Revamping how Missouri regulates dams

When the wind is still, Welch Lake resembles a piece of polished shale, smooth and gray. After heavy rains, the swollen lake sheds its excess water into Hominy Branch as it winds past houses and well-groomed lawns in northeast Columbia.

John Esterly has made the sorry condition of Welch Lake dam a cause that binds residents of the adjacent Lakeland Acres subdivision. Esterly doesn’t let the need for a disc replacement in his back stop him from climbing down the slippery rock slope on the downstream side of the aging earthen dam that forms the lake.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said, motioning toward culverts clogged with mud and brush. The culverts are intended to help drain the lake when it takes in more water than it’s supposed to hold.

There is a gaping hole in one side of the dam, crudely covered with twisted pieces of scrap metal. The dam is covered with trees, which engineers say is bad for the dam. It also has a host of other safety and maintenance issues.

Last October, Esterly brought the dam to the attention of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the agency that provides oversight for dams in Missouri. Even though the Welch Lake dam isn’t high enough to fall under state regulations, the Dam and Reservoir Safety Program sent an engineer, Robert Clay, to take a look. The inspector found significant problems, including possible evidence of seepage that needs further investigation.

If the dam were to fail, water would flow to Lake of the Woods Road and into Hagan Lake, the site of Edgewater subdivision. Clay said it’s plausible that it could wash out part of the road or overflow the dams that form Hagan Lake.

Since revitalizing the Lakeland Acres Neighborhood Association 14 months ago, Esterly and other homeowners have made the dam’s condition a topic at every one of the association’s quarterly meetings.

“It’s the major issue that’s binding together all of us neighbors,” Esterly said.

The earthen dam at Welch Lake has suffered from years of neglect. When the Army Corps of Engineers inspected it in 1981, it was deemed substandard and potentially dangerous. But no one has footed the bill for needed repairs, which could exceed $250,000. The problem, passed from owner to owner, is in the hands of Columbia attorney Danieal Miller, who owns the lake and 88 undeveloped adjacent acres, but not Lakeland Acres.

But the state doesn’t require that Miller — or anyone else — give the dam the repairs it needs. The Welch Lake dam is 22 feet high, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources only regulates dams that are at least 35 feet high.

The dam was damaged at least twice in the past 10 years when water flooded over the top, Esterly said. The worst was in spring of 1998, he said, when heavy rains raised the water level and washed out part of Lakeland Drive, which passes along the top of the dam. Miller had to pay to patch the area around one of the culverts with concrete so homeowners on the other side of the lake could cross.

The residents of Lakeland Acres don’t want to lose the lake they use for boating and fishing, and they have been leaning on Miller to make repairs and perform maintenance.

“We don’t want it to become Lake-less acres,” Esterly said.

THE REGISTRATION ISSUE

The Welch Lake dam is one of more than 100 dams in Boone County that are exempt from Missouri’s Dam and Reservoir Safety Act, which has been on the books since it was passed by the legislature in 1979. The law does not require dams to be inspected — or even reported — if they are less than 35 feet tall or used for agriculture or conservation.

Boone County has 106 unregulated dams listed in the National Inventory of Dams maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Twenty-one are classified as “high hazard,” meaning a breach could result in loss of life.

And there are probably more, said Mike Wells, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources. Exempt dam owners aren’t required to report their dams, and many don’t appear to be aware of databases like the National Inventory of Dams.

“There’s a lot of dams out there we don’t know anything about,” Wells said. “We really have no way to know.”

The highest dam listed in Boone County is the 60-foot high dam at 47-acre Lake Champetra, southeast of Ashland. It holds about 1,530 acre-feet, or 1,530 acres worth of water one foot deep. That volume compares to the 4,300 acre-feet of water that swept through Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park in December after the Taum Sauk dam failure.

In response to the Taum Sauk disaster, Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration is backing a bill that would greatly increase the number of dams subject to state oversight. The legislation, being considered in the Senate, would require state oversight of any dam at least 25 feet high and storing 15 or more acre-feet of water, or at least 6 feet high and storing at least 50 acre-feet of water. Owners of dams meeting these criteria would have to report them to the state, and some of those would have to be inspected on a regular basis.

Even though the Welch Lake dam isn’t high enough to fall under the proposed law, it holds enough water — estimated at more than 70 acre-feet — to qualify. It is among the additional dams in Boone County that would fall under the scrutiny of state inspectors.

“The new law would take not only the height of the dam, but the volume of water behind it into consideration,” said Doyle Childers, director of the Department of Natural Resources. “Think of it as a broad field of water flowing slowly versus a fast stream. Both can cause damage.”

No Lakeland Acres residents would be in harm’s way if the Welch Lake dam were to fail. But Lake of the Woods Road and Edgewater subdivision, with its two lakes, are all downstream. The amount and kind of damage that would result from a breach of the Welch Lake dam is not certain, but there seems to be general agreement that something needs to be done.

