Published: June 08, 2007 05:46 pm            

Oklahoma flood control dams in need of repair

Will Rogers once said “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma just wait a minute.”

Never has this been truer in Oklahoma than this spring. In less than four months we have transitioned from the driest year in Oklahoma history to record levels of rainfall mostly in areas historically prone to flooding. With all this rain, however, we haven’t seen massive flash flooding in some of the wettest parts of our state.

Why?

Because Oklahoma has over 2,000 flood control dams protecting life and property throughout our state. Since the 1940s these “silent sentinels” have held back spring deluges like those we are witnessing this month and greatly reduced incidents of flash flooding. It is estimated that each year these structures save the state of Oklahoma roughly $71 million in damage that does not occur because the dams are in place.

However, like other pieces of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, these dams are aging. In the next 10 years over 1,300 of these structures will be past their design life and be in need of repair and rehabilitation. Currently nearly 200 of these dams are classified as high hazard and must be upgraded to insure the protection of homes downstream.

Several of these dams also serve as municipal water supplies while others can be expanded to provide additional water supplies for our cities and towns when they are rehabilitated and thereby helping reduce the affects of the next drought.

It is critical that we begin the work as soon as possible to rehabilitate these aging dams. Every day we put this work off is another day that we get closer to having one of these structures fail. No flood control structure built by the USDA in the state of Oklahoma has ever failed. That’s a great record and it’s one we hope to maintain, but it takes money to do this.

This year the Legislature and the Governor have agreed to give the Oklahoma Conservation Commission an additional $6.5 million to match over $13 million in federal dollars to continue the rehabilitation of these dams. This is an outstanding commitment on the part of the state government to this necessary work. But this will only provide enough money for 18 to 20 dams. This is a significant appropriation and our state elected officials are to be praised for this commitment to public safety, but much more must be done.

Oklahoma has more flood control dams than any other state in the union and they have served us well during both droughts and deluge.

If we want to keep this protection and guard against both floods and water scarcity, we need to invest in dam rehabilitation.

Let’s make sure these “silent sentinels” do their job for another 50 years or more.

— Pope is the executive director of the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts

        

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