Most major California dams lack emergency plans. ‘High-risk issue,’ state auditor says
The vast majority of California’s major dams aren’t adequately prepared for an emergency.
Three years after the near-disaster at Oroville Dam, only 22 state-regulated dams have finalized emergency plans — out of 650 major dams that are required by law to have plans in place — according to a report issued Thursday by State Auditor Elaine Howle.
“As a result of these concerns, water infrastructure remains a high-risk issue,” she wrote.
Dam safety has become an increasingly major issue for California following the Oroville crisis. The Sacramento Bee reported in late 2017, based on a review of hundreds of state Department of Water Resources inspection reports, that dam defects often go unrepaired for years. Folsom Dam just embarked on a major project to raise the 64-year-old dam to improve safety during flood season.
The Legislature required the plans after the crisis at Oroville’s flood-control spillway prompted the evacuation of 180,000 downstream residents in February 2017. The evacuation was chaotic and took hours, prompting Butte County officials to update their traffic-management plans.
The emergency plans are supposed to “specify actions to minimize loss of life and property damage” when dam emergencies occur, according to the report. The law requires emergency plans for the 650 dams regulated by the state — out of more than 1,200 — that have been designated as “high hazard” or “extremely high hazard.”
The classifications don’t mean the dams are in poor shape; rather, they mean the dams are large enough or are close enough to population centers to create major risks to public safety if something serious goes wrong. The law doesn’t affect dams owned and operated by the federal government, including mega-projects such as Shasta and Folsom.
According to the auditor’s report, hundreds of dam operators have submitted emergency plans, but state officials have kicked the proposals back to them for changes or are still reviewing them.
“Existing efforts by Emergency Services and Water Resources are not sufficient to address the lack of approved plans,” the audit says. It has taken an average of 500 days to process the plans that have made it through the pipeline.
The report doesn’t identify which of the 22 dams have had their plans approved.
In a written response to the audit, the Department of Water Resources said it is “dedicating additional staff to its dam safety program” and has ordered 41 troubled dams to restrict the amount of water their reservoirs can store. In its written response, the Office of Emergency Services said it is the dam owners who “are responsible for most of the delay in finalizing emergency plans.”
The auditor’s report says 250 dam operators haven’t even submitted plans.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 11:08 AM with the headline "Most major California dams lack emergency plans. ‘High-risk issue,’ state auditor says."