Lower Nooksack River Comprehensive Flood Hazard Management Plan

Whatcom County is undertaking a major update to its Comprehensive Flood Hazard Management Plan for the Lower Nooksack River, encompassing 36 miles of the river from the community of Deming to the mouth at Bellingham Bay and including the Everson Overflow corridor through the city of Sumas. This plan needs to balance concerns for flood risk reduction, habitat improvement for several salmonid species, protection of productive farmland, and protection of critical public infrastructure. As a result of devastating river flooding in November 2021, this work also includes coordination with the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia provincial agencies, and three First Nations related to Nooksack River overflows that reach the Sumas Prairie north of the Canadian border, called the Nooksack and Sumas Transboundary Flood Initiative. Herrera is helping the County and its project partners to implement a robust planning process that will define floodplain management priorities for decades into the future, and supporting the County’s technical work for the Transboundary Flood Initiative. Herrera’s work to date has included gathering and synthesizing a large suite of GIS datasets, analyzing existing and future land uses and related needs in the floodplain, integrating multidisciplinary technical analyses (geomorphic assessment, habitat assessment, and flood modeling) to identify objectives for future floodplain management and potential actions that can be taken to satisfy those objectives, conceptual and final design of early action capital projects, supporting extensive and collaborative outreach to stakeholders and the public, attending and contributing in all meetings of the FLIP Steering Committee, and writing parts of the draft plan.