7/31/20

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

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Dams: (This is one of the most inclusive articles on this failure.) Lessons to be learned from Spencer Dam 24 July 2020, waterpowermagazine.com

Early on 14 March 2019, the Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River in Nebraska, US, failed during a major flood and ice run on the river. At the request of the state regulator, Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, and dam owner Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) undertook an independent investigation to examine the failure. “Unlike the transportation industry after an air crash, the dam industry does not have an automatic way of initiating an investigation following a dam failure. So it is credit to the Nebraska Dam Safety Programme and Spencer Dam owner, NPPD, that this investigation was

1 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

completed,” says leader of the Spencer Dam Independent Investigation Panel, Mark Baker. ASDSO selected individuals to work on the investigation panel who had decades of experience in dam safety failure investigations, hydrology, hydraulics, ice and debris flow and hydraulic structures. The panel comprised: • Mark Baker – Principal of Dam Crest Consulting. • Robert Ettema – Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University. • Martin Teal – Senior Vice President, WEST Consultants. • John Trojanowski – President of Trojanowski Dam Engineering. ASDSO also established the Spencer Dam Failure Investigation Oversight Group. Both the state regulator and dam owner cooperated completely with the investigation, which was funded by NPPD. ASDSO stated that “all work submitted by the investigation panel, as well as conclusions and opinions presented, are the sole work of the team and completed without input or influence from Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, and dam owner the Nebraska Public Power District”. Published in April 2020, the report focuses on the physical causes of the failure, the human and organisational causes, and lessons to be learned. “As engineers,” Baker added, “our profession holds paramount the safety of the public and we believe it is essential to learn from this event to prevent similar events in the future.”

Spencer Dam failure in Nebraska: An adverse convergence of factors related to the physical setting of Spencer Dam led to an overwhelming ice event that caused the dam to fail.

Most likely scenario Spencer Dam consisted of a power house, a 122m (400ft.} long spillway and a long earth embankment. The panel gathered and viewed data from local, state and federal agencies as well as conducting face-to-face and telephone interviews with those who could provide more of an insight into events. However, the panel’s efforts are described as being hampered by: • A lack of first-hand accounts due to the remoteness of the site. • The evening and early morning timing of the failure. • Severe weather conditions during the failure – the dam operators were only able to provide descriptions of what they saw at specific times and locations during the event as their visibility was limited. Given the lack of first-hand accounts, the report says that it “describes the range of what might have happened and details the panel’s opinion of the most likely scenario for the dam’s failure”. According to the panel, an adverse convergence of factors related to the physical setting of Spencer Dam led to an overwhelming ice event that led to its failure. “Though such an event could be deemed infrequent,” the panel says, “the dam’s mode of failure was foreseeable because the dam was on a river with a history of ice runs.” Based on the accounts of the dam operators, evidence left after the failure, and other observations and data, the panel found that the most likely scenario for the dam’s failure is as follows: • A wet autumn and colder than normal winter produced substantial thickness of river ice cover and snow pack. A winter storm produced flooding and dynamic breakup of the river’s ice cover, as weather conditions became colder and windier. • On the evening of 13 March 2019, the dam operators fully opened all four of the dam’s radial gates and then later released stoplogs from some of the other bays to increase outflow. However, the accumulation of ice prevented them from opening most stoplog bays. • On midnight of 13 March a major ice run came down the Niobrara River failing two bridges upstream from Spencer Dam. One or more of these upstream ice jams backed up flood waters and burst, sending rubble and flood water towards the dam. • It is likely that ice rubble clogged the opened gates and stoplogs of the dam’s spillway, and the reservoir rose to the dike crest.

2 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

• Ice pushed through the upstream brick wall of the powerhouse and flow overtopped the dike. Erosion on the downstream side of the dike led to head-cutting and the dam’s embankment breached in two locations discharging water and ice rubble downstream. • The flow of water and ice failed the dam and swept through a house and other buildings immediately downstream. Although the sole resident was warned to evacuate, he was swept downstream with his house and drowned. • The ice run carrying ice and debris continued downstream where several other bridges were destroyed or damaged. • The flood of water and ice greatly exceeded the capacity of the dam and its spillways. In its opinion, the panel said there was nothing the dam operators could have done to have kept the dam from failing given the magnitude of the flood and ice run.

“In the past,” the report discusses, “failures of engineered structures during large natural events were often described as Acts of God. Today, engineers know that structures need to be designed, constructed and operated to have a low probability of failure for reasonably foreseen loading conditions and potential failure modes.” As people, and the organisations they represent, are involved in every stage of a dam from design through to maintenance, the report panel said that dam “incidents and failures evoke important human and organisational lessons learned beyond the physical processes of the failure itself”. According to the panel, there are three defined categories of inadequacy due to human errors in risk management: complacency, overconfidence and ignorance. While the panel did not find complacency or overconfidence to be “major contributing factors to the failure”, general ignorance relating to the nature and risk of ice runs, and ignorance resulting in underestimation of the downstream hazard posed by the dam, were two human factors which did contribute to the failure of Spencer Dam.