WHAT CAN DAMAGE A DAM

Federally licensed dams, dams built for soil, water or wildlife conservation purposes and agriculture dams have all been exempt from state regulations. Except for agriculture dams, that would change under the reforms working their way through the Missouri General Assembly.

“It really doesn’t matter how the water’s being used,” Wells said. “If it’s a public safety hazard, it really should be inspected.”

Under the proposed law, Missouri’s hazard classification for dams would be changed to match what is known as the model dam safety law, used by FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Owners of “low-hazard” dams would only have to report their dams to the state and could perform inspections themselves, Wells said. But dams that fall in the “significant-hazard” or “high-hazard” categories would have to be inspected at least once every five years by a registered engineer.

Getting existing dams on record is partly the point, Wells said. Except for the approximately 600 dams registered with and inspected by the state, many of Missouri’s dam records come from the National Inventory of Dams, which is outdated by about two decades. The natural resources department said it wants to examine every dam and assign it a hazard level. If a dam has already been assigned a hazard level, state regulators would re-examine the dam and the area downstream to make sure the old rating still applies.

“We’ll look at aerial photographs, do drive-by inspections and go out and check them,” Wells said.

This seems like a gargantuan task for a small staff. With only five engineers inspecting dams full time, two of whom are unlicensed engineers-in-training, the program is already stretched thin. If the law is passed, state engineers expect the number of dams subject to inspection to increase to about 2,800. If agriculture dams are not exempted in the Senate bill, Childers said about 5,000 dams would then need to be registered.

The staff of the Dam and Reservoir Safety Program is just large enough to accommodate the current level of activity, Clay said, but would have to be expanded if the proposed changes come to pass. State officials estimate the bill’s requirements would necessitate the hiring of at least seven additional engineers along with an additional $800,000 to $1 million in annual funding.

Clay said the majority of Missouri’s dams are earthen and can fall prey to a host of maintenance problems. One of the most troublesome is trees. Roots can loosen the soil, increasing the chance of a dam collapse, and if the tree is blown over its roots might take a chunk of the dam with it. If a tree dies, it leaves cavities where the roots had been. Water can seep into these cavities and eat away at a dam from the inside.

“You can get a big void in your dam,” Clay said. “And you might not have even seen it happening.”

Another common problem is blocked spillways, Clay said. If a spillway becomes clogged with brush or trash and the water level rises in a rainstorm, water can gush over the top of the dam. That scenario, called “overtopping,” is the No. 1 cause of dam failures in Missouri and nationwide, Clay said.

What’s worse, many of these spillway pipes are made of corrugated metal, which is inadequate for dams but commonly used because it is cheap and readily available, Clay said. He estimates that 25 to 30 percent of dams use it, and that many of them are reaching an age where the pipe needs to be replaced. Within 20 years, a corrugated metal spillway can corrode through, significantly increasing the chances of dam failure.

Not all unregulated dams are neglected, Clay said, and not all neglected dams are dangerous. But some of them are an accident waiting to happen.

“We all believe it’s a problem,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before one fails and it hurts or kills somebody.”

A review of state inspection records found no unresolved deficiencies at the 17 regulated dams in Boone County. Only three notices of violation have been sent to regulated-dam owners by the Dam and Reservoir Safety Council, and the problems have been addressed.

“Our biggest concern is making sure the dam is made safe again,” Clay said.

WHO FOOTS THE BILL?

Miller said he knows his dam at Welch Lake needs fixing, but doesn’t want to spend the money — he estimates it would cost $350,000 — until he can generate income from 88 acres of undeveloped property adjacent to the lake.

Runoff from upstream developments is putting extra pressure on the dam, Miller said. “I really don’t feel like subsidizing developments upstream that aren’t making me a nickel, just to make America a better place to live. It’s easy to sit there and say ‘Gee, this is a serious problem.’ It’s a lot easier to complain than pay.”

Miller thinks it’s unfair to put the costs of dam compliance completely on the owner, as it would be under the proposed law.

“If it’s for the general public benefit, it should be paid for by tax dollars,” he said.

Lakeland Acres residents have locked horns with Miller over the lake since 1997. In July of that year, Miller asked the Boone County Commission to have 23 of his 108 acres next to the lake replatted, or resubdivided, in order to start a housing development called Breezewood Estates. Miller told the commission that he would fix and maintain the dam with income generated from developing the property.

Lakeland Acres residents protested the move, saying the development would bring more traffic to their neighborhood, wearing out the roads and endangering children that play in the area.

Esterly said he also fought the development because it would generate more storm-water runoff into Hominy Branch. The creek would be more prone to flash flooding and erode his property, he said, and the dam would be in worse danger of overtopping during heavy rains.

