Dam Safety Quotes

Above him, Thunderwing’s sky patrols circled, keeping an eye out for predators and raiding parties from other herds. The birds had ceased their singing, and the crickets began theirs. The herd was peaceful right now, a unit that worked together for the safety of everyone—except for him, the black foal. Only Silvercloud had sworn to protect him, partly because she was the lead mare and it was her duty, but mostly because she had promised his dam, and Lightfeather had believed that Star was good. Right now Silvercloud was standing alone under a tree.

If the flood becomes excessive, it deluges the city to city If a woman determines out of limits, she ruins the society For both, building a dam is a safety

many features of the dam construction camp of 1905 would still be very much in existence on the Colorado River in 1931—including racial and ethnic discrimination, profiteering at the company store, and the flouting of health and safety regulations in the name of efficient and speedy construction. At Black Canyon, the threat of a Wobbly rebellion would still cast a shadow.

A dam may appear in our minds to be permanent, a monument to the ages, when dams are, of course, structures that can be redesigned or removed if we will it so. Since 1950, sixty-seven dams have been removed because of safety concerns, for the restoration of riparian habitat, to improve fish passage, for erosion control, to enhance recreational opportunities, because the dam failed, for the removal of invasive bullfrog breeding sites, and for flood control.

Bringing them up to current standards would cost tens of billions of dollars. Despite this, they don’t get a lot of attention from overstretched state inspectors. Nationwide, there’s only one safety inspector for every 205 dams. As of 2013, according to ASCE, South Carolina had only two people monitoring all of its 2,380 dams, and one of them was part-time.27 So it was as unsurprising as it was tragic when in 2015 heavy rain collapsed 36 of the state’s dams. As many as nineteen people were killed in the resultant flooding, according to The New York Times.28 Scores of other dams around the country have failed since 2010. All told, hundreds of Americans are killed or injured each year due to the failure of the nation’s sand-based roads, bridges, and dams.