Ignorance of ice runs Spencer Dam had experienced prior difficulties due to the dynamic break up of ice cover upstream on the Niobrara River in 1935 (the dam failed), 1960 and 1966 (the gates and powerhouse were damaged by ice). “Ice runs had happened three times previously and after each one no one said what do we have to do to modify the dam to get it to pass ice runs better?” Mark Baker commented. “Instead they just repaired the dam and kept on going.” Although dam operators had a “vague knowledge from brief discussions with previous operators that ice runs had occurred”, there was no specific provision for handling such risks. As the report stated: “There exists a pervasive ignorance about ice run-related risks in the dam industry generally, and for Spencer Dam specifically”. Indeed, the dam failure database which is maintained by ASDSO lists 380 dam failures across the states, but none of these failures have been attributed to ice runs. “We found that this dam was well maintained but the missing part of the puzzle that contributed to the failure was that maintenance was being done for typical dam activities, such as controlling seepage and erosion on the upstream slope etc., but no one was asking the question what about the ice runs? Or how is this dam performing in the spring when ice runs are coming down the river?” Baker said.

Currently, the panel finds that the dam industry “still lacks adequate technical understanding of ice mechanics, and thus a lack of guidance in the industry’s technical literature on how to evaluate the risk”. It adds that more research is needed in this area. “It was obvious to the team after many months of collecting evidence that we need a lot more research into this area of ice runs,” Baker said.” This ice run [at Spencer Dam in 2019] was much bigger than any others in the dam’s history. We hope that dam owners from here onwards will look at their dams and vulnerability to ice runs and see if those dams need to be modified, or if it is too expensive to do so, consider taking them out if necessary.” “Our report shows that all through the dam’s history

3 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

the impact of ice runs on Spencer Dam has been missed out,” Baker continued. “I’ve been doing dam safety work for 28 years and seen the industry begin to turn from dam inspections to evaluating dams for something we call Potential Failure Modes. The industry is learning from past dam failures and how dams can fail. The Potential Failure Mode for ice runs has not been included into this analysis. This is new and our report intends to encourage those who do dam safety evaluations and guidelines to include ice runs in how dams can fail.”

Ignorance of historical ice runs and how they affected Spencer Dam was another failing, the report says. It states: “Past performance is an important indicator of possible future performance and review of the prior failures and incidents would have yielded valuable insight on the dam’s ice run performance.” “We have learned from the Spencer Dam failure, and from Oroville Dam spillway failure too, that the history of dams is really important,” Baker commented. “Engineers get asked to look at and inspect dams but the dam history tells a remarkable story and highlights the vulnerabilities of the dam. My analogy is that if you go to the doctor, they don’t just take a look at your skin and say you’re healthy. They’ll look at your history of surgery, genetics and parental diseases etc.”

As the panel report added: “Reliance on visual inspections to detect dam deficiencies and vulnerabilities is common in the dam industry, but may miss important, non-visible dam vulnerabilities.” Baker stresses that engineers need to understand the history of their dams but admits that this does require effort, such as going through archives and maintaining effective information management. Indeed, during the 1966 ice run incident at Spencer Dam, the panel discovered that dam records were destroyed. Remaining records were disorganised and not shared adequately and operator experience was not sufficiently passed on to successive new operators. No consolidated history of Spencer Dam was established and maintained with references to key documents. Another criticism was that state dam safety inspections did not specifically address ice run performance. They are described as being focused on “observable deficiencies and not on latent vulnerabilities such as performance during ice runs”. Inspections were carried out in warm weather months and so performance during ice events was not observed.

Underestimation of downstream hazard The potential of Spencer Dam to cause life-threatening flooding at the downstream house and property was also underestimated. “There was lack of recognition that the house, Strawbale Saloon and RV campground situated just downstream from the dam would be at risk if the dam failed,” the report said. “One reason is that the Downstream Hazard Potential Classification (DHC) for the dam was “significant” when, in the panel’s opinion, it should have been “high”. Its significant DHC rating resulted in less dam safety regulation including no requirement for an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). If the dam was designated a high hazard potential dam, there would have been a requirement for an EAP and there might have been a requirement to modify the dam to increase flood handling capacity.” According to the investigation panel, Nebraska Dam Safety Programme (NebDSP) may have not classified Spencer Dam as high hazard for several reasons: • The original classification was performed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s. It may have taken effort and justification to revise as “once a classification is made by a reputable federal agency such as the USACE, it is easy for a state regulator to treat that classification as one that needs no review or update”. • NebDSP relied on inaccurate methods for screening dams and determining whether additional hazard classification analysis was required. • There is ambiguity in the language used for state and federal classification of hazard.

4 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

• There is inadequate documentation in NebDSP’s DHC review procedure to ensure that all dams are adequately reviewed.

Signs of stress Nebraska Dam Safety Programme has almost 3000 dams across the state to regulate, and 600 of these are currently assessed as being in poor condition. The investigation panel said they believe that “the many responsibilities of the programme and high workload relative to the size of staff had the potential to negatively impact the quality of the programme”. “There needs to be greater awareness of the excessive workload in state dam safety programmes,” Mark Baker said. “Each Nebraska dam safety person had a higher number of dams they were responsible for than other dam safety personnel across the country. Three thousand dams are a lot of structures to keep track of and inspect. There is a greater number of dams corresponding to a greater workload for staff. The panel found that there might have been signs of stress within the programme,” he continued, “as NebDSP was behind with updating downstream hazard classifications and completing some significant hazard potential dam inspections; there were unused training funds every year; and they had difficulty in attracting and retaining engineers to their programme.”

