When a person thinks of the failing infrastructure of the United States, usually one thinks of roads and bridges, unfortunately there is a bigger problem that poses a threat that could be catastrophic to whole entire towns. The threat is our dams! There are 11,000 dams throughout America that are classified as hazardous. Dams are rarely inspected and many are nearly 200 years old. These same dams have never been repaired since the completion of their construction. These dams are located in areas if breached could possibly kill thousands of unsuspecting people. Dams are in worse condition than our bridges. I guess out of sight out of mind.
Many of the dams have no emergency plans, have no maps detailing where the impacted areas would be if the dam were compromised. Many people do not even realize that they are living in a watery graveyard if the dam failed. The cost to repair America's dams would be near or exceed $40 billion dollars. Right now there is not enough money to even start the needed repairs. The Bush administration has taken all the federal monies to fund his private war adding to his friend's corporate profits. To hell with the infrastructure of this country, and to hell with what will benefit the rest of his countrymen.
Deaths from dam failures have been in the mid hundreds all across America at one time or the other, no region has been with out dam failures. Recorded incidents date back to the late 1800's where a failure killed over 2,200 people. More incidents occurred throughout he decades, prompting in 1972 the passage of The National Dam Inspection Act. Unfortunately Congress refused to fund the program resulting in numerous deaths, it was not until 1977 that president Jimmy Carter intervened on funding the program.
After Carter intervened, the Army Corp of engineers inspected over 9,000 dams and found that well over 2,000 dams were unsafe, many of the dams were in the hands of private ownership and corporations, some repairs were made, but the program soon faded away. During the time of the program the governors of each state were well aware if the dams under their jurisdiction need repaired many ignored the information.
Congress has agreed to give 200 million to start the repairs but that is not enough, 3,700 dams have no known ownership. In my opinion I would think that the state would take over ownership and be liable for repairing the crumbling dams. It is the states responsibility for the good and welfare of its citizens.
Oregon has two engineers who are responsible for over 1,200 dams throughout the state. The federal government has been lax in monitoring the condition of their dams.
The Corp of engineers has control of about 640 dams they have found 200 of their dams are in critical need of repair even under normal conditions,.
the massive John Day Dam on the Columbia River needs as much as $1 billion in repairs.Lookout Portland! If the Bonneville dam on the Columbia river were compromised the wall of water that would come downstream would flood Portland, 23 ft deep water at Good Samaritan Hospital. That is the calculation from the Army Corp of engineers emergency respond plan during the cold war era.
The possibility of thousands of deaths due to dam failures is more likely than you think, people are building closer and closer to dams creeping into areas that should be off limits even if the dams were in top notch condition. People seem to think that dams are infallible and are meant to last forever WRONG! Our dams are at least 50 years old and the elements are taking their toll on the construction materials.
If the repairs had been done when needed, the deterioration would not have been so massive, and we would not be in the financial quandary that we are in now, I think that we need to make the scarifies and bring our dams back to adequate standards. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper in the long run to fix the dams than to wait until one fails and make the first installment with human life. We could repair the dams creating jobs for many people for many years boosting our economy and making our cities and towns safe.
It is time that our elected officials stop throwing money to their favorite issue or the funding of day labor camps for illegal workers and start earmarking monies to the appropriate areas, addressing the real problems that we as a country and community are facing. It is way past due, we need to demand that corporations start paying their fair share of taxes, if we did, there would be money to fix our bridges and DAMS!