Interesting article by Bloomberg News about some of the challenges facing the nation's aging dam infrastructure. The majority of dams have outlived their original life-cycle and are in urgent need of repair, upgrades and/or decommissioning. That said, the vast majority of dams are under private ownership, so this is not technically a "government problem". In broad strokes, it is estimated that $75.7 billion is needed to rehabilitate non-federal dams (of which the vast majority are privately owned). The Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $2 billion for dam decommissioning and upgrades. An important consideration is that, even with some federal subsidies, many private dam owners lack the money to make upgrades and improvements. The US Army Corps of Engineers just launched the CWIFP program, modelled after WIFIA and TIFIA, that will provide federally subsidized loans to creditworthy dam owners, but what about those dam owners who lack the cash flows to finance a dam improvement program? It's an interesting conundrum, as the government may eventually be forced to bail out a significant number of projects in order to ensure public safety. The nation needs a more comprehensive and strategic funding plan for non-federal dam improvements (and decommissioning). Kicking the can further down the road is not going to help, but will simply exacerbate the challenge. Focus also needs to be placed on upgrades using smarter infrastructure (i.e., with sensors that can detect structural issues) instead of just the lowest first costs. #dams #dam #civilworks #waterresources #CWIFP #USACE #infrastructure #infrastructurefinance #projectfinance #infrastructurefunding #waterinfrastructure #water #bloomberg #floodriskmanagement #buildbackbetter #iija #federalfunding #flooding #p3 #climatechange
Thank you for sharing Jill! Many publicly owned dams do not have the resources needed to maintain or improve their structural capacity and that is just as significant. This is a societal issue (but you already knew that).
Founder at Foraim Management
2moA global issue. Also #Spain lack the cash needed to fulfill the requirements of its own legal regulation. More than 1.000 public dams. About 450 buiit up before 1960. Simply a problem.