As a result of an inability to attract and retain engineers, NebDSP said that they have been using non-engineers in the region to perform all low hazard potential dam inspections and about half of significant hazard dam inspections. The most recent 2018 inspection of Spencer Dam was performed by two non-engineers. “I don’t believe that the industry has made any conclusive statement about whether engineers should only be doing dam inspections. However,” Baker commented, “I do know that if non-engineers are used to inspect dams then the process needs to be peer reviewed and have a lot of oversight by engineers themselves.”

No major mistakes When looking into the action of the dam operators on the night that Spencer Dam failed, the investigation panel said that despite stress, fatigue and adverse working conditions, they found “no major mistakes, lapses or errors on the part of the operators”. Indeed, despite knowledge that the dam was likely to fail soon, the operators drove to the downstream home of the resident to warn him and tell him to evacuate. Sadly, the resident did not evacuate in time and may not have understood or heeded the warning of the dam operators. “The operators were diligent and did all they could that night,” Baker adds. “We concluded that there wasn’t a lot the operators could have done to save the dam. They were fortunate to escape with their lives.”

As the Spencer Dam Failure Investigation Report concludes: “The failure of Spencer Dam was a tragedy. The dam safety community has a responsibility to learn from this event and prevent future failure. By documenting and stating the lessons learned, the panel hopes that the dam safety industry will incorporate what the Spencer Dam failure can reveal about the status of dam engineering practice and where the industry needs to improve”. “This was a tragedy and must not happen again,” Baker says. “Our report has received a lot of attention from the dam industry and we will do everything we can to help learn from this event and prevent it from happening again.”

ASDSO hopes that lessons will be learned from the Spencer Dam failure:

Spencer Dam Independent Investigation Panel: 12 Lessons to Learn 1. Ice run loading must be included in dam safety practices. 2. The industry needs to improve Downstream Hazard Classification practices to ensure the safety of people downstream. 3. Emergency Action Plans and exercises are essential for effective warning and evacuation.

5 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

4. Inspections do not constitute an adequate dam safety evaluation. Evaluations must include review of critical documentation and records. Dam owners need to know they are responsible for the safety of the dam. 5. Designers must incorporate knowledge of local conditions. 6. State dam safety programmes need to balance workloads and resources while maintaining the quality of their work. 7. Engineers must learn about the history of the dams assigned to them. 8. Maintaining dam information is essential for conducting all dam safety activities. 9. More river ice research is needed. 10. Warning systems need to be established for rivers that can produce major ice runs. 11. Dams subject to flooding require flood operation plans. 12. Adverse weather conditions must be taken into account in the design of dam operations.

As Flood Season Settles In, Experts Shed Light on Dam Safety Problems By Jonathan Keller, July 22, 2020, enr.com

U.S. dam safety frameworks have helped to prevent major calamities, but the May collapse of the 95-year-old Edenville Dam in Michigan illustrates that key failure risks remain—often involving many causes, according to a study of dam safety risk assessments by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “It’s really unusual that a big system fails because of one thing,” says Greg Baecher, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, and co-author of the Oak Ridge report conducted for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and published late last year. Normally, he says, a series of flaws “that align in a malicious combination” cause a failure. Lewis E. "Ed" Link, a research professor in the university's Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, agrees: “If you look at the statistics of dam failures, there's a pretty large chunk of them due to a cascading failure of components, not necessarily extreme water conditions.” Link was named ENR Award of Excellence winner in 2005 for analyzing the failure of the southeast Louisiana flood protection system after Hurricane Katrina.

The experts point to the February 2017 failure of the Oroville Dam in California as a good example of weaknesses in the standard approach to risk analysis. Its spillway failed despite federal regulation, frequent inspection and location in a state with a strong regulatory program. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams lists more than 90,000 U.S. structures, of which more than 15,500 are considered high hazard. For a dam to be classified as high hazard, its “failure or mis-operation is likely to cause at least one human life loss,” according to the inventory. The definition itself is problematic, says Baecher. “If I build a dam out in the middle of nowhere and someone then builds a house downstream, the dam suddenly goes from low hazard to a high hazard," he contends. "Nothing's changed in the hydrology. Nothing's changed in the dam, just some person moved in downstream." Dam hazard should be based on risk, says Baecher, which should be looked at as the probability of a serious failure happening, multiplied by the consequences. “That’s the standard definition of risk," says the researcher.

6 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

The hazard definition is indicatIve of the standards-based approach used in much of existing dam safety risk assessment, the experts say.

A standards-based approach focuses on the physical structure of the dam and takes relatively few conditions into account. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recommends that the evaluation instead relies on a risk-informed decision making approach. This uses probabilistic risk assessment to focus on sequences of possible events, characterizing the likelihood and consequences of each scenario. The Federal Emergency Management Agency issues guidelines, but standards are set by states. All have a dam safety agency, except for Alabama. Funding has been a perennial issue for states. According to a 2019 Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimate, the gap between funding and need to habilitate non-federal dams is nearly $66 billion. More than 64% of dams are privately owned, exacerbating the problem, since many private owners have difficulty funding maintenance and repairs.