The commission granted the replat, and Miller began to develop Breezewood Estates.

Esterly said Miller hasn’t honored his promise.

“We haven’t seen a dime of that development money go towards fixing the dam,” he said. “Well, he has spent about a dime,” Esterly added, saying Miller had poured a concrete slab to repair Lakeland Drive when part of it washed out in 1998.

Miller said it would be “just dumb” for him, as a businessman, to spend $350,000 for the dam and the lake when so much of his adjacent property remains undeveloped and is not providing revenue. He can’t have the remaining property zoned as residential until another sewer line is installed, he said, because the existing line is at capacity.

“I can’t justify fixing the dam for property that isn’t making me a nickel,” Miller said. “That bright moment they want to write me a check for 200 grand, I’d be happy to write the rest.”

Miller said he doesn’t think a law that requires improvements to a dam without providing the necessary resources is particularly useful. “Quite frankly, you can inspect a dam once a week if you want,” he said. “But if you can’t get money for improvements, then you haven’t done a thing.”

Esterly said there are smaller fixes Miller could make to the dam at relatively little expense, but hasn’t.

“It would only take about $100 to do what needs to be done now — clean out the culverts,” he said, adding that there is earth-moving equipment nearby that could get the job done as Miller adds houses in Breezewood Estates.

Miller said he hasn’t cleaned the culverts because he doesn’t think it would do much good.

“It’s like fixing an emergency room patient with a Band-Aid,” he said.

"SHARING THE PAIN"

County Assessor Tom Schauwecker said that while the dam might be Miller’s responsibility, “he shouldn’t be made out to be an ogre.”

The people of Lakeland Acres enjoy the benefits of lakefront property, he said, while the owner of the lake is stuck with the check.

Schauwecker suggested a constructive way for neighborhoods to deal with a problematic dam based on his personal experience of living on Fairview Lake in Columbia.

“We shared the pain,” he said.

In 1992, the city decided that Fairview Lake dam needed to be upgraded. The Fairview Lake Homeowners Association struck a cost-share agreement with the city, with each homeowner chipping in about $1,000 to help. That winter the lake was drained and a new spillway was added to control the overflow into Hulen Lake. By the following spring, Fairview Lake was back to normal.

“We enjoy the lake and all its benefits, so we share the cost of maintaining it,” Schauwecker said. “It’s like being an American citizen: We have a lot of privileges, but we also have a lot of responsibilities.”

Esterly said the Lakeland Acres Neighborhood Association can help Miller finance work on the Welch Lake dam if the association becomes a not-for-profit corporation, making it able to apply for grants. Esterly is in the process of writing a mission statement and filling out the needed paperwork for the Missouri Secretary of State.

“Now, I just need to see who’s with me,” he said.

If the bill regulating dams makes it to Gov. Blunt’s desk and he approves it, the dam at Welch Lake will fall under the purview of the Department of Natural Resources. Until that day, Esterly and his neighborhood association are on their own.

“I’m not Mr. Miller’s enemy,” he said. “We just really need to get this dam fixed.”

DAMS DONE RIGHT

Although his housing development is downstream of Welch Lake, Dan Hagan said he isn’t too worried about dangerous dams ruining his development because he doesn’t think the Welch Lake dam is one of them. The lake is too silted in for the dam to have a particularly large volume of water behind it.

“Let’s keep it in perspective,” he said. “There’s really not that much water upstream, from a practical standpoint.”

Hagan, for whom Hagan Lake is named, said it isn’t the water in Welch Lake that his subdivision has to worry about, it’s the silt and sediment. If the dam breached completely, silt and sediment from Welch Lake would wash downstream into the largest of his Edgewater development lakes, which he estimates would cost more than $100,000 to remove.

“It’s very expensive to remove the silt and sediment from a lake surrounded by homes and yards,” he said.

If the dam at Welch Lake breaches, Hagan said, it will probably be around one of the culverts. Water would seep out relatively slowly as the earth eroded. “The dam wouldn’t just roll over and the lake flood through,” he said.

Even the extremely improbable scenario of a total dam failure wouldn’t be much of a safety hazard, Hagan said. The water would spread out, making it unlikely that Lake of the Woods Road would be overtopped or wash out. He’s confident that if Welch Lake dam broke in a flash flood, his large spillways could accommodate the extra influx of water without overtopping or backing up water into people’s yards.

That confidence comes not only from Hagan’s knowledge of hydrology, but also his meticulous attention to dam maintenance. The concrete spillways at his two lakes are spotless, and the embankments don’t have a single tree.

To minimize erosion of his dams from wave action, Hagan recently placed rock along the water’s edge three feet above and below the water level at the spillway elevation. The rock, called rip rap, extends above the spillway elevation so that when the water level rises during rainstorms, the soil is still protected from erosion.

