By Jeff Masters,Yale Climate Connections. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave America’s infrastructure a C- grade in its quadrennial assessment issued March 3. ASCE gave the nation’s flood control infrastructure – dams and levees – a D grade. This is a highly concerning assessment, given that climate change is increasingly stressing dams and levees as increased evaporation from the oceans drives heavier precipitation events.
U.S. Dams Need $93.6 Billion in Upgrades
The group’s 2021 report card gave the nation’s 91,000-plus dams a D grade, jus as they had received in each of its assessments since the first one was issued in 1998. Drawing upon the latest data from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, ASCE estimated the cost of rehabilitating all U.S. dams at $93.6 billion, of which $27.6 billion is needed for federal dams. Over half (56.4%) of U.S. dams are privately owned. The cost to rehabilitate deficient high-hazard-potential dams, whose failure would result in loss of life, is estimated at nearly $20 billion. Over 2,300 dams in the U.S. are in this category. The average age of America’s dams is 57 years.
The report identified one program that can help address existing funding needs – the High Hazard Potential Dam Rehabilitation Program authorized in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. The goal of this program is to help fund the repair, removal, or rehabilitation of the nation’s non-federal, high-hazard-potential dams. In federal fiscal year 2020, Congress appropriated $10 million for the program, less than 0.1% of the state dam safety group’s needs estimate, and a quarter of the $40 million Congress had authorized for the program.
A 2019 story by the Associated Press reported that the most recent U.S. fatalities from a dam failure were in March 2019, when the 92-year-old Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River in Nebraska failed, killing one person. The most recent previous dam failure fatalities involved seven people killed on Hawaii’s Kauai Island in 2006 after the earthen wall of the Kaloko Reservoir collapsed.
At least five fatal dam failures occurred in the 1970s – Teton Dam, Idaho (14 deaths), Kelly Barnes, Georgia (39 deaths), Buffalo Creek coal slurry impoundment dam, West Virginia (125 deaths), Rapid City, South Dakota (238 deaths), and Johnstown, Pennsylvania (84 deaths). These failures ushered in the modern dam safety era. AP reported that many states have problematic private dams whose owners can’t be identified. In 2018, for instance, Rhode Island listed 32 high- or significant-hazard dams with safety concerns and unknown owners.
A 2019 YaleEnvironment360 story by Jacques Leslie reported that “many people living on property that would be flooded if a dam fails are unaware of that possibility, in part because federal officials blocked public access to inundation maps after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In recent years, some states have again made the maps available. California requires that prospective buyers be informed if a property is in an inundation zone, a practice that should be far more widespread.” The 2021 ASCE report card recommended initiating a public awareness campaign that would alert residents of the location and condition of dams in their area.
U.S. Levees Need More Than $21 Billion in Upgrades
In spring 2019, the midwest U.S. experienced severe flooding, causing over $20 billion in damage. More than 80 Corps of Engineers levee systems were overtopped or breached, sometimes multiple times, and more than 700 miles of levees were damaged. Levee repairs were estimated at $1 billion. However, the Army Corps estimated that the levees prevented almost $350 billion in flood damages from October 2018 to September 2019. At least 17 million people live or work behind a levee, and U.S. levees protect $2.3 trillion in property, so the condition of these levees is critical. In addition, approximately 1,400 sites listed in the federal Toxic Release Inventory – including many EPA Superfund sites – lie in areas at high risk of flooding, according to a 2018 New York Times analysis.
In that context, the Civil Engineers’ 2021 report card grade of D for the nation’s 40,000 miles of levees is concerning. Drawing upon the latest data from the Corps of Engineers, the ASCE says in its report card that $21 billion is needed to improve and maintain just the moderate to high-risk levees in the Corps of Engineers portfolio. That is about 15% of the known levees in the U.S.
U.S. levees are, on average, 50 years old, many built using engineering standards less rigorous than current best practices. Encouragingly, fewer than 4% of U.S. levees are rated high or very high risk, down from 5% in 2017. However, 80% of high- or very high-risk levees have issues that likely would result in a breach prior to overtopping in an extreme flood, the report said.
The report card identified one program that can help address existing funding needs – the National Levee Safety Program. In federal fiscal year (FY) 2021 this program was funded at $5 million, just 0.02% of the $21 billion needed to repair just 15% of U.S. levees, and only 6% of its FY21 $79 million authorization.
Figure 3. The change in heavy downpours (defined as the top 1% of precipitation events) from 1958-2016, from the 2018 U.S. National Climate Assessment. (Image credit: Climate Central)
Climate Change is Driving More Precipitation and River Flood Damages
Increased precipitation in the U.S. in recent decades, partially the result of climate change, has caused an additional $2.5 billion a year in U.S. flood damages, according to a January 2021 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researches, climate scientists at Stanford University, found that between 1988 and 2017, heavier precipitation accounted for more than one-third of the $200 billion in damage. Causing heavier downpours, “Climate change may be exacerbating the cost of flooding,” the authors concluded.
In an interview with E&E News, study co-author Noel Diffenbaugh said that “there is real economic value in avoiding higher levels of global warming. That’s not a political statement. That’s a factual statement about costs. And it also shows that there’s real economic value to adaptation and resilience because we’re clearly not adapted to the climate change that’s already happened.”
U.S. River Floods are Increasing in Frequency
The number of “extreme streamflow” events observed in U.S. river systems since 1910 has increased significantly, according to a December 2020 study from Dartmouth College.
