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Lake Lewisville Dam Safety


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#1 Dismuke

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Posted 13 December 2015 - 02:24 PM

The Dallas Morning News ran an article this weekend that is downright frightening.  The Lake Lewisville dam is so unstable that local Corps officials are asking Corps headquarters to bump its classification up to 'critically near failure' which means "almost certain to fail under normal operations … within a few years without intervention."  

 

If the dam were to fail the article describes a 65 foot tsunami moving at 35 miles an hour rushing through Lewisville, Coppell, Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Las Colinas, Irving, Love Field, the Dallas Hospital District, downtown Dallas and beyond.   According to the article downtown Dallas would be inundated with 50 feet of water.  According to the article there are 53,000 structures in its path and 431,000 people: The article says such a catastrophe would be of larger magnitude to Dallas than Hurricane Katrina was to New Orleans:

 

http://interactives....lewisville-dam/

 

Now, if the condition of the dam is not frightening enough, there are little gems throughout the article such as: "The public hasn’t been told the full story about the Lewisville Dam." despite internal Corps documents indicating that the danger has been known for years. While there have been local press reports over the past few years about the dam needing repairs, the article quotes a Corps employee as saying: “We want to get the message out that there’s a potential for something bad to happen, but we don’t want to unduly panic the public, So we sugarcoat the message a bit.”

 

My question is: if they have been "sugarcoating" the truth all these years, why such sudden candor with the press?  

 

What I am wondering is if there are local Corps employees who have been prevented from taking timely action because of bureaucratic red tape and/or politics and have become so concerned about what could happen that they wanted to get the story out to the public in order to drum up the political pressure needed to fix things before it is too late.   If so, that, too, is scary.

 

Imagine the (understandable) backlash that would happen if a private enterprise were to put so many individuals at risk - possibly to the point of Congressional hearings and perhaps even lots of grandstanding and political witch hunts.  I am not suggesting that the same thing should happen in this case. Based on what I am reading in the article it sounds like the local Corps people are dong the best that they possibly can to stay on top of it.  But compare the reaction that will come from this to the reaction there would be if it were a car manufacturer who knew about safety concerns and "sugarcoated" them to the public.  If the dam were privately owned and this happened, there would be angry calls for more regulation.  But when the government owns it - who regulates the politicians who are ultimately in charge?  Don't say the voters - all one has to do is look at the presidential primaries underway right now for both parties to see what a joke that can be.

 

Stuff like this ought to be a bit of a caution to people who believe that the solution for all problems is to hand control of everything over to the government on the premise that politicians and bureaucrats are somehow smarter and more morally virtuous than everybody else.  In the case of politicians the potential for the exact opposite is far more likely:  the government with its police power and ability to tax can command far more resources and raw savage power over other people than any private citizen could ever possibly amass and that is one of the things that attracts a high percentage of politicians to their job.  And, of course, any large scale endeavor having to do with the government is going to get bogged down in bureaucratic incompetence.  And, as frustrating as bureaucracy can be, when it comes to government, there is an actual need for such bureaucracy in order to protect the rights of citizens.  The alternative would be random government employees taking actions unilaterally which, given the power of the government, would be frightening.  Bureaucracy is necessary to protect us from that - but it comes at a price of efficiency and competence. 

 

And, of course, in the end, anything having to do with government comes down to politics - especially when it comes to the issue of finding money.  Unlike a private enterprise whose activities are limited to a fairly narrow field of endeavor(s), the very same people who have to make decisions on funding repairs to dams are the same people who have to make decisions on everything else that the government funds.   In a private enterprise the return on investment (profit) flows back to the enterprise and thus can be reinvested.   The financial benefits that result from an economically productive endeavor such as Lake Lewisville dam do not flow back to the entity that operates the dam, the Corps.  Therefore, when it comes to funding, the dam is regarded as just another beneficiary of government largess and has to compete against purely charitable programs that are, by nature, a drain on economic activity but which are popular with voters that politicians need in order to keep their jobs.

