States will soon be flooded with federal money to address the nearly 1,688 high-hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition across the United States.
The roughly $3 billion for dam-related projects is quite small in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars going to roads, rails and high-speed internet in the $1 trillion infrastructure plan signed Monday by President Joe Biden. But it’s a lot more than dam projects had been getting.
The money could give “a good kick-start to some of these upgrades that need to be done to make the dams as safe as possible,” said David Griffin, manager of Georgia’s Safe Dams Program and president-elect of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, reports the Associated Press.
There are over 90,000 dams in the U.S., most of them over 50 years old. An Associated Press analysis in 2019 identified close to 1,700 dams in 44 states and Puerto Rico that were in poor or unsatisfactory condition and categorized as high-hazard.
According to the 2019 assessment, the actual number is most likely higher: Some states declined to provide condition ratings for their dams, claiming exemptions to public record requests, while others didn’t have dam ratings at all due to lack of funding or staffing.
Dams are built for a variety of reasons, including flood control, irrigation, water supply, hydropower, recreation, or industrial waste storage. Today, many of these dams are no longer adequate to handle the intense rainfall and floods brought on by climate change.
“There are thousands of people in this country that are living downstream from dams that are probably considered deficient given current safety standards,” said Mark Ogden, a former Ohio dam safety official who is now a technical specialist with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.
The association estimates it would take more than $70 billion to repair and modernize the nation’s more than 90,000 dams. The one setback is that many dams are privately-owned, making it difficult for regulators to require improvements from operators who are unable or unwilling to pay the steep costs.
In the past decade, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided more than $400 million for projects involving dams, mostly to repair damage from natural disasters.
FEMA’s Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams Grant Program was authorized in 2016 to supply $445 million over 10 years to repair, improve or remove dams.
However, Congress didn’t fund the $10 million annual allotments for 2017 or 2018 and funded just $10 million of the $25 million authorized for 2019.
Under the new infrastructure bill, states will be provided more than 18 times that amount, pumping $585 million into the program for hazardous dams, including $75 million set aside for their removal. The money should start flowing before the 2023 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2022.
The infrastructure bill also includes about $750 million that could fund improvements at hydroelectric dams or retrofit existing dams to start producing energy.
