Progress Report: two years in to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Giddy smiles and stomping feet. We stood next to the Klamath River and watched muddy water rush out from the tunnel under the Iron Gate Dam. The twenty-degree weather couldn’t freeze out the excitement of our group; even as we tried to kick feeling back into our toes,...
Dam Safety is Top Priority in California
May 31 marks National Dam Safety Awareness Day, established after the South Fork Dam failure of 1889 took the lives of 2,200 Pennsylvanians. The threat of dam failure persisted into the early 20th century for Californians, when the St. Francis Dam, located just north...
Dollars and Dams: Building Safety into California’s Future
The near-failure of Oroville Dam on February 7, 2017 was a major wake-up call regarding the risks posed by dams in California and nationwide. The January 5, 2023 spillway failure of the North Fork Dam on Pacheco Creek is an unfortunate sign that California has much...Two years after Midland dam failures, still no action on safety reforms
As another Lansing session draws to a close, dam safety reform bills have yet to get a hearing.
Lawmakers say the reforms remain a priority, but advocates fear the delays put more communities at risk.
Experts say the state’s flood control laws are too weak and dams are growing dangerously old.