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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.
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer For decades, uranium mining has contaminated the Navajo Nation, causing higher cancer rates and water pollution. Even though the health risks and environmental harms of uranium mining are well-established, new operations continue to move forward. One local group, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) hasn’t found a […]
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would extend the drought emergency statewide and issued an executive order to have residents conserve water. As part of this effort, eight new counties were added to the state of emergency, and authorized the State Water Resources Control Board was authorized to […]
By Elizabeth Love, ODP Contributing Writer Authorities in the Canadian Arctic territory Nunavut, announced a state of emergency this week due to a possible contamination event affecting the City of Iqaluit’s water supply. Tests were performed after residents reported the smell of gasoline coming from their tap water, but they came back clean. However, […]
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