Improvements have been made in development of Emergency Action Plans, which the American Society of Civil Engineers considers vital for mitigating risk in the event of a high-hazard dam failure. According to the dam safety officials' group, the percentage of high hazard dams with such plans increased from 35% to 81% between 1999 and 2018, although seven states report that fewer than 70% of high-hazard dams have one. Closing that last gap will likely require legislative-changes. “Some states still don’t have legislative or statutory authority to require an emergency action plan, though that number has definitely diminished over the years,” says Mark Ogden, a dam safety group project manager.

Shifting Approaches Taking a broad approach to risk assessment is especially important as variables rapidly change, says Link. Global warming is driving change in weather patterns, but other factors are also in flux, adding significant complexity to risk models. “The land use has changed dramatically,” explains Link. Even if weather patterns weren’t different due to climate change, flooding would not be the same because the water system in the area of the dam is altered, he adds, with "urbanization on top of that.” Use of a scenario analysis rather than a historically based standards approach could counter the effect of changing conditions, Link says, and having a national, uniform policy for risk evaluation and assessment would help improve effectiveness in anticipating, imagining and dealing with unanticipated hazards such as dam failures.

Link compares the issue to COVID-19. “We have 50 states with different approaches to dealing with the pandemic largely because we have no federal uniform approach. We’re not doing well with COVID,” he says. The Edenville Dam event illustrates the multiple factors that build up to a failure. In addition to the dam's age and budget constraints, operators faced a disconnect between state and federal authorities. As an energy producing dam, FERC required Edenville spillways to handle 100% of the probable maximum flood. When the dam was only able to meet 50% of the maximum flood, the agency revoked its license. Operators could not recoup the cost of a fix from potential added generation. However, the state of Michigan only requires spillways to meet 50% of the maximum flood, so the dam remained in service and was not required to lower its water level because it met state licensing rules. “You can’t predict what’s going to happen in 2050 or 2100, but you can surmise what the different scenarios are," says Link. "Then you find out how well your current approaches would deal with these very different scenarios. You get a broad spectrum of possible conditions in the future and it stretches your thinking,”

Link cites work done in the Netherlands as a model for long-term risk analysis. “The Dutch have an incremental, adaptive strategy with multiple steps for dealing with different types of crises they may face in the future,” he says. Experts there ran scenarios using radical differences in sea-level rise, land use patterns and in social and cultural needs. The scenarios may never actually happen, but “they tell you when you’ve got to change." Link explains. "When you get to a meter of sea-level rise, you have to have a different set of tools in place." he says. "When you get to two meters, you’d better have another. You have to have a Plan B in place that adds to Plan A. The Dutch now have plans for doing that.”

7 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

(You can get a copy of the FERC’s :) Engineering Guidelines for the Evaluation of Hydropower Projects here: https://www.ferc.gov/industries-data/hydropower/dam-safety-and-inspections/risk- informed-decision-making-ridm-2

(Looks like they’re digging a deeper hole for themselves.) Aftermath of the Michigan Dam Failures: Licensee Delays and Possible ESA Concerns Troutman Pepper, Blog Washington Energy Report, July 21 2020, Blog Washington Energy Report

In the two months since the failures of the Edenville Dam and the downstream FERC-licensed Sanford Dam (Project No. 2785) in central Michigan, there has been a flurry of correspondence between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC) and the licensee, including a series of directives and the warning of potential enforcement actions from the Commission, as well as discussion of possible harm to protected species following the dam breaches.

As reported in the June 1, 2020 edition of the WER, the Commission issued a letter the day after the dam failures ordering the licensee to fully lower the reservoirs behind all three FERC-licensed dams impacted by the dam failure (Sanford Dam, Secord Dam – Project No. 10809, and Smallwood dam – Project No. 10810), to perform safety inspections of the dams within 3 days of the floodwaters receding, and to immediately begin formation of a fully independent forensic investigation team. The Commission’s letter specifically noted that since the Edenville Dam is not under FERC jurisdiction, FERC would be coordinating with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) for investigation of the Edenville breach. The Commission has issued additional directives in the weeks since the dam failure.

Warning of Potential Enforcement Action On July 1, 2020, FERC issued a letter to the licensee serving as notice under Section 31 of the Federal Power Act (FPA) that the Commission may pursue enforcement actions against the licensee for failure to abide by the Commission’s orders, including orders to: • immediately inspect the three licensed dams within three days of flood flows receding and to file corresponding reports within three days of the inspections (the initial inspections were conducted over two weeks after the floods receded and as of July 1, inspection reports had not been filed for the Secord and Smallwood Dams); • reach out to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the United States Fish and Wildlife Surveys (USFWS) regarding mussel surveys; • submit incident reports for each dam under Part 12.10(a)(2) of the Commission’s dam safety regulations; • remove flood-related debris from the Sanford Dam; and • have a professional engineer conduct a shoreline survey of the Sanford Dam project to identify areas of instability caused by the reservoir drawdown, followed by immediate stabilization for any residences or structures in jeopardy of additional damage. The Commission’s letter ordered the immediate submittal of the required information and notified the licensee that its failure to submit the information constituted a violation of Part 12 of the Commission’s dam safety regulations as well as the FERC-issued licenses for the projects. FERC indicated that failure to comply could result in an enforcement proceeding which could result in civil penalties or license revocation.

