The Sonoma County Water Agency has released a draft of its updated Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP) that creates a blueprint for reducing the damage to Sonoma Water’s infrastructure from natural disasters, such as floods, droughts, fires, and earthquakes. Members of the public are invited to submit comments on the draft LHMP during the 30-day public comment period that opens on May 15, 2023. To review the LHMP and provide input, visit: SonomaWater.org/LHMP
A Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP) forms the foundation for a community's long-term strategy to reduce disaster losses and break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. The planning process is as important as the plan itself, and must include public and stakeholder involvement. LHMP’s are public documents that create a framework for risk-based decision making to reduce damage to lives, property, and the economy from future disasters. Hazard mitigation is sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and their property from hazards. The Federal Government passed the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 which encourages and rewards pre-disaster planning at all levels of local and state government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) utilizes LHMPs to issue grant funding for pre-disaster and hazard mitigation projects.
Since 2004 the Sonoma County Water Agency has initiated a natural hazard reliability improvement program, which included finalizing Sonoma Water’s first LHMP in 2008. The most recent LHMP was updated in 2018, and includes a priority listing of hazard mitigation projects.
Sonoma Water must update its LHMP every five years to ensure it remains relevant to current events and system conditions and to meet regulations set forth by FEMA. In particular, staff will review Sonoma Water’s vulnerabilities and risks, as well as the prioritized listing of hazard mitigation projects. Sonoma Water is working with its stakeholders to prepare the mandatory 5-year update of the 2018 LHMP.
If you are interested in following the LHMP preparation, approval, and adoption process or providing input, you may do so through this webpage. All LHMP drafts for public review, staff reports, public hearing notices, hazard maps, etc, will be posted for public review on this page.
Contact Us
Submit questions or comments by sending an email to LHMP@scwa.ca.gov.
Documents
As the LHMP draft and other relevant documents become available, they will be posted here.
- DRAFT 2023 Sonoma Water Local Hazard Mitigation Plan *NEW*
- 2018 Sonoma Water Local Hazard Mitigation Plan
Upcoming Meetings and Outreach
- Public Comment Period - May 15th, 2023 to June 14th, 2023
Past Meetings
- Meeting 1: WAC/TAC Meeting, 11/7/22 – initiate LHMP update process
- Meeting 2: Flood Zone 3A, 12/13/22 – introduce LHMP and upcoming public comment period
- Meeting 3: Flood Zone 2A, 12/15/22 – introduce LHMP and upcoming public comment period
- Meeting 4: Flood Zone 1A, 12/8/22 – introduce LHMP and upcoming public comment period
- Meeting 5: WAC-TAC Meeting, 5/1/23 – highlight new mitigation actions and upcoming public comment period
- Meeting 6: Russian River County Sanitation District - Public Outreach meeting, 5/10/23 – discussing merging RRCSD LHMP into SCWA LHMP and upcoming public comment period
Related Resources
Document Accessibility Notice
Some of these documents are saved in Portable Document Format (PDF). We recommend you download Adobe® Reader®, a free software that allows you view and print PDF files.
For accessibility assistance with these documents, please contact the Sonoma County Water Agency at (707) 547-1900.