MANSFIELD — It was not a great Friday night back in April for Bob Bianchi.
Less than a month after the city formally submitted a $26 million federal grant request to help build a massive dry dam in Mansfield, the new presidential administration announced it was ending the program that could have helped fund up to 90 percent of the work.
Bianchi, the city engineer, learned of the program’s cancellation via an end-of-the-week evening email that could have popped the balloon on an effort that began nearly a decade ago.
Hope does spring eternal, however, in the search for federal dollars on a project that could remove more than 100 acres on Mansfield’s north side from a flood plain and protect the city from the type of “100-year floods” that seem to be occurring much more regularly around the country these days.
Bianchi and Mayor Jodie Perry said Wednesday the city quickly pivoted the grant request to the federal Flood Mitigation Assistance Program, also operated under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The good news is the same work that went into drafting hundreds of pages of the now-cancelled Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant request was able to be used in the new FMA application.
The FMA program would not provide as many federal dollars as the former BRIC offering.
“A lot of the work had been done, of course,” Bianchi said. “The applications are not exactly the same, but a lot of the work was completed through BRIC, so we submitted an FMA grant, as well.
“This is a definitely a setback, but we remain steadfast,” the engineer said.
The city hopes to learn the results of its application before the end of September.
(Above is a video produced by EMH&T for the City of Mansfield, showing how a proposed dry dam in North Lake Park could protect the northern side of the city during a Touby Run flood.)
Pivoting away from BRIC
Few could have predicted the premature death of the BRIC program, which was launched during President Trump’s first term in 2020, funded through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018.
BRIC, a nationwide competitive grant process, was a key tool for cities working to reduce long-term disaster risk. It funded projects like flood mitigation systems, wildfire prevention efforts, water infrastructure upgrades and modernized building codes.
The program reflected a then-growing bipartisan consensus that the old disaster cycle —damage, rebuild, repeat — wasn’t sustainable.
A 2024 study funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found every $1 invested in disaster preparation saved $13 in economic impact, damage and cleanup costs.
BRIC aimed to fund infrastructure upgrades that could reduce damage from hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other disasters—saving lives and reducing long-term costs. Its existence marked a turning point in how resilience was prioritized in federal policy.
It became one of the largest and most competitive mitigation funding sources in the country, with states and localities submitting billions of dollars in applications every year.
From modernizing stormwater systems and elevating critical facilities to reinforcing energy grids and retrofitting buildings, BRIC-supported projects addressed long-standing vulnerabilities in communities of all sizes, particularly those facing repeated weather-related threats.
The program also incentivized the use of forward-looking building codes and engineering standards, helping to embed resilience into everyday planning and development.
Mansfield filed its BRIC application on March 13, hoping to obtain 90 percent of the funds needed for the dry dam project.
But on April 5, less than three months into his second term, President Trump’s administration announced BRIC was dead.
“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need,” a FEMA spokesman said.
The decision to end BRIC meant the return of $882 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to the U.S. Treasury or be reapportioned by Congress in the next fiscal year.
In April, FEMA said the 2021 law made $1 billion available for BRIC over five years and that $133 million to date had been provided for about 450 applications.
It was tough news for city officials, who in August of 2024 had paid a Washington, D.C. consulting company $40,517 to help prepare a federal grant application, the anticipated final step in a years-long process.
Finding right funding source for right program
Perry said every new presidential administration has different priorities. It’s a matter of matching the right project, the right reasons and the right federal funds.
In Mansfield’s case, the dry dam would protect against future disasters — and also provide a substantial financial development opportunity by making the north end more inviting for economic development.
Four years ago, Joe and Reba Matern, owners of Matern Metal Works, Inc., came to a City Council meeting to ask when the city planned to move forward with the Touby Run Flood Mitigation Hazard Project, then estimated at $15 million.
Reba Matern read a letter from the couple, whose business is at 210 N. Adams St., that said their flood insurance premiums continue to rise after significant floods in 2007 and 2011 due to major rain storms.
“We have heard rumors, which turned out to be true, that future flood insurance would be raised 25 percent per year on top of any increases in the program,” the letter said.
“We just spent well over $13,000 on our flood insurance for 2021. If it continues to rise at 25 percent per year, our premium will be well over $32,000 by the year 2025. That is obviously not attainable.”
Perry, in her first term after a decade running the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development, said she understands the need is not going away.
“So when we have a project that we believe in, we want to figure out what funding we can seek for our project and what funding source matches it. It could be a different one, depending on a different administration,” she said.
“I also think that you see funding follows problems, right?” Perry said, referencing disastrous floods in North Carolina last year, as well as Texas and New Mexico in recent weeks — areas far removed from ocean coastlines.
“We clearly saw that in COVID. So I’m going to guess that there will be more flood money available soon because obviously these are very devastating floods and they’re in places that don’t normally experience these types of disasters.”
Shifting gears to new funding source with ‘shovel-ready’ project
The Flood Mitigation Assistance grant program is also a federal competitive program that provides funding to state, territory and local governments and federally-recognized Tribal Nations.
Since the National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994 was signed into law, funds are used for projects that reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings insured by the National Flood Insurance Program.
FEMA chooses recipients based on the applicant’s ranking of the project, eligibility and cost-effectiveness of the project.
ICF, the same D.C.-based consultant that helped prepare the BRIC application, assisted with the revised FMA request.
Bianchi said, “We think we have a very compelling project, but it’s very competitive.”
Perry said she believe the city’s project has the advantage of being “shovel-ready” to begin, given the years of advance work that has gone into it.
“Projects like this show the importance of having plans and being ready to enact them quickly,” the mayor said. “In economic development, we say being ‘shovel-ready.’
“Tomorrow, if the funding falls from the sky, we are ready on this project. We bought land. We have (done the) engineering.
“We are ready to put that sucker out to bid tomorrow,” Perry said, “versus a community that maybe has a general concept, but they’re going to have to go through years of engineering and work and all of that.
“That really plays to our favor as things change and flex. That’s going to happen with every new administration. At the state (level), even when the (political) party doesn’t change, Governor (Mike) DeWine’s going to prioritize things differently than whomever the next governor is,” she said.
The new funding source doesn’t appear to be as lucrative. City officials had hoped to obtain 90 percent of what could be a $32 million project through BRIC. Under the FMA grant, the percentage would be around 75 percent.
If the federal grant is approved, the city would look for additional funding sources, including a potential decision to ask local lawmakers to approve seeking bonds for the project, such as the city did with a $35 million water treatment plant project in 2020.
“Mansfield has a history of dealing with floods periodically. They certainly can be catastrophic,” Perry said. “We want to do this project for a lot of reasons, but chief among them certainly is to lessen the impact on people’s lives, their livelihoods and their property.
“The (federal grant) money is going get spent somewhere in the United States and so why not Mansfield? That’s our mentality and we believe that it’s a very competitive project.”
