Century-old dam under strain as floods increase in US and federal funds dry up | Ohio

According to climate data, more than 18,000 properties that are downstream of a series of an Ohio Centennial dam is in danger of flooding over the next three decades, because the Trump administration continues to retreat investments that would help keep water remotely.

In a large part of the United States, the view from above the Huffman dam in the southwest of Ohio is rare.

From the cycle path at the top of the dam, the sparkling lights of the city center of Dayton appear in the south. Cargo aircraft of a base base near the Air Force above and the 66-thousand Long river river springs under the feet.

But the dam serves a much more urgent goal: to retain up to 54 billion gallons of water – enough to fill 82,000 Olympic swimming pools – during flood events.

Nearby, more than 21% of all downstream properties are threatened with flooding over the next three decades, according to First Street, an organization of data modeling on climate risks. This percentage represents 18,596 properties in Dayton.

The five massive dry dams and 55 miles of dikes west and north of Dayton were built in the aftermath of a catastrophic destruction which struck the city of Ohio in 1913, when 360 people died and flooded in three rivers meeting in the city center wiped out the city center.

But today, IT and many other Midwest communities are risking once more flooding.

“Our system experienced 2,170 storage events. The flood in April was placed 12th, “explains Marylynn Lodor, director general of the district of Miami Conservancy, the authority supervising the regional flood prevention system which includes the Huffman dam. The floods at the beginning of last April saw five to seven inches of rain flooding houses, roads and parks, and caused power outages for thousands of people over hundreds of kilometers.

Extreme precipitation events occur with increasing regularity at a time when, through a region that houses the two major navigable lanes in the country, the Rivers of Ohio and Mississippi – an infrastructure for the prevention of the old floods of decades collapses.

From Indiana, where the authorities responsible for a dam in a young camp who sees 15,000 visitors annually warned of failure during the floods last April, in Illinois and Minnesota, reports appear with increasing regularity of “100 years” flooding threatening the integrity of dams and, in certain destroyed cases.

Five years ago, the Edenville dam in central Michigan failed after the days of heavy rains, which aroused the evacuation of 10,000 people and the failure of another dam down. The dam is located at the confluence of two rivers, and in 2018, its owner temporarily removed its license due to fears of not being able to pass enough water at high flood levels. The prosecution and an expense report of $ 250 million followed the failure of the dam.

The data from the Ministry of the Environment of Michigan, Great Lakes and Energy, revealed that of the 2,552 registered state dams, almost 18% were assessed as in the “just”, “poor” or “unsatisfactory” condition.

Despite this, few changes have been promulgated in Michigan.

“The reason why it appears everywhere in the country is that it is a massive aging infrastructure problem,” explains Bryan Burroughs, a member of a now closed state group who sought to investigate the status of dams through Michigan following the Edenville incident.

He says that the recommendations of the working group have not been largely adopted.

“To date, the only ones that have been adopted and sent to all levels are those that our Department of State of the Environment, the Great Lakes and Energy are able to supervise. The regulatory changes have not been recovered legislative,” continued Burroughs.

Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden Administration had investing in the American aging infrastructure in many years a priority, with 10 billion dollars dedicated to the attenuation of floods and drought alleviations. Another billion additional dollars was allocated in 2021 through the investment law and job safety infrastructure, suppression and related upgrades.

Since Donald Trump entered the White House in January, the administration has been walking back with a large part of these investments. Hundreds of dam jumps and other staff members working in dams in 17 Western states have been dismissed in recent months. Before the July 4 flood disaster in Texas, the Trump administration was committed to closing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). With more than 92,000 dams across the country, the Society of Civil Engineers estimates the repair cost of the country’s non -federal dams at $ 165 billion.

In Ohio, the district of Miami Conservancy was frank by stressing that the dams for which it is responsible has repair – in particular, the walls upstream of two north of the city of Dayton. The lifting he manages “are subject to the costly FEMA accreditation process and mandated by the federal government, but there is no source of adequate funding.”

Last year, the district said it needed $ 140 million to bring the region’s dams and dikes to safe levels in the coming decades. Over the past 80 years, the organization has increased 228% of the volume of water in its store, which means that structures today have to work harder than they have done in the past to retain water.

“While we plan to make reinvestments, we seek to ensure funding through state and federal governments,” explains Lodor.

“We did not get a lot of support and federal dollars or state money to be able to do the system. It has already been invested by local communities; It would be very difficult if it was on the back of the inhabitants. ”

Many dams retain water used by fishermen and recreers – a problem that creates tensions in many communities. In White Cloud, in Michigan, the authorities had to draw a large part of the lake water behind a 150 -year -old dam due to fears for its structural integrity, angry with the inhabitants.

As in Texas, dozens of groups of young people and Christian camps across the Midwest use lakes and sailors downstream of the aging of the head and other dams for programming and outdoor activities. E-mails and messages left by the Guardian with the owners of a risk dam in an Indiana camp used by thousands of children each year received no response.

Although compared to other parts of the United States, the Midwest does not have many dams whose main goal is the control of the floods for geological and topographic reasons, Ohio and a large part of the wider Midwest have seen “record rains” this year.

“Time has changed,” says Burroughs. “What had previously been a flood event over 100 years could have occurred three times in the past 40 years.”