One week after issuing the July 1 FPA Section 31 notice, FERC issued another letter responding to a request for clarification from the licensee regarding the scope of the required forensic investigation—namely, whether the investigation must address the Edenville Dam breach. In its response, FERC confirmed that the investigation must address the dam failures at both the

8 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Edenville and Sanford Projects. FERC explained that even though Edenville is not under its jurisdiction, the FERC-licensed Secord and Smallwood Dams upstream of Edenville may have played a role in the failure at Edenville, and similarly, the failure at Edenville may have been a factor in the failure of the downstream FERC-licensed Sanford Dam. In closing its letter, the Commission warned the licensees that the delays in starting the investigation were “unacceptable” and ordered the licensee to submit fully executed contracts within three days that authorize the investigation team to immediately begin its work. FERC, again citing Section 31 of the FPA, notified the licensee that any failure to comply could result in civil penalties or license revocation, (both mentioned in the letter a week prior), an order to cease generation, or even a criminal proceeding.

Endangered Species Act Concerns One of the issues raised by the dam failures is the possible impacts of the resulting reservoir drawdowns and future dam repairs on the snuffbox mussel, a federally listed endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Prior to the May 2020 dam breaches, USFWS had advised the licensee that fresh shells from the snuffbox mussel had been documented during a 2019 drawdown at the reservoir impounded by the Edenville Dam and had recommended that the licensee assess the potential for its other operations on the same river to affect other snuffbox populations. USFWS repeated that recommendation to the licensee following the dam breaches and independently encouraged FERC to undertake emergency consultation with USFWS and have the licensee conduct a stranded organism survey during the reservoir drawdown. According to a July 8, 2020 letter from USFWS to FERC, the survey was not conducted, and any snuffbox mussels left stranded likely did not survive. USFWS recommended that FERC require a mussel survey prior to any other actions at the licensed projects other than those requiring immediate implementation for the protection of human life and property, after which USFWS would determine whether a formal consultation is required. The licensee replied to the July 8 letter from USFWS the following day, objecting to a number of characterizations in the letter and expressing the hope that FERC and USFWS would identify “a practicable and reasonable protocol” for addressing concerns related to the possible presence of the snuffbox mussel along the 175 miles of shoreline that circumscribe the licensee’s dams.

(Zink - a - dink –a - do. Zink Dam work to begin in August,) Zink Dam work to begin in August By Kevin Canfield, Tulsa World, Jul 23, 2020, tulsaworld.com

The low water Zink Dam and the former pedestrian bridge span the Arkansas River near 31st Street on Monday, July 20, 2020. City councilors approved a budget amendment Wednesday night that clears the way for reconstruction of Zink Dam to begin in August. The amendment transfers $6.35 million from the city’s fiscal year 2021 budget into the Zink Dam project to cover a revenue shortfall. City Engineer Paul Zachary said the money will be used to stabilize the east bank of the Arkansas River near the Gathering Place and the flumes on the east side of the river. “We want to stabilize that bank completely,” he said. The dam project is expected to take 28 months to complete.

“What the contractor would like to start doing (in August) is getting the access roads built in there and start to get the material delivered, and set up an office,” Zachary said. “We’ll start seeing activity on the west bank, which will end up closing the trail.” Tulsa voters approved $46 million for reconstruction of the dam and another $2 million for river bank stabilization as part of the 2016 Vision Tulsa sales tax package. The city has spent approximately $13 million on the project so far, including nearly $6 million to design, engineer and permit the dam. The remainder of the funds were used to purchase 15 new gates for the dam. The key elements of the Zink Dam reconstruction project include replacing and increasing the number of gates, from three to 15. The

9 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

gates will range in height from 3 feet to 10 feet. The tallest gates in the existing dam are 7 feet high. A 1,000-foot-long flume for kayaking and other water activities will be built along the east bank of the Arkansas River south of the pedestrian bridge. And Tulsans will finally get a true Zink Lake, with water backing up to well north of the 21st Street Bridge.

City officials announced in May that they would need to come up with $4 million to $8 million to fully fund the project. Zachary said the exact number turned out to be $8.4 million. About $4 million was needed to fill the gap between the winning bid from Crossland Construction and what the city had budgeted for the project. The additional $4.5 million will be used to pay for inspection services, services during construction, and final design. The approximately $2 million difference between the $6.3 allocated by the City Council on Wednesday and $8.4 the city expects to need will be made up through cost savings the city expects to realize as the project moves forward. The $6.3 million transfer comes from four sources: $2.5 million each from the River West Choice Grant neighborhood project and the Hager Creek drainage project at 81st Street and Elwood Avenue; $859,000 in bond premiums; and $488,000 in left over funds from completed projects. Zachary stressed that the transfers will not result in any less funding for the River West or Hager Creek projects, nor will they affect the timing of the projects, because they are being done in phases. “We don’t need the money for those until fiscal year 2022,” Zachary said. “The money will be appropriated in FY 2022 to those projects.” Work on the new pedestrian bridge is expected to begin in October or November.

