(February 9, 2024) – OLWS is continuing to work with a team from Clackamas County Disaster Management to complete an Addendum to Clackamas County’s updated “Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan” (NHMP). The plan is a requirement of the Federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) and must be updated every five years in order to maintain eligibility for certain federal disaster assistance and hazard mitigation funding programs.
Development of the plan is under direction of Clackamas County’s Disaster Management in cooperation with a planning team of representatives from County departments, local municipalities, school districts, and other key stakeholders such as utility providers.  The planning team is responsible to provide feedback required for the plan update, including the ranking of hazards and identification of strategic, cost-effective mitigation activities that may reduce future losses for the County and individual jurisdictions. Some mitigation activities may be eligible for future FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grant funding, such as: localized flood reduction measures, infrastructure retrofits, wildfire mitigation, and projects that provide immediate life-safety protection for people vulnerable to natural hazards like earthquakes and severe weather events.

About the NHMP Addenda
The OLWS NHMP Addendum is a section of the Clackamas County NHMP, which is a multi-jurisdictional plan that covers Clackamas County, including Oak Lodge Water Services Authority. The OLWS NHMP Addendum incorporates the concerns and needs of local stakeholders participating in the development of the Addendum.
OLWS is vulnerable to a variety of potential natural disasters, which threaten the loss of life and property in the County. Hazards such as earthquakes, flooding, wildfires, ice storms, and droughts have the potential for inflicting vast economic loss and personal hardship.

Examples of hazard mitigation include actions such as improvement of roads and culverts that experience repetitive flooding; strengthening public awareness and emergency preparedness to increase social resiliency; working to complete master plans and capital improvement plans for water and wastewater infrastructure; ensuring timely emergency communication to the public through notification systems; and conducting public awareness and education campaigns to help people to be prepared to take safe action before, during, or following a hazard event.

Public Feedback and Participation is Encouraged
As part of the planning process, gathering input from the public is an important and required step.  OLWS seeks to gather feedback from residents and businesses from across our boundaries to incorporate into the plan:

The public is strongly encouraged to submit your comments, concerns, or questions regarding natural disasters and potential mitigation actions to be included into the plan update process. Please submit your feedback to info@olwsd.org. Deadline for public feedback and participation is July 6, 2023.

The public will have a continued opportunity to participate in the NHMP Addendum update in the coming months. A draft of the complete plan will be posted on the Clackamas County website for public review prior to submission of the plan to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. Future press releases will be shared with the media to notify the public of these opportunities.

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