 

Hopefully this article will result in the political pressure to get the local Corps what they need to get everything fixed in time.  But the fact that this is even a concern is quite disturbing.


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#2 renamerusk

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Posted 13 December 2015 - 02:37 PM

Shutting down the Government, repealing health care, crumbling infrastructure.......Its best described as rejectionism, where upon persons are unwilling to compromise for the betterment of the good.  Also Insanity!



#3 JBB

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Posted 13 December 2015 - 04:48 PM

Kudos to the Morning News for a great report. I'm surprised they didn't mention by name the other dams in the district that were considered in danger. No doubt that Joe Pool is one of them given previous reports of its condition. It could be any of the other more than dozen Corps lakes, but I'm curious if it is one of the 2 in Tarrant County (Benbrook or Grapevine) since they were both well beyond capacity in the spring.

#4 Dylan

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Posted 13 December 2015 - 05:31 PM

What an alarming story!


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#5 mmmdan

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Posted 14 December 2015 - 12:03 PM

This quote from the article sums up the problem.

 

 

Rehabilitating the aging dam, which is now well past its design life, won’t come cheap.

 

There is so much infrastructure out there that is beyond its design life and we do not have the funds to maintain it all, so it becomes a game of trying to pick the most critical to take care of first. and hoping that some other major piece doesn't fail in the meantime.



#6 Volare

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Posted 14 December 2015 - 12:56 PM

Heck of a piece of investigative journalism. Sure wish our local Fort Worth paper could remember how to do such a thing.

 

 

This quote from the article sums up the problem.There is so much infrastructure out there that is beyond its design life and we do not have the funds to maintain it all, so it becomes a game of trying to pick the most critical to take care of first. and hoping that some other major piece doesn't fail in the meantime.

 

 

 

Quite right. And it doesn't help when the Corps is instead spending money on a developers dream north of downtown Fort Worth under the guise of flood control.



#7 Dismuke

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Posted 16 December 2015 - 01:18 PM

This quote from the article sums up the problem.

 

 

Rehabilitating the aging dam, which is now well past its design life, won’t come cheap.

 

There is so much infrastructure out there that is beyond its design life and we do not have the funds to maintain it all, so it becomes a game of trying to pick the most critical to take care of first. and hoping that some other major piece doesn't fail in the meantime.

 

 

You are absolutely correct.   And the root cause of the problem is a federal government that has overextended itself in terms of the commitments it has made - both in terms of infrastructure commitments and in so many other areas.  And now, six decades after the dam was built,  the federal government is essentially insolvent and things such as a failing dam has to compete for finite funds with decades worth of existing commitments and new commitments that politicians keep making.

 

With the dam it is really no different than if you or I were to build a nice house and buy a nice car but make no real provision whatsoever for the fact that, down the road, both are going to need expensive repairs and, in the case of the car, need to be replaced completely.   It is easy to ignore the situation and say that one will pay for it "somehow" when the time comes.  But when the time actually does come one finds oneself maxed out on credit cards and home equity in order to pay for years of nice vacations, designer clothes, Botox injections, cool furniture, etc.  And then there is a struggle to figure out how to pay for an important repair because one is already struggling to keep up with the cost of basic essentials plus the minimum monthly payments on the debt.

 

That's essentially what has happened when it comes to the federal government and all of the now crumbling infrastructure it has built over the past hundred years.   The only difference is that, unlike with us, the government is able to vote to raise its own credit limit.  And constantly raising its credit limit is the only "solution" that either of the political parties have been able to muster.  And, of course it is not a solution - it merely kicks the inevitable down the road and compounds the problems that those who will eventually have to deal with it will face.

 

As I mentioned in my earlier posting, the problem with Lewisville Dam is the thing does generate plenty of economic value - but there is no real mechanism for some of the value it creates to be flagged and returned to the dam for the sole specific purpose of its upkeep.    Perhaps the City of Dallas makes provision in the water bills it sends out for its share of dam maintenance that was mentioned in the article.  But somehow I doubt that has happened - and even if the city wanted to, since they are not the ones in control of the dam, they might not even be aware of how much they will end up being on the hook for until fairly late in the process.  

