City of Alexandria Awarded $525,000 in Grant Funding for Flood Mitigation Efforts
The City of Alexandria Department of Transportation and Environmental Services has been awarded a $525,000 grant through the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF) through the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), via CFPF-24-04-38, to develop a new comprehensive Flood Resilience Plan.
The first of its kind in Alexandria, the Flood Resilience Plan was identified as a need to create a more resilient City in the updated Energy and Climate Change Action Plan. The Flood Resilience Plan will support future efforts of the Flood Action Alexandria initiative which works to help mitigate flooding across our community. It will address hazard identification, flood mitigation, flood preparedness and response, policies and regulations, funding strategies, and communication and information dissemination.
The Flood Resilience Plan expands on the past Neighborhood Investigations with a new engagement effort to communicate with residents across the city to learn about first-hand experiences with flooding. The Plan will include efforts to reach communities who may have language or social barriers, or a lack of technology access. Engaging with impacted community members has shown to be very effective and will help create a more informed Plan.
The CFPF grant program is administered by Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). The Program provides support for Virginia communities to reduce the impacts of flooding. It also helps to empower communities to build flood preparedness and increase resiliency. CFPF is funded through the auction of carbon allowances through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and a total of $53.9 million was awarded during this round.
According to Virginia DCR, Flood Resilience is “the capability to anticipate, prepare, respond to and recover from flood hazards to minimize damage to social well-being, health, the economy, and the environment.”
The grant is a 75/25 match, with the City providing $175,000 in local matching funds to develop the Plan, to bring total project funding to $700,000.
Since the program launched in 2021, the City has received more than $6.4 million in CFPF grant funds, totaling more than $11.3 million for flood mitigation efforts across the city.
More information on the grant and related stormwater management projects can be found on the City website.