(If you blame everybody, sooner or later you’re going to hit the target.) Legal claim blames federal regulators for Edenville Dam failure By Kelly House, Michigan Environment Watch, July 22, 2020 bridgemi.com

Add the federal government to the list of parties targeted in legal claims over the dam failure that caused widespread flooding and property damage in mid-Michigan this spring. Sanford couple Cathy and Dan Allen, whose home on Sanford Lake was severely damaged after the Edenville Dam failed May 19 amid heavy rainfall, filed a tort claim Monday against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking $1.25 million in damages. The failures at Edenville and the downstream Sanford Dam and subsequent flooding caused $200 million in damages to more than 2,500 homes in Midland, Gladwin and Saginaw counties. The federal government has deemed the event a major disaster. • Michigan lawmakers to fed regulators: You blew it on Edenville Dam • Feds skipped check of whether Edenville Dam owner could afford repairs • How weak regulations failed to prevent catastrophe at notorious Midland dam The Allens claim FERC, which regulates the nation’s power-producing dams, shares blame for the catastrophe because it granted dam owner Boyce Hydro a license to generate power without first making sure Boyce could pay for dam upkeep at Edenville and three other mid-Michigan dams the company bought as a tax shelter in 2006. The claim also alleges FERC failed to “monitor the integrity” of the Edenville Dam to identify any insufficiencies, which “contributed to the dam’s demise.” The Allens are represented by Michael Pitt of Pitt McGehee Palmer & Rivers, the Royal Oak firm behind a massive civil suit tied to the Flint water crisis. They are among hundreds of flood victims the firm is representing in lawsuits against Boyce and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy tied to the Edenville failure. Pitt said he intends to file claims against FERC on behalf of those plaintiffs, as well.

Other firms have also filed class-action lawsuits blaming Boyce and EGLE for the dam failure.

10 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

As Bridge has reported, federal regulators for decades warned Boyce and prior owners that the Edenville Dam’s design was not sufficient to withstand a severe flood. The agency repeatedly directed Boyce to upgrade the dam before revoking its license in 2018. In a June 18 letter to members of Congress, FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee acknowledged that the agency did not conduct a financial review of Boyce Hydro before granting the company a license. Because the company bought its mid-Michigan dams out of foreclosure in 2018, Chatterjee wrote that the sale fell under “an exception” to laws requiring FERC to pre-approve a license transfer.

(Don’t know whether to believe it or not. At this point, leaning toward the latter. Historically, the spillway chute handled larger flows, but we didn’t, until this recent incident, know that there were design flaws and a myriad of other issues regarding the design and maintenance of the spillway chute, and, importantly, the higher flows were not preceded by a 5 year drought. Sounds like they had their mind made up and then did the study) Researchers Identify Factor Behind 2017 Oroville Dam Spillways Incident Heavy snowmelt delivered a surge of runoff to Feather River and Lake Oroville By Scripps Institution of Oceanograpy, July 24, 2020, yubanet.com

July 24, 2020 – In a February 2017 incident, failures in the spillways of Oroville Dam forced the evacuation of 188,000 people and caused $1 billion in damage repairs. According to scientists, a warmer climate might create more dangerous events like this. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the University of Colorado analyzed the event to understand why there was such a large inflow of water into the reservoir behind the dam leading up to the breach. They were interested in the potential role of intense “atmospheric river” storms, phenomena that transport large amounts of water vapor in focused “rivers” of precipitation to coastal areas. A team led by Brian Henn, a former researcher at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) at Scripps Oceanography, found that the February 2017 atmospheric river sequence, while intense, was not extraordinary in terms of the amount of rain and snow it delivered.

What was extraordinary, say the researchers, was the unusually deep snow recorded in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains before the storm event. Subsequently, several records were set for how much snowmelt occurred during the atmospheric river. The melt took place because of unusually warm and wet conditions during the atmospheric river, and it increased water available for runoff by 37 percent over rain alone, straining the capacity of California’s second- largest reservoir. The researchers found that snowmelt in the Lake Oroville watershed reached 200-400 millimeters (8-16 inches) in some areas that additionally received up to 500 millimeters of rain (20 inches). Collectively, the large influx of water (71-91 centimeters [28-36 inches] in places) overwhelmed soil storage and resulted in tremendous runoff. “Our findings suggest that without the unusual warmth that caused extreme snowmelt from the atmospheric river, the inflows to Lake Oroville would have been less and the situation around the spillway failures may have been less critical,” Henn said. The study appeared July 16 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The authors received support from NASA and the California Department of Water Resources.

(Now, we have the battle of the Task Forces.} Lakefront owners oppose plan to condemn Mid-Michigan lake after dams fail downstream By Kaitlyn Farley | mlive.com, Jul 26, 2020

GLADWIN COUNTY, MI - Chris Ringo and other Secord Lake property owners are fighting against Four Lakes Task Force’s recommendation that Gladwin County condemn Secord Lake. Four Lakes is a nonprofit that both Gladwin and Midland counties authorized to purchase dams owned by Boyce Hydro after years of failing to update and repair dams. This included the

11 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Edenville and Sanford dams that failed to hold water in May, causing historic-level flooding in Midland County. After the flooding, Four Lake’s previous agreement to acquire and repair the dams on behalf of both Midland and Gladwin counties was halted, the task force stated. The counties first named it the delegated authority for a special assessment district in May 2019. Since the flooding, Four Lakes has announced a new plan to recover and restore the four dams involved on the Tittabawasee River, which includes Sanford, Edenville, Smallwood and Secord dams. Four Lakes stated the first step is to condemn the lakes so Gladwin and Midland counties can acquire the properties from Boyce Hydro.

