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Below Aging U.S. Dams, a Potential Toxic Calamity

July 1, 2021

Documents suggest that in more than 80 U.S. locations, the failure of an aging dam could flood a major toxic waste site. An investigative report and interactive feature published in Undark BY JAMES DINNEEN AND ALEXANDER KENNEDY To identify dams that might pose the most serious risk to toxic waste sites, Undark searched for dams in the national database that are both high-hazard and older than 50 years, the age after which many dams require renovations. To narrow our search,…

Dismantling Dams Can Help Address US Infrastructure Problems

October 27, 2020

By Margaret Walls and Vincent Gonzales, Resources for the Future\ Dam failure, though rare, can cause catastrophic destruction of property and lives. Repairing hazardous dams can help, but simply removing them can be a better, more cost-effective option with accompanying environmental benefits. Why, then, do so few dam owners and decisionmakers consider removal as an option? Read more here: https://www.resourcesmag.org/archives/dismantling-dams-can-help-address-us-infrastructure-problems/

Environmentalists and Dam Operators, at War for Years, Start Making Peace

October 13, 2020

Facing a climate crisis, environmental groups and industry agree to work together to bolster hydropower while reducing harm from dams. By Brad Plumer, New York Times WASHINGTON — The industry that operates America’s hydroelectric dams and several environmental groups announced an unusual agreement Tuesday to work together to get more clean energy from hydropower while reducing the environmental harm from dams, in a sign that the threat of climate change is spurring both sides to rethink their decades-long battle over a large but contentious…

Virtual Aquatic Connectivity Session at 2020 GA Adopt-A-Stream Confluence

August 31, 2020

GA Aquatic Connectivity Team Co-Lead Sara Gottlieb hosted a session on Aquatic Habitat Connectivity at the GA Adopt-A-Stream 2020 Confluence. View the recording here.

Two women rescued after going over Juliette Dam while tubing

May 8, 2020

JULIETTE, Ga. — Monroe County Emergency Services were dispatched after a caller reported seeing people who went over the Juliette Dam while tubing down the river on March 26. More here….. https://wgxa.tv/news/local/two-women-rescued-after-going-over-juliette-dam-while-tubing

AP: Georgia senators want to ease rules for building below dams

February 26, 2020

February 24, 2020 ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia senators voted Monday to let people build homes that could be flooded by dams without raising safety standards for the upstream dam. The state Senate voted 47-6 to pass Senate Bill 319, sending it to the House for more debate. It would let structures be built in a dam’s inundation zone. The structures would have to be built to withstand a dam breach and be certified by an engineer approved by the state…

SRK: Dam safety stakes are just too high

February 5, 2020

The Savannah Riverkeeper writes in a recent Op-Ed in the Augusta Chronicle about the risk of dam failures to public safety in the Savannah River Basin in Georgia and Florida. See the full piece here: https://www.augustachronicle.com/news/20200129/dam-safety-stakes-are-just-too-high

AP: Georgia leads the nation with nearly 200 high-hazard dams in unsatisfactory or poor condition

November 14, 2019

At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk By DAVID A. LIEB, MICHAEL CASEY and MICHELLE MINKOFFNovember 11, 2019 Excerpts from full report: A more than two-year investigation by The Associated Press has found scores of dams nationwide in even worse condition, and in equally dangerous locations. They loom over homes, businesses, highways or entire communities that could face life-threatening floods if the dams don’t hold. A review of federal data and reports obtained under state open records…

From The Fisheries Blog: Dam Removal on the Chattahoochee

September 16, 2019

The Fisheries Blog was started in 2011 by a group of scientists who are professional fisheries scientists by day and communicators of scientific information by night. In a recent post, they speak to Henry Jackson, the executive director of the Chattahoochee River Conservancy, about Georgia Power’s surrender of two FERC licenses for low-head dams on the middle Chattahoochee.

From Trout Unlimited: Monitoring fish movement is a vital conservation tool

September 10, 2019

Important new research comparing methods of assessing fish movement through culverts…. https://www.tu.org/blog/monitoring-fish-movement-is-a-vital-conservation-tool/ Doug Peterson, a biologist at the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Helen Neville, Trout Unlimited’s Senior Scientist, aim to provide this much-needed guidance in a recent paper in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management. In a field study across four streams in Montana and Idaho, commissioned by the U.S. Forest Service’s Aquatic Organism Passage Program, Peterson and Neville compared the relative performance and cost of four different approaches…