Record · Financing
Hancock County Flood-Risk Reduction Program — Eagle Creek Dry Storage Basin + Blanchard River benching
fema-fma-obligation-2026
Fields
program
Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA)
agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Region V
instrument
grant
award_no
EMC-2023-FM-003-0004
borrower
City of Findlay (subapplicant), in partnership with the Hancock County Commissioners and the Maumee Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD)
project_name
Hancock County Flood-Risk Reduction Program — Eagle Creek Dry Storage Basin + Blanchard River benching
amount_usd
24000000
award_date
2026-04-22
action
grant approved / funds obligated
site_address
Blanchard River watershed, Findlay / Hancock County, Ohio
affected_resource
Blanchard River regulatory floodway and floodplain; downtown Findlay businesses, agriculture, and residential neighborhoods (the 2007 flood event drove the program).
note
[verified] FEMA's Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) obligation of $24,000,000 to the City of Findlay, announced 2026-04-22 — 51% of the $46.8M eligible project cost, with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources providing the remaining 49% ($22.8M). The FMA grant is anticipated to provide $19M for the Eagle Creek Flood Basin and $5M for benching (city obligation notice, News/1818). The funds-obligation notification cleared the milestone that let the community bid the two cornerstone contracts (Downtown Phase 2 Benching + Eagle Creek Dry Storage Basin), opened 2026-06-30. This is the headline instrument of the flood-mitigation chain (issue #1465).
⚠ Gaps in the record
- The FEMA.gov primary release (and the City of Findlay obligation notice, News/1818) returned HTTP 403; all dollar/parcel/acre figures are corroborated across 13abc.com, spectrumlocalnews.com and Rep. Latta's release (wktn.com), not read byte-verbatim from FEMA.gov. High confidence, multiply sourced; re-capture the FEMA release + city notice from a non-datacenter IP to lock the primary text.
- FLOODWAY vs FLOODPLAIN — do not conflate. This FEMA release counts "1,290 parcels and 1,500 acres removed from the regulatory FLOODWAY" (13abc / spectrum). The Eagle Creek basin project page counts "approximately 1,830 parcels and 1,400 acres from the regulatory FLOODPLAIN" (hancockcountyflooding.com). Different regulatory zones AND different numbers; both preserved below. The Phase-I LOMR's SFHA accounting (375 removed / 985 reduced) is a third, separate metric.
- Do NOT merge the November-2024 CONDITIONAL-approval reporting (hometownstations/WLIO, "November 15, 2024," funds "within 6 to 9 months") into this record. This is the 2026-04-22 FINAL obligation that unlocked summer-2026 bidding — a distinct event.
Where it connects
findlay/flood/fema-fma-obligation-2026.epa.yaml · — · findlay