Many Secord Lake property owners, including Ringo, however, aren’t happy with the proposal. Those who oppose the plan formed the Secord Lake Preservation Association, arguing that Secord cannot afford to pay the $24 million estimate to fix the Secord Dam and that a minimum of four years to refill the Secord Lake is not financially viable. Ringo and other SLPA members want Secord Lake to leave the Four Lakes group and create a special assessment district focusing on the needs of Secord Lake, Secord Dam and residents who live on Secord Lake. “What we’re trying to do is take control of the repair that is necessary for our dam to restore it,” Ringo said. “We are the furthest northern dam in the system. We did not fail, and Smallwood did not fail. We have a small hole in our wall, and it requires a $30,000 repair.”

After acquiring the lakes, Four Lakes estimates it will spend over $30 million stabilizing the dams, removing debris and addressing erosion issues, according to the Four Lakes Task Force website. Dam rebuilding and repairing is estimated to cost $250 to $400 million and take four to six years. While final plans will be submitted in 2021, Four Lakes estimates that the project will cost $92 million to repair or rebuild the Sanford Dam, $208 million for the Edenville Dam, $14 million for the Smallwood Dam and $24 million for the Secord Dam, or $338 million in total. Four Lakes was not immediately available for comment. Ringo said Boyce Hydro owner Lee Mueller told the Secord Lake group that an inspection report stated Secord Dam needed only one critical repair, a hole at the bottom lifts of the dam caused by a company in 1998 not allowing enough time for the concrete to dry. Over time, the concrete eroded, creating a “non-immediate” threat to the side retaining wall. “We finally reached out to the dam owner a month ago and asked what was going on because the Four Lakes Task Force wouldn’t tell us anything,” Ringo said. “He says they don’t have the money, so we’re raising it ourselves.”

Ringo and the Secord Lake group want to work with Boyce Hydro to repair the Secord Dam instead of rebuilding it for $24 million. Ringo and other Secord Lake property owners have already began a fundraiser to provide Boyce Hydro with the $30,000 needed to repair the one critical issue found with the dam. “Ideally, we will create our own special assessment district that is part of the Gladwin County government so we can have some say in what happens, because currently, we have no say,” Ringo said. Secord Lake residents rely on lake communities to keep the local economy afloat, Ringo said. Since many residents live in a small agricultural area, not having a lake for years would “devastate” the local economy, she added. “We hear a number of stories here. People save all their lives to retire here, and now they have years and years of no lake to look forward to,” Ringo said. As of July 17, the Secord Lake group had raised $4,462 out of the $30,000 necessary to fix the critical repair. Ringo said they have received several additional donations that are not yet listed on the website. After Secord Lake raises the $30,000, Ringo said the organization will begin raising money for recommended repairs outlined in the inspection of the Secord Dam, which includes constructing an auxiliary spillway. The group hopes to begin this project during the summer of 2022.

12 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Water: (The big deal is a bad deal.) Another Bad Treaty President Trump Needs to Fix By Steve Sherman, Jul 25, 2020; townhall.com The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

President Donald J. Trump has renegotiated many trade agreements that did not serve the purpose of creating American jobs and expanding the U.S. economy. The high profile, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), was renegotiated into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that was approved by Congress on July 1, 2020. That agreement provided better terms for U.S. job creation and manufacturing. The list of Trump victories on trade is long. President Trump has been engaged in a long war to fight the unfair trade policies of China and he has fought fire with fire by implementing tariffs that lead to a phase one trade deal. China had been stealing intellectual property from American companies, counterfeiting and blocking American business access to Chinese markets. In a lesser recognized deal, President Trump announced a deal to increase agriculture trade with Japan. The President also renegotiated a deal with South Korea that helped increase production in American’s car industry. Those are all examples of the President negotiating better deals for the American consume and worker.

Now the President should focus on a lesser known, yet harmful deal, the Columbia River Treaty. According to the State Department, “signed in 1961, the Columbia River Treaty calls for two ‘entities’ to be designated to implement arrangements under the Treaty — a U.S. Entity and a Canadian Entity.” This agreement covers the Columbia River’s drainage basin that “includes parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and British Columbia.” A problem has been created because of the hydropower provisions in the treaty. The “Treaty’s hydropower operations and management of flood risk provide substantial benefits to millions of people on both sides of the border,” yet more of the benefits are on the Canadian side . The U.S. and Canada have been renegotiating to modernize the treaty since May 2018. The treaty has some serious problems that make it harmful to U.S. interests because of the energy provisions. This is an outdated and flawed energy agreement that siphons hundreds of millions of dollars worth of energy from America, costing hardworking Americans money. The hydroelectricity being given to Canada could be used here to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy. Bureaucrats in Washington have been slow to renegotiate a new deal and they are not expected to fix it as bureaucracy and environmental politics are already getting in the way. Only President Trump, through unilateral action, can terminate the deal and protect American interests. President Trump can fix the mistakes of the past by terminating this deal to renegotiate a better one, like he did with NAFTA. Under the treaty, the President can issue a notice of termination that will start a process to renegotiate a new deal or no deal in ten years. This is an example of where President Trump can outflank the Obama-Biden Administration to take action that will save jobs and strengthen America’s energy infrastructure. With the Green New Deal lurking this deal will get wrapped up in politics if it is not renegotiated this year .

13 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

The problem with this deal is that it is lopsided and benefits Canada far more that the U.S. This deal is outdated and is estimated to benefit Canada by a 6 to 1 margin. Under the deal, the U.S. has made $8.8 billion in payments for the construction and operation of Canadian dams, yet the true projected cost of these projects was only $2 billion. The crazy part of the deal is that we give the energy produced to Canada, then they sell it back to us. Northwestern U.S. energy users overpay for electricity because of this deal by millions. This deal is unfair and needs to be terminated.

