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Spencer Dam in March 2019 after it failed during a flood Photo: Nebraska Department of Natural Resources via AP
The results of a two-year investigation by the Associated Press (AP) were published this week and the findings were shocking — nearly 1,700 dams located in 44 states and Puerto Rico were rated as “high-hazard” dams that are in poor or unsatisfactory condition. Experts believe the actual number of risky dams is even higher — some states would not provide the AP with condition ratings for their dams, while other states simply don’t have ratings for their dams.
Why This Matters: The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates it would take more than $70 billion to repair and modernize the nation’s more than 90,000 dams. And there are many thousands of lives and millions of dollars of property at risk if any of these dams fail. Can you say Green New Deal? Sooner or later this nation will have to deal with its aging and crumbling infrastructure – we hope it will be sooner.
How Big Is the Problem?
Dams were built for numerous purposes — they provide flood control, irrigation, water supply, hydropower, recreation or industrial waste storage.
“Most people have no clue about the vulnerabilities when they live downstream from these private dams. When they fail, they don’t fail with a warning. They just fail, and suddenly you can find yourself in a situation where you have a wall of water and debris racing toward your house with very little time, if any, to get out.”
Spencer Dam
Last March, the 92-year-old Spencer Dam in Nebraska was “straining to contain the swollen, ice-covered Niobrara River after an unusually intense snow and rainstorm. The workers had tried but failed to force open the dam’s frozen wooden spillway gates.” One local resident, KennyAngel was killed, when the dam burst “unleashing a wave of water carrying ice chunks the size of cars.” Angel’s home washed away with him in it — his body was never found. State inspectors had given the Spencer Dam a “fair” rating less than a year earlier, and when it began to fail, Angel only had a five-minute warning to get out. It was not enough time.
As the “dog days” of summer are here, so is the threat of toxic algae in lakes and ponds across the U.S., according to reports from news outlets nationwide.The Boston Globe’s David Abel reported on how the 996 small lakes on Cape Cod that had provided a respite from saltwater are now warming so rapidly that they are being “transformed by climate change” that saps their oxygen, makes them dangerous for swimming by humans and pets, and harms wildlife.
Why This Matters: Often these blooms occur because of runoff pollution, but in some locations on Cape Cod with little of that, the culprit seems to be climate change.
by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer The largest hydroelectric dam in Africa, located in Ethiopia, is now nearly completed after nearly a decade of work, Declan Walsh reported in the New York Times this week. While many Ethiopian people are lauding the measure, Egyptian leaders have said the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) poses an […]
A new study released earlier this summer found that the “marshes in the Mississippi River delta have hit a tipping point.” While the study concluded we are past the tipping point, the lead author Torbjörn Törnqvist told Nola.com that this cannot paralyze us into inaction. One important step towards that would be to build on and execute Louisiana’s 2023 Coastal Master Plan, which builds on a previous plan of the same name.
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