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Dams bring water, power, flood control, recreation, economic possibilities and many other advantages to people. But people must understand that safe operation and maintenance is key to sustaining these advantages and avoiding potential disaster.
From 1998 to 2008, the recorded number of deficient dams (those with structural or hydraulic deficiencies leaving them susceptible to failure) rose by 137%—from 1,818 to 4,308. While federally owned dams are in good condition, and there have been modest gains in repair, the number of dams identified as unsafe is increasing at a faster rate than those being repaired.
Since 2003, an ASDSO task group has tracked dam rehabilitation costs as follows*:
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Year |
Funding needs, non-federal dams |
Funding needs, non-federal HH dams |
|
2003 |
$34 billion |
$10.1 billion |
|
2009 |
$51.46 billion |
$16 billion ($8.7 B public, $7.3B private) |
|
2012 |
$53.69 billion |
$18.2 billion ($11.2B public, $7B private |
*Source: The Cost of Rehabilitating Our Nation’s Dams: A Methodology, Estimate, and Proposed Funding Mechanism
ASDSO endorses passage of H.R. 1770 and S.732 to create a federally administered dam rehabilitation funding program. This federally sponsored program would provide funds to be cost-shared at 65 percent federal to 35 percent state/local for non-federal publicly owned dams. The legislation would provide funds to states based on the number of high hazard dams in each of the participating states.
The number of high-hazard potential dams (dams whose failure would cause loss of human life) is increasing dramatically. Since 1998, the number of high-hazard-potential dams has increased from 9,281 to more than 11,300 in 2012.
Over the past few years more than 65 dam failures have been documented. (See the Dam Failures and Incidents link for more information.)
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