Going into the fall elections, President Trump can help a large swath of voters living in the Northwest of the United States to cut them a better energy deal by scrapping the Columbia River Treaty. Taking that action would be an America First energy policy that the voters will reward. It is important to clean up all the international agreements, big and small, that hurt American consumers and are tilted towards other national interests. President Donald Trump should scrap the Columbia River Treaty to protect American energy consumers and to set a precedent that all poorly negotiated treaties will be tossed aside to provide an opportunity to cut better deals that actually benefit Americans.

(Ya gotta have at least one dam removal story.) THE PLAN FOR IMPERIAL DAM JULY 25, 2020, MOUNTAIN LAKE JOURNALWATCH, mountainlake.org

After years of delays, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is moving ahead with plans to fix-up the Imperial Dam on the Saranac River in Plattsburgh including building a new fish ladder to help Atlantic Salmon get to their spawning grounds up river. The improvements and fish ladder will cost about 6-million dollars, that’s about half the cost of another plan that would build a fish ladder, but also lower the spillway, remove sediment & restore wetlands, and just a fraction of the 20-to-30 million DEC says it would cost to fully remove the dam, and tons of sediment from the river. DEC Region 5 spokesman David Winchell says the work would be finished by 2023, whereas removing the dam would take longer, require federal permits, and cost a lot more. But critics, including local fishermen with Trout Unlimited, say the dam not only blocks the salmon, but is unsafe, and creates ice jams that caused the disaster that flooded homes 2 winters ago in this mobile home park in Plattsburgh. They say removing the dam altogether is the better option. Once the dam is fixed the owners of the former mill, next to the dam, hope to team up with a start-up company that wants to invest 2-million dollars into repairing the turbines that used to power the mill to once again generate hydro-electricity that could be sold, possibly to the airport or SUNY Plattsburgh. But Trout Unlimited, and Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read both question whether the dam is safe enough, and capable of producing power. The Mayor says both the city and Town of Plattsburgh have called for the dam to be removed. The DEC hasn’t given an actual date of when work on the project will begin.

Othe9 Stuff:

Other Stuff: (It’s the in thing! Take away the subsidies and where would we be?) Renewable energy provides more than 25% of US electricity in 5-mo 2020 renewablesnow.com, July 27, 2020

July 27 (Renewables Now) - Renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) produced significantly more electricity than either coal or nuclear power during the first five months of 2020, according to a SUN DAY Campaign analysis of just-released data from

14 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). In May alone, renewable sources accounted for more than one- quarter (25.3%) of the nation's net electrical generation -- an all-time high. The latest issue of EIA's "Electric Power Monthly" (with data through May 31, 2020) reveals that solar and wind both showed continued, strong growth, expanding faster than all other energy sources. For the period January - May, solar-generated electricity – including distributed solar - expanded by 23.1% (compared to the same period in 2019) and provided nearly 3.3% of the nation’s total. Wind grew by 11.5% and accounted for more than 9.3% of total generation.

Combined, net electrical generation by wind and solar is 14.2% greater than a year ago and provided 12.6% - or more than one-eighth - of total US electrical production during the first five months of 2020. Together with hydropower, biomass, and geothermal, renewables provided 22.3% of total electrical output - up from 20.2% a year earlier. Moreover, renewables produced over a third (i.e., 34.3%) more electricity than coal through May 2020. In fact, electrical generation by coal was 33.9% lower than a year earlier and accounted for just 16.6% of the nation’s total. As a consequence, in May - for the second month in a row - non-hydro renewables (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, wind) generated more electricity than did coal. In addition, renewable energy sources produced 6.1% more electricity than did nuclear power during the same five-month period and have continued to widen the gap. In May alone, renewables outperformed nuclear power by 20.8%.

EIA’s data for just the month of May also provide an early indication of the possible impacts of the coronavirus and the corresponding economic slowdown on competing energy sources for the balance of the year. Net electrical generation by coal in May was 35.3% less than a year earlier while that by nuclear power dropped by 4.1%. Electricity provided by natural gas was unchanged from a year ago. In comparison, total electrical generation by all renewable energy sources combined rose by 6.4%. Non-hydro renewables alone provided 12.2% more electricity in May 2020 than a year earlier – driven primarily by a 30.1% increase in solar generation and an 8.5% expansion by wind. Geothermal also grew by 5.5% but conventional hydropower’s output dipped by 2.0% and that of biomass fell by 5.2%. "For the past two years, the SUN DAY Campaign had been forecasting that 2020 could be the year when renewable energy sources overtook either nuclear power or coal," noted the organization’s executive director Ken Bossong. "But with each passing month, it is becoming ever more probable that renewables will outpace both this year and then begin closing the gap with natural gas." # # # # # # # # # NOTE: The figures cited above include EIA's "estimated small-scale solar photovoltaic" (e.g., rooftop solar systems) which account for almost a third of total solar output and about five percent of total net electrical generation by renewable energy sources. The latest issue of EIA's "Electric Power Monthly" was officially posted late on July 24, 2020.

iThis compilation of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and water resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for non-profit and educational purposes only.

15 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu