For years, our team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has been call­ing on our state and fed­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives to increase fund­ing for geo­log­ic haz­ards research and require pub­lic agen­cies to gath­er the data we need to bet­ter under­stand the risks that we face from land­slides, vol­ca­noes, lahars, and tsunamis.

Today, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives answered the call, at least in part, by pass­ing H.R. 1261, the Nation­al Land­slide Pre­pared­ness Act.

Spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene, who rep­re­sents NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict (Wash­ing­ton’s 1st), this bill would advance our under­stand­ing of the geol­o­gy behind land­slides and make funds avail­able for emer­gency pre­pared­ness pro­grams per­tain­ing to landslides.

Here’s a syn­op­sis of the bill from congress.gov:

This bill directs the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey (USGS) to estab­lish a Nation­al Land­slide Haz­ards Reduc­tion Pro­gram to iden­ti­fy and under­stand land­slide haz­ards and risks, reduce loss­es from land­slides, pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties at risk of land­slide haz­ards, and help improve com­mu­ni­ca­tion and emer­gency preparedness.

The USGS shall, among oth­er things:

• devel­op and pub­lish a nation­al strat­e­gy for land­slide haz­ards, risk reduc­tion, and response in the Unit­ed States (includ­ing territories);
• devel­op and main­tain a pub­licly acces­si­ble nation­al land­slide haz­ard and risk inven­to­ry database;
• expand the ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem for debris flow; and
• estab­lish emer­gency response pro­ce­dures for the rapid deploy­ment of fed­er­al sci­en­tists, equip­ment, and ser­vices to areas impact­ed by a sig­nif­i­cant land­slide event.

The USGS may pro­vide grants to research, map, assess, and col­lect data on land­slide hazards.

The Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion may pro­vide grants to eli­gi­ble enti­ties for land­slide research.

The USGS (1) shall estab­lish the 3D Ele­va­tion Pro­gram and the 3D Ele­va­tion Fed­er­al Inter­a­gency Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, and (2) may make grants and enter into coop­er­a­tive agree­ments to facil­i­tate the improve­ment of nation­wide cov­er­age of 3D ele­va­tion data.

We can’t think Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Del­Bene enough for her tremen­dous work on this bill. Thanks to her lead­er­ship and ded­i­ca­tion, we’re one step clos­er to get­ting more fund­ing for geo­log­ic haz­ards research. This is a great vic­to­ry for Cascadia.

Suzan Del­Bene speak­ing at NPI’s 2013 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala (Pho­to: Lin­coln Potter/Samaya LLC)

“This vic­to­ry has been a long time com­ing for the vic­tims, fam­i­lies, friends and the entire Oso com­mu­ni­ty, and hon­ors our com­mit­ment to do every­thing pos­si­ble to ensure we have the tools to help pre­vent these types of dis­as­ters,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Del­Bene in a state­ment fol­low­ing pas­sage of the bill.

“None of us will ever for­get March 22, 2014, when a trag­ic land­slide took the lives of 43 peo­ple and wiped out homes, busi­ness­es and roads. Today’s pas­sage of this leg­is­la­tion allows us to make sig­nif­i­cant progress in land­slide sci­ence and will allow com­mu­ni­ties to be bet­ter pre­pared for when land­slides do occur. I look for­ward to the Sen­ate fol­low­ing suit and pass­ing this bill,” Del­Bene added.

The Oso land­slide on March 22 result­ed in the damming of the Stil­laguamish Riv­er in Sno­homish Coun­ty. Mud cov­er­ing the area, includ­ing SR 530, is a mile wide. (Pho­to: Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Transportation)

The House passed H.R. 1261 on a voice vote, which means there is no roll call to share and the bill did not attract sig­nif­i­cant opposition.

Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell has intro­duced com­pan­ion leg­is­la­tion in the Senate.

“I know first-hand the mon­u­men­tal impacts our com­mu­ni­ty was chal­lenged with dur­ing the 2014 Oso land­slide,” said Dar­ring­ton May­or Dan Rankin.

“In just over two min­utes, we lost forty-three of our fam­i­ly, friends and neigh­bors, we lost our main high­way, our abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate beyond the slide via phone or inter­net, and med­ical ser­vices,” Rankin recollected.

“Pre­scrip­tion ser­vices and trans­ac­tions were also not avail­able. This is just the tip of the ice­berg of the imme­di­ate impacts of this one event. The leg­is­la­tion that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Del­Bene has brought for­ward may not pre­vent anoth­er Oso slide but it gives com­mu­ni­ties like Dar­ring­ton data that we can use to make impor­tant deci­sions about land use in haz­ard areas, response from our emer­gency ser­vices, and redun­dan­cy in infra­struc­ture so pre­cious time is not lost in a time of need.”

May­or Rankin is cor­rect. If we don’t under­stand the sci­ence behind slides like the one that swamped Oso five years ago, then we won’t be able to save lives and prop­er­ty before the next slide hits. That’s why it’s cru­cial that this leg­is­la­tion be passed and signed into law. And at the state lev­el, the Wash­ing­ton State House and Sen­ate need to give our Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources the fund­ing they’ve been ask­ing for to study slides in the upcom­ing sup­ple­men­tal budget.