NIFMP Advisory Board Meeting_1-15-24_MeetingMinutes

ROY COOPER
Governor
ELIZABETH S. BISER
Secretary
MARC RECKTENWALD
Director
NORTH CAROLINA
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality | Division of Mi�ga�on Services
217 West Jones Street | 1652 Mail Service Center | Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-1652 919.707.8976

Natural Infrastructure Flood Mitigation Program (NIFMP)
Advisory Board Meeting
Draft Meeting Minutes
January 25, 2024
Time: 10:00 am Location: Microsoft Teams
Attendees:
NCDMS: Marc Recktenwald, Periann Russell NIFMP Advisory Board: Will McDow, Ken Ashe, Bill
Holman, Marlena Byrne, Noah Parsons, Moriah Von Voorhis, Dianne Farrer AtkinsRéalis: Rick Renna,
Katey Earp, Amit Sachan

Discussion:
• Periann gave a brief update on the Stoney Creek project.
• Stoney Creek Wayne Community College pilot project #1 approved by college board to
move forward.
• Will McDow would like this group to stay involved and advocates for a groundbreaking
of sorts to promote the project and the hard work.
• Periann informed the group that AtkinsRealis was contracted to help develop a strategic plan for
program implementation.
• Marc provided an update on Gov-Ops meeting regarding resiliency blueprint:
• Secretary Biser presented update to the legislative committee on resiliency blueprint.
• Draft Neuse Action Strategy plan prioritized projects in the watershed to recommend for
funding.
• Priority list and beta tool will be available this spring. This will allow folks to revise and
refine searches based on different prioritization criteria, such as recovery, resilience,
public preference, etc.
• Budget is $96 million for project rollouts in first 6 basins.
• Looking at coordination with Agriculture for future ‘snag and grab’ operations for
watershed improvements.
 Might need a modeling effort to prioritize where these locations might be.
• AtkinsRealis and Periann presented plans and progress on strategic plan development
o Comments following presentation:
 Broad subject matter experts of the group to give advice on the strategy early as possible.
 Involve the entire Board in the process, since the group is not too large. – Ken Ashe
 Useful for Atkins to have one-on-one conversations with the Board members. – Will
McDow
 **Make sure to refer to this as Flood Mitigation Program, not floodplain. That denotes a
regulatory aspect. – Will McDow
 Board is thankful for the professional services and would defer to AtkinsRéalis to lead
that effort.
 NC Floodplain Conference – could be a presentation topic. Spring 2024 conference to be held convention
Center in Wilmington, NC. Planning a Fall conference in Cherokee and Spring 2025 joint conference with
South Carolina.

Action items:
• Rick/Katey to share presentation slides with the workgroup (complete).
• Ken Ashe to share conference information with the workgroup.