 

What there needs to be is some sort of mechanism to collect taxes or fees from those who economically benefit from the dam and place the funds in a separate account dedicated solely to its upkeep and for which it would be illegal for politicians to tap into or borrow against for any other reason (in other words, to prevent politicians from using it as a slush fund to buy votes with).  That would be a far more rational method of funding such maintenance than the insane to the point of dangerous situation we have today.   And it would certainly be more fair in that the cost would be imposed only on those who derive economic benefit rather than taxpayers in other parts of the country.

 

I am not sure of the best way to do it - but, since this dam is a flood control dam,  perhaps one possibility would be a very small tax on every property insurance policy that is written for property within the zone that no longer floods because of the dam.  The Morning News article says that the dam has prevented over 31.2 billion dollars in flood damage since 1955.  If one were to have spread the cost of the rehabilitation of the dam over a 60 year period across all of those properties that have been protected the cost of such a tax would have been small.  Plus flood control is not the only economic value that the dam creates - so there are other avenues to collect funds for its upkeep.

 

But such a scheme would only work if the funds could not be touched for any other purpose - and with the federal government that is a huge danger. If politicians were allowed to do what they did with the so-called Social Security trust fund it would be nothing more than a sham.   There's no money in the Social Security trust fund - only IOUs from one portion of the government to the other.

 

If nothing else, it is a lesson for those who are tempted to rely on the government to get something done.  The government can hardly keep up with routine maintenance on important basic infrastructure.  And the government promise that you depend on and build your life around ultimately depends on the willingness and ability of future politicians to fund it.  If, down the road, the money is simply not there or the political will to fund it is no longer there - you might just find yourself in a scary situation.  That is equally true whether one is talking about infrastructure commitments or a benefits check that you depend on.


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#8 renamerusk

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Posted 16 December 2015 - 04:23 PM

 

You are absolutely correct.   And the root cause of the problem is a federal government that has overextended itself in terms of the commitments it has made - both in terms of infrastructure commitments and in so many other areas.....That's essentially what has happened when it comes to the federal government and all of the now crumbling infrastructure it has built over the past hundred years....If nothing else, it is a lesson for those who are tempted to rely on the government to get something done.  The government can hardly keep up with routine maintenance on important basic infrastructure.  And the government promise that you depend on and build your life around ultimately depends on the willingness and ability of future politicians to fund it. 

 

Blaming the status of infrastructure that this country's now finds itself with on "The Government" seems to be a knee jerk reaction.  The Government, your government, is currently the captive of an extreme hardly ever seen strain of ideology that rejects to do basic new infrastructure or maintenance even when faced with the stark evidence of crumbling bridges,  deteriorating water works and the many projects that would modernize our outdated infrastructure.

 

Honestly, can anyone say that the impending infrastructure crisis is a surprise. I can not.   I know that it has been thoroughly reported and predicted for years. Yet voters continue to re-elect ideologues.

 

It is not government, it is us.  We get the government that we elect.



#9 Dismuke

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Posted 16 December 2015 - 05:24 PM

 

 

You are absolutely correct.   And the root cause of the problem is a federal government that has overextended itself in terms of the commitments it has made - both in terms of infrastructure commitments and in so many other areas.....That's essentially what has happened when it comes to the federal government and all of the now crumbling infrastructure it has built over the past hundred years....If nothing else, it is a lesson for those who are tempted to rely on the government to get something done.  The government can hardly keep up with routine maintenance on important basic infrastructure.  And the government promise that you depend on and build your life around ultimately depends on the willingness and ability of future politicians to fund it. 

 

Blaming the status of infrastructure that this country's now finds itself with on "The Government" seems to be a knee jerk reaction.  The Government, your government, is currently the captive of an extreme hardly ever seen strain of ideology that rejects to do basic new infrastructure or maintenance even when faced with the stark evidence of crumbling bridges,  deteriorating water works and the many projects that would modernize our outdated infrastructure.

