Principal Water Resource Engineer Jacobs Newberry, Florida
The State dam safety programs in the United States vary in degree of staffing, funding, regulation, and enrollment of existing dams. Those programs initiated as a result of a catastrophic failure tend to be the most robust and comprehensive. Those dams federally regulated - primarily hydroelectric - and federally owned dams are usually not State regulated, and not the main focus, but are encouraged to contribute to the discussion. The progression of most State dam safety programs without a catastrophic event, has been through compliance of government (State and Local) owned and operated dams, and then requiring new industrial and privately owned dams to be enrolled into the dam safety program. All programs navigate through the political, economic, environmental, engineering, monitoring, and operations & maintenance components which are integrated into a sound long-term dam safety program. Lessons learned from States in each of these categories is the focus of the table discussion, with the intent of providing guidance for less developed dam safety programs and find ways to improve the comprehensiveness of the developed programs.
