The East Valley Water District (EVWD) is in the process of drafting its 2025 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP). The purpose of EVWD’s LHMP is to identify goals, objectives, and mitigation strategies for reducing the impact of hazards such as earthquakes, floods, cyberattacks, and severe storms.
If you live or work within the communities of Highland, City of San Bernardino, Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, or other areas served by EVWD, then we would like your feedback to help us in the planning process.
What is a Local Hazard Mitigation Plan?
The Local Hazard Mitigation Plan is a document that outlines EVWD’s long-term strategy to eliminate risk to human life, property, and infrastructure from natural and human-caused disasters. This is EVWD’s first time drafting this plan. It will allow us to be eligible for federal mitigation funds that strengthen our community’s disaster preparedness. LHMPs must be updated every five years.
The essential steps of hazard mitigation planning are:
- Identify and profile hazards that affect the local area
- Identify capabilities that can assist in implementing mitigation project
- Analyze the people and facilities at risk from those hazards
- Develop a mitigation strategy to lessen or reduce the impact of the profiled hazards
- Implement the hazard mitigation actions and projects
What can residents and community partners do to help?
Federal regulations for mitigation plan approval require that stakeholders and the public are given opportunities to be involved in the plan’s development process. Input from community members can strengthen the content and outcomes of the mitigation plan. The public is represented by community members and organizations that have an interest in EVWD projects and actions to mitigate hazards and save lives and property.
To achieve our outreach objectives, EVWD will post hazard mitigation plan progress and key documents through the following platforms:
- EVWD Website
- EVWD social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter/X)
- EVWD Press Releases
- Print materials at community spaces
- Hazard Mitigation Public Engagement Survey (distributed via the Internet)
- Two (2) Public Outreach Workshops
- Presentation at an EVWD meeting open to the public for adoption of the LHMP
EVWD welcomes the public to review and comment on the LHMP documents as they become available. For questions or comments, contact Dylan Kilby of Navigating Preparedness Associates at dylan@navigatingpreparedness.com.
Take the Public Engagement Survey!
EVWD wants to know what hazards you are most concerned about for your wastewater, sewer, and solid waste services. We have developed a public survey that will ask about your community, your past experiences with disasters in San Bernardino County, ways you receive information about disasters, and opinions on how EVWD can reduce its risk to hazards. The survey is conducted through the SurveyMonkey platform and will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. To take the survey, click here.