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| Washington National Guard at Oso on 26 March 2014 |
The Oso Landslide of March 2014 killed 43 people, destroyed
49 homes, caused millions of dollars in damage, and dammed the North Fork of
the Stillaguamish River. When a second fatal landslide at Grand Mesa, Colorado,
followed on the heels of Oso, waves of consternation rippled across the U.S
reigniting concerns about the sudden and catastrophic collapse of unstable
ground.
As natural hazards go, landslides receive a fraction of the
media attention that accompanies floods, earthquakes, severe weather, and wildfires.
Why? Because unlike other natural hazards with large, even regional, areal
footprints, landslides are local events. But across the U.S., landslides annually
rival floods for damages and deaths; between 25 and 50 fatalities are reported
annually and damages are in the neighborhood of $3 billion dollars.
Addressing landslides
nationally. Two years after Oso, Congresswoman Susan Delbene (D-WA)
introduced the National Landslide Loss Reduction Act (H.R. 4776) to establish
the National Landslide Hazards Reduction Program through the US Geological
Survey.
The bill’s objective: build a nationwide program to identify
hazards and reduce losses through better assessment, coordination, and
increased community education. This would require close collaboration between
State Geological Surveys and the US Geological Survey to, “establish regional
priorities for identifying, mapping, and assessing landslide hazards as well as
develop and implement guidelines for geologists and geological and geotechnical
engineers.”
In introducing the bill, Representative DelBene said,
“lawmakers need to do more to ensure we fund resources and research efforts to
prevent future natural disasters from becoming national tragedies”. Co-sponsors of H.R. 4776 included Arizona
Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick and Raul Grijalva. On 27 March 2016, H.R. 4776
was referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.
Unfortunately, the National Landslide Loss Reduction Act died
in committee. But on 22 March 2017, Rep. Susan DelBene introduced a similar bill,
the National Landslide Preparedness Act (H.R. 1675) before the House. On that
same day, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced
an identical bill, S.698, before the Senate. The National Landslide Preparation
Act (S.698 and H.R. 1675), covers much of the same ground as the earlier bill
and directs the USGS to provide grants to states, local, and tribal governments
to study landslide hazards. Both bills are currently in committee: H.R. 1675 –
Natural Resources, Science, Space, and Technology Committee; S.698 – Committee
on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
We’ll keep you informed as the bills wind their way through
the U.S. House and Senate.
Posted 4/13/2017 mc
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