This is Fiona Bond from Creative Waco. We are beginning the installation phase for a million dollar public art project beside our river in Waco, Tx. We are running up against some roadblocks from FEMA regarding placement of sculptures in the (newly revised!) 100 year floodplain. We want to be good citizens with regard to safety, engineering, and flood mitigation, but the requirements seem excessive to say the least. Is there someone in the public art world with experience of dealing successfully with this kind of issue? This issue is in danger of putting a halt to any further public art in our downtown riverside area, which would be terrible!

Specifically, I am looking for case study/best practice type info on:

· Has anyone negotiated a minimum size/weight/volume bar for requiring full FEMA permiting and flood loading. E.g. it would be better if full permitting and inspection was applied only for sculptures over a certain size, weight, volume or surface area.

· Has anyone developed risk mitigation through holding something like a city “public art damage fund” as opposed to insuring every piece for replacement value (instead insuring only for third party liability).

· Do any of your communities hold artists’ molds in a repository in case pieces need to be re-cast following damage?

Thanks so much for any advice!

Best wishes,

Fiona

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