page 9 December 16, 2004