How Many of the 200 Dams in Birmingham Are High Risk?

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(TNS) — Out of 169 dams in Jefferson County and Shelby County, a total of 86 rank as either high or significant risk according to the National Inventory of Dams.

Currently, it is not clear if any those dams have Emergency Action Plans in place in the event of failure according to the inventory, because not all Alabama dams have inspection requirements under state law. Many of the dams in question are privately owned or belong to local governments or utilities.

But the numbers of high or significant risk dams with emergency plans could be impacted by the new dam safety law recently signed by Gov. Kay Ivey.

A dam is classified as high risk if its failure would “likely result in loss of human life” and it is considered significant risk if its failure would “likely result in disruption of access to critical facilities, damage to public and private facilities, and require difficult mitigation efforts” according to the National Inventory of Dams.

Under the new state law, dam owners who choose to opt into the program will be required to have their dams inspected every two years by a licensed civil engineer. The engineer will then be required to certify that the inspection has been completed to the local Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and deliver a record of the inspection to the dam’s owner.

The law requires that dam owners who choose to elect in and who own significant or high-hazard dams or reservoirs are also responsible for developing an emergency action plan with the inspecting engineer and the director of the emergency management organization for the county or municipality in which the dam or reservoir is located. The emergency plan, which would go into effect if the dam should fail in any way, is required to contain an emergency notification plan with a flowchart, a statement of purpose, a project description section, an emergency detection, evaluation, and classification section, a general responsibilities section, a preparedness section, inundation maps or “other acceptable description of the inundated area, and appendices.

Jefferson County Emergency Management Officer Chris Tate said the only dam owners who have been in communication with the EMA in the past regarding dam inspections are Alabama Power and the Birmingham Water Works.

Alabama Power company owns a total of four low risk dams in the two counties which are inspected weekly by onsite staff and annually by Technical Safety Services Geotechnical and Dam safety teams “designated for non-hydro and non-nuclear dams,” according to spokesperson Alyson Tucker. She added that onsite staff are trained annually to respond to “any issues” they may discover in their regular inspections.

The company currently has no intentions of opting into the state’s new program since their dams are already regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Tucker said.

Alabama Power’s dams are located at the Miller Steam Plant in Wilsonville, where the company owns an ash pond dam and a storage water pond dam, and the Ernest C. Gaston Electric Generating Plant in Quinton where the company owns an ash pond dam and a gypsum pond dam. The ash pond dams at both locations are in the process of closing down, Tucker said.

Birmingham Water Works Board previously issued a press release in support of the bill, pointing out that Alabama is the only state lacking a structured dam safety program in the United States according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

“BWWB has taken proactive measures to address this issue, recognizing the critical role of dam safety in safeguarding individuals, infrastructure, and the environment,” the release said.

BWWB spokesperson Rick Jackson did not respond to requests for comment on plans to join the state’s new program or when their dams were last inspected.

An earlier version of the state law mandated state-owned dams to comply with requirements for inspections.

Shelby County has four state-owned dams, all within Oak Mountain State Park and all rated as high-risk dams per the national inventory. Jefferson County has none listed in the national inventory.

The remaining 82 high/significant risk dams in Jefferson County and Shelby County are either privately owned or belong to local government or utilities and will have the choice to opt into the state’s new dam safety program, as will the other 79 lower risk dams listed for the two counties, according to the inventory.

Shelby County EMA officers did not respond to requests for comment.