“It’s lasted more than 20 years without the rip rap,” Hagan said, referring to the larger of his two dams. “Imagine how much longer it will last now.”

The layers of rip rap are also laid three feet beneath the spillway elevation to minimize erosion during summer droughts, when the water level drops, and to keep muskrats from burrowing into the earth. “With all that rock, we’ll never have a muskrat problem,” he said.

Hagan said laying so much rock can be expensive, but that it’s prudent to invest in regular dam maintenance rather than wait until the dam needs repairs.

“If you try to cut corners, you’ll pay the price,” he said.

Because his dams were well constructed, Hagan said, maintaining them is usually simple and inexpensive. He just mows them regularly and makes sure the spillways are clear of brush.

His cost? A few hundred dollars per year.

Although earthen dams might not be particularly expensive for owners who maintain them regularly, dam upkeep takes consistent effort. Gene Windmiller looks after two unregulated earthen dams along a tributary of Cedar Creek on his mother’s property, east of Ashland. Elizabeth Windmiller, his mother, mows around and on top of the dams, and Gene Windmiller takes care of the other dam duties: setting traps for beavers with the help of the Missouri Department of Conservation, burning vegetation off the sides that are too steep to mow and beating back the onslaught of stubborn, woody growth with a weedwhacker and chain saw.

“You can’t go out for just a day,” Windmiller said, estimating that he spends about 30 to 40 hours annually on dam maintenance.

Windmiller said dam upkeep is the owner’s responsibility and that he has no problem with paying for maintenance. If Missouri’s dam law is changed, however, he thinks money should be allocated to help dam owners fund any costly upgrades needed to bring their structures into compliance with stricter standards, especially if they were encouraged by a government entity to build a dam in the first place.

According to Windmiller, the dams on his mother’s property were built in 1962 under a federal program to fight erosion, with the program covering about 70 percent of the construction costs.

“The government encouraged people to build a lot of the dams out here,” he said. “If they come out and determine there’s something wrong with mine, will they help fund the problem?”

According to Wells, many dams could require upgrades under the proposed law. Dams built before the 1970s generally were not built with earthquake-proof designs, a standard enforced by the Dam and Reservoir Safety Council. This could be a problem for people whose dams were built to older standards, he said, if their dams become subject to state regulation.

“It’s an issue that needs to be addressed,” he said.

Childers said he understands major repairs and upgrades can be costly, but the decision to build or buy a dam is up to an individual and they should shoulder the economic responsibility.

“I’ve never known of anyone being forced to build a dam,” he said.

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Many of Boone County’s 106 dams are unregulated, including Welch Lake dam near the Lakeland Acres subdivision and the Hagan Lake dams in the Edgewater subdivision. If new legislation passes in Missouri, at least 21 dams will be classified as “high hazard,” meaning their breach could result in loss of life.

A quarter-mile from the Welch Lake dam are the Hagan Lake dams. With the proposed legislation, more dams would have to be inspected and regulated by the state. A registered engineer would inspect a regulated dam at least once every five years if it is classified as a “high” or “significant” hazard.

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WANT TO BUILD A DAM? HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Q: I want to build a dam for a fishing lake. Do I have to get a permit?

A: If your dam will be 35 feet or greater in height, you may be required to obtain a construction permit from the Water Resources Center before starting construction. You should contact the Dam and Reservoir Safety Program at 573-368-2175.

Q: I recently bought property that has an existing dam. The dam seems taller than 35 feet. Am I in violation of the law, and what should I do?

A: You should immediately contact the Water Resources Center. We will send a survey crew to measure the height of the dam to determine if it is 35 feet or higher. If it is, we will instruct you on how to obtain a permit. You will be required to complete most of the same steps that would be necessary if you were constructing the dam yourself.

Q: I own a dam that is regulated by the Missouri Dam and Reservoir Safety Council and have a valid permit. However, additional homes have recently been built downstream of my dam. Will I be required to upgrade my dam to meet more stringent requirements?

A: Possibly. There are three downstream hazard classifications: Class 1 applies to high-hazard dams, Class 2 to significant-hazard dams and Class 3 to low- hazard dams. If your dam is permitted as a Class 1 dam, you will not be required to make further modifications. If your dam is a Class 2 or Class 3 dam, staff of the Water Resources Center will visit your dam and make a judgment regarding whether or not the new development downstream warrants changing your downstream hazard classification to a higher class.

Q: I don’t agree with the findings of the Water Resources Center staff. What can I do?

A: A dam owner has the right to appeal all decisions made by the staff of the Water Resources Center to the Dam and Reservoir Safety Council at one of its quarterly meetings. The Dam and Reservoir Safety Council is a seven-member panel appointed by the governor. If you wish to appeal, contact the staff, and we will advise of the time and location of the next Council meeting.

Source: Water Resources Center, Missouri Department

of Natural Resources