 

Honestly, can anyone say that the impending infrastructure crisis is a surprise. I can not.   I know that it has been thoroughly reported and predicted for years. Yet voters continue to re-elect ideologues.

 

It is not government, it is us.  We get the government that we elect.

 

 

 

Rename - I seriously doubt that you and I will ever be in agreement when it comes to the subject of the proper nature and scope of government.  But in your comments, you are actually reinforcing my point.

 

One may think however one likes about what you describe as the "extreme hardly ever seen strain of ideology,"  the wider point is that government funding is dependent upon the political fashions of the moment and that those fashions are subject to change. 

 

That means that something such as the maintenance of the Lewisville Dam is ultimately dependent upon the outcome of debates about what should and should not be funded (and since every person's and every institution's wealth is finite, there are always going to be things that don't get funded) and, of the things that do get funded, which are of highest priority.  

 

And there is no guarantee (regardless of where one is on the ideological spectrum) that the outcome of such debates and the priorities that are determined are going to be in line with what one considers appropriate or even sane.

 

This, by the way, is true of any government program whether one agrees with it or not.  For example, spending on national defense can be slashed to the bone at any time according to the political winds of the moment in order to increase spending on social issues - and vice versa.  And, given that the federal government is broke and operates on borrowed money, there may come a time when it is not possible to adequately fund either no matter how much agreement there might be over the desirability of funding them. 

 

Now add to defense spending and social spending the twenty gazillion other things that the federal government currently funds and the various new things that people think the government ought to fund in the future - the Lewisville Dam has to compete with each and every one of them for its share of finite funds.  And behind every one of those programs it has to compete with for funding is an army of activists and lobbyists all screaming loudly about how their project is of the highest possible priority.

 

Personally, I find being dependent on such a process for something that has an impact on my safety and well-being to be very disturbing.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who call for the government to start taking care of this and that - which, if it does will add one more thing and one more priority that Lewisville Dam will have to compete against.


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#10 renamerusk

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Posted 16 December 2015 - 08:18 PM

 


 

... And the root cause of the problem is a federal government that has overextended itself in terms of the commitments it has made - both in terms of infrastructure commitments and in so many other areas.....That's essentially what has happen.

 

Rename - I seriously doubt that you and I will ever be in agreement when it comes to the subject of the proper nature and scope of government.  But in your comments, you are actually reinforcing my point.

 

One may think however one likes about what you describe as the "extreme hardly ever seen strain of ideology,"  the wider point is that government funding is dependent upon the political fashions of the moment and that those fashions are subject to change.....That means that something such as the maintenance of the Lewisville Dam is ultimately dependent upon the outcome of debates about what should and should not be funded...This, by the way, is true of any government program whether one agrees with it or not....Personally, I find being dependent on such a process for something that has an impact on my safety and well-being to be very disturbing.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who call for the government to start taking care of this and that - which, if it does will add one more thing and one more priority that Lewisville Dam will have to compete against.

 

I do find myself in disagreement with you on the proper nature of government when it comes to something as essential as the scope of infrastructure. Government is the only entity with scale that could take on the task of providing the non partisan infrastructure that enables a free flowing economy such as ours.  Political fashions of the moment are what has gotten us in the predicament in the first place. Doing the right thing, as has always been something done when infrastructure was needed, is to be bipartisan and will get us out of our predicament.

 

One would think that doing infrastructure would be a no brainer; but no, it is more about the fears of debt. Today, we are a beneficiary of debt that was taken on to build the infrastructure that we are largely still using.  The only fear is the fear of being late or missing an important appointment due to congestion, street flooding, etc.

 

A debate, when it comes to the country's infrastructure, is not a luxury we can afford ---who in their right mind would debate whether or not we should have modern sewer projects when the alternative is sewage seeping into ground water, as was the case doing the latest rounds of floods from this months rains.

 

The status of infrastructure, good or bad, has a direct impact on all of us.  The good positively impacts our economy and our personal quality of life exponentially on a daily basis; and the bad adversely impacts them in an almost equal fashion.  Now we have infrastructure that is between 50-75 years old  and having had with very little but ban aids placed on it to keep it functional.  Yet in the same 50-75 year period, the country has grown in natural number by 100 million people, millions of cars and trucks, increasing demands for water, billions and billions of tons of waste, you name it!

