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Why This Matters: When we think about the security risks to our nation, we need to start counting infrastructure failure due to climate change as one of the most troubling. We spend hundreds of billions each year to protect our nation from the risk of terrorism and cyberwar and other security threats. But the most immediate and also the most addressable threats could be the ones like these damn dams that we tend to ignore.
Old Dams By the Numbers
The average age of dams in the United States is nearly 60 (meaning many are much older) and 15,500 are classified as having a high hazard potential, the Times reported. Almost all the dams that have failed are less than 50 feet high and excessive rainfall has been the cause of most of these. What the Fourth National Climate Assessment showed was that precipitation events are becoming wetter in two ways — both short but heavy rainstorms and also longer rain events that saturate the ground and rivers over time are causing the failures. In fact, in the Michigan dam failure, the dam burst because the ground was saturated from many days of rain. Older dams were designed to withstand the extreme weather of the past when the dam was built, which could be one hundred years ago, rather than the weather of the future.
“Aging and deteriorating dams and levees also represent an increasing hazard when exposed to extreme or, in some cases, even moderate rainfall. Several recent heavy rainfall events have led to dam, levee, or critical infrastructure failures, including the Oroville emergency spillway in California in 2017, Missouri River levees in 2017, 50 dams in South Carolina in October 2015 and 25 more dams in the state in October 2016, and New Orleans levees in 2005 and 2015. The national exposure to this risk has not yet been fully assessed.”
Dam Removal Is Another Option
Not all dams can or should be repaired. As we explained in January, removing legacy dams, which were first constructed dozens to more than a hundred years ago, is proving to be increasingly popular to restore river flows now that they are no longer serving any purpose for generating power or driving industrial uses. According to the Times, there are about 2,000 dams in the Hudson River Estuary between New York City and Albany, N.Y. and there are thousands more across the country, many of which are totally obsolete and even dangerous to people — they can give way easily and some even have “recirculators” at the bottom of them that can pull people under if they happen to fall in or capsize when kayaking or canoeing.
Florida and Georgia faced off again in the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the Justices to settle their long-running dispute over water. The problem is that there is not enough to go around in three rivers the emanate in Georgia but flow through Florida to the Gulf of Mexico.
Why This Matters: The states failed to reach a water compact more than a decade ago — now they have nowhere else to go but the Supreme Court, which has “original jurisdiction” over a dispute between two states.
The National Flood Insurance Program is revising its rates for flood coverage on April 1st, and to reflect current risks, and experts say they may need to quadruple. FEMA’s new risk rating system will use a model proposed by the First Street Foundation, which found that by 2050, insurance premiums on flood-risk homes would need to rise sevenfold to cover the costs of annual damage.
Why This Matters: The rising premiums create a conundrum for the Biden administration, which has promised to honor science in federal policymaking but has also pledged to address economic issues facing the working class.
By Bob Irvin, President and CEO, American Rivers A vision is emerging in the Pacific Northwest that would not only save iconic salmon, but boost clean energy and vital infrastructure, and honor treaties with Northwest tribes — revitalizing an entire region and building resilience in the face of climate change. Salmon in the Pacific Northwest […]
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