Along rivers that observed significant changes in streamflow in recent decades, the incidence of extreme streamflow events has doubled in frequency since the 1950-1969 period. Evan Dethier, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and lead author of the paper, said in an interview with phys.org that “the shifts toward more extreme events are especially important given the age of our dams, bridges, and roads. The changes to river flows that we found are important for those who manage or depend on this type of infrastructure.”
Bob Henson contributed to this post.
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“…study co-author Noel Diffenbaugh said that “there is real economic value in avoiding higher levels of global warming.”
Good that he realizes the only way to get the PTB to listen to you is to say “economic value”
There’s a lot of economic value in global warming too, though.
“There’s a lot of economic value in global warming too, though.” That’s the first time I’ve read any statement that even resembles that one. Maybe you are leaving out the ‘net’ word, as in there is no ‘net’ economic value in global warming. Being able to cook your dinner outside on the pavement may save you some energy, but the net effect of enduring those temperatures is definitely in the negative column.
Just one example
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210127006020/en/Exxon-Mobil-Corporation-Declares-First-Quarter-Dividend
If you want to talk to someone who matters you need to go to wall st. Personally I don’t think they would care that people are cooking dinner on the pavement, and they could see themselves making money on it somehow.
Like the C-suite-ers in “Soylent Green…”
How about this approach –
Since there are dams that are needed for irrigation, flood control, drinking water , navigation, recreation and a host of other needs that our modern society requires let’s ensure that all dam repairs include the capability to generate power.
Sale of the power would generate funds for ongoing maintenance and repairs and of course this would be a small step towards running government like a business.
Oh and this approach could add reliable, dispatchable, storable power, renewable power to the grid.
“There are 90,000 dams throughout the U.S., and only a small fraction (3 percent) are equipped to generate power. Of those existing dams, the Department of Energy has found that by 2050, the potential exists to sustainably add nearly 5 gigawatts of clean energy to our electricity grid.. ” -https://www.hydro.org/path-to-clean-energy-1-22-2021.
Why not use what we got to make a better, cheaper and more reliable grid ?
Or, in the instances of threatened and endangered anadromous fish species, take them down– as has been proposed by the US Rep from Idaho on the four Snake River dams near Lewiston and Clarkston (ID/WA)
Of course where prudent dams should be taken down.
Remember though we do need dams for a variety of reasons including irrigation, flood control, drinking water , navigation, recreation and a host of other needs that our modern society requires.
Dams are monstrous projects that halt the flow of life. Dams, like so many of humanity’s oft-celebrated mega engineering projects, epitomize everything that is wrong with modern human endeavors.
That is and isn’t a lot of power. Transmission is very expensive too.
Other comments wrt feasibility seem apt.
Not to be debbie downer here but the economics of small hydropower are, as an understatement, not particularly favorable, and the design and operational considerations (downstream flows and environmental quality) mean that most of the projects you’d add on these dams would have minimal flexibility (although they would have some limited capability to regulate frequency, most likely).
Many/most dams/levees don’t have enough height to produce the water pressure needed for production of reasonable amounts of electricity (by today’s energy standards).
Now, once we run out of cheap fossil fuels, even low pressure hydro will be sought after (e.g., the old grist mill). But we’re probably 50 years from that.
“There are 90,000 dams throughout the U.S., and only a small fraction (3 percent) are equipped to generate power. Of those existing dams, the Department of Energy has found that by 2050, the potential exists to sustainably add nearly 5 gigawatts of clean energy to our electricity grid.. ” -https://www.hydro.org/path-to-clean-energy-1-22-2021.
Even if “Many/most dams/levees don’t have enough height to produce the water pressure needed for production of reasonable amounts of electricity (by today’s energy standards).”
5 gigawatts is not small change particularly when it would be 5 GW of renewable energy.
Fossil fuels are “cheap” only because 1. Nations pay huge amounts of subsidies to the industry n 2. The industry doesn’t really pay the environmental n health costs of its operations. Recently a number of reports show that fossil fuels,when deprived of taxpayer subsidies, become equally or More expensive than solar n wind power, which are also becoming cheaper every year unlike fossil fuels.
Not to be picky but running it like a business to me is not a positive. I think running it efficiently makes some sense. Most dams are not large enough to install power generators, but they are large enough to create a disaster if they fail. I think you need a river, or a tide, to build a power generating dam. Most of our rivers do have power producing dams. Tidal flows, to me, would appear to offer the best return on investment.
First thing I did as a native-now-nomadic Californian was look for the cost of repars made to the Oroville earthen dam spillway a few years back after it was breached. News accounts said approx. 1.1 billion.
If we really could get this mostly done for the stated price tag or even 50% more, it should have gone into the covid package or go into the next defense appropriations bill or CR or reconciliation act (precedent on germaneness exists for all three).
Mainly because it was in Devin y Kevin’s turf, a couple hundred million worth of Covid money was allocated in fixing the Friant-Kern Canal which had become about half useless on account of subsidence, so there is precedence, but I kinda doubt a Congressman from up there has the kind of clout with the President our dynamic duo here did.
http://sjvsun.com/ag/amid-covid-relief-congress-delivers-206mil-for-friant-kern-canal-repairs/
How is this possible? “In 2018, for instance, Rhode Island listed 32 high- or significant-hazard dams with safety concerns and unknown owners.”
IMO I always question there reports. Significant bias exists. Civil engineers (people who get paid to build infrastructure) grade our infrastructure poorly and tell politicians you need to pay them to rebuild.