Check It Out: An Article on the Risk of Damned Dams

I just ran across this really good Associated Press article titled "AP: At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk," from last month about dam hazards and recent dam failures. Here's a brief summary:

A more than two-year investigation by The Associated Press has found scores of dams nationwide in even worse condition, and in equally dangerous locations. They loom over homes, businesses, highways or entire communities that could face life-threatening floods if the dams don’t hold.

A review of federal data and reports obtained under state open records laws identified 1,688 high-hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition as of last year in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The actual number is almost certainly higher: Some states declined to provide condition ratings for their dams, claiming exemptions to public record requests. Others simply haven’t rated all their dams due to lack of funding, staffing or authority to do so. 

Deaths from dam failures have declined since a series of catastrophic collapses in the 1970s prompted the federal and state governments to step up their safety efforts. Yet about 1,000 dams have failed over the past four decades, killing 34 people, according to Stanford University’s National Performance of Dams Program. 

Built for flood control, irrigation, water supply, hydropower, recreation or industrial waste storage, the nation’s dams are over a half-century old on average. Some are no longer adequate to handle the intense rainfall and floods of a changing climate. Yet they are being relied upon to protect more and more people as housing developments spring up nearby.

States that had no data available for this report: Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Texas. Alabama is the only US state to not have a dam safety program.

They also included an interactive map with dams that were found to be in poor or unsatisfactory condition. Unfortunately, the Lake Fayetteville dam is included:

Lake Fayetteville is a high hazard dam in poor condition and was less than one year overdue its state inspection requirement as of 2018. Construction for this dam finished in 1949 and it was last inspected on 4/3/2017.

It is considered a "high hazard dam" since it is in a populated urban area along a well-traveled highway. Even though it was last inspected in 2017 (as of 2018), this is mildly concerning since Tulsa just experienced their third wettest May on record since 1888 (12.99 inches) and the Arkansas River reached the highest flood stage since 1986 (the flood that got me my name). Nonetheless, dams (public and private) are an easily overlooked hazard that don't always present themselves until to late.

Also, the article has a nice video of a dam failure in Texas this year that is worth a view if only for itself.