 

It is not the price of infrastructure which should matter when it comes to the future, but it is the price that the country will pay without the essential infrastructure to maintain the fabric in a country of 315 million citizens. If you are debating the debt while infrastructure is crumbling beneath the ground that you are standing on then it seems that one is engaged in a debate which is short lived.  Spending (investment debt) generates consumption, improves productivity and more importantly reduces long term debt; and is a proven economic doctrine.

 

Infrastructure is not to be lumped in as just another government program because it is the skeletal network of a non agrarian economy and must be renewed time and time again.  The government program of waging war is a fashionable moment; the renewal of infrastructure is not. Ideologues have successfully labelled the government as the problem to disguise their duplicity in grid lock and to have you believe that government votes for itself independent of the voters making it possible for our infrastructure to be in the status it is in today.



#11 RD Milhollin

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Posted 17 December 2015 - 12:30 PM

It might be tricky lowering the water level enough in the lake to do serious repair work on the Lake Lewisville Dam. It is increasingly difficult to predict when torrential, protracted rain events may occur that could negatively impact a project of this scale, both in size and in time.

 

An accelerated drawdown could be accomplished by offering the raw water free to all the regional providers, but of course new pipelines would need to be built to acccomplish that. This new infrastructure could be tied in to other reservoirs so that a "balancing" of lake levels could be achieved when one side of the metromess gets inundated while the other only gets sprinkles..., happens all the time. It is a shame to see massive water releases from a lake in the east while western lakes are well below conservation pool.

 

While the work on the dam is being done it would be prudent to use that opportunity to dredge the lake to increase capacity. It is much more cost-effective to do this while the lake bottom is exposed to air as opposed to covered with water. It might also be cost effective to construct a rail line to a loading point and move the dredge "spoils" to near areas that need fill dirt, lots of fill dirt. This would save massive amounts of wear and tear to roads and bridges from heavy dump trucks, and can be accomplished with a fraction of the fuel those trucks would require. If planned properly the rail line could be converted to urban passenger use after the project is complete.

 

The massive flooding at Lake Lewisville (especially Hickory Creek) is a direct result of poorly planned and uncoordinated sprawl development upstream. The lake and dam has prevented many billions of dollars in flooding-related damage to property downstream over the years. In order to prevent disastrous flooding in Coppell, Farmers Branch, Dallas, etc. there needs to be contingency work done prior to starting up the reconstruction project. In preparation for the work there may need to be remediation upstream that would allow flooding surge to be retained or at least detained before passing into a semi-drained lake. The silt deposited on the lake bottom contains trash and pollutants and should be filtered out on a local basis before the water enters the lake. The silt itself over time diminishes the effectiveness of the lake as a water reservoir, so real measures to severely limit upstream erosion and unrestricted mass stream flows would help prevent the need for massive future maintenance.

 

As water supply and quality has become a more pressing concern for this area the idea of allowing pollution from industry, agriculture, residential, and roadway runoff begins to seem less and less acceptable. Development near waterways needs to be more adequately vetted for impact on water flow, and impact fees could be used to offset enforcement. Motorized boats have negatively impacted local lakes for years, while lack of maintenance of the lake bed during dry spells has increased boating hazards. In the case of Lake Lewisville an impact fee collected at boat launches could be used to offset inspections and year-round maintenance, increasing water quality and safety at the same time.

 

Wow! This is all going to be expensive, right? I would encourage one to compare this to the total cost of building a new reservoir in east Texas; land acquisition, opportunity cost for the land required, engineering costs for the new dam, excavation costs for the lake, and construction costs for the infrastructure needed to get that water back upstream to the thirsty urban area are massive by any measure. Perhaps spending that money closer to home will force us to be more concerned with smart water planning and use in our own backyard rather than stepping over into someone else's.


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#12 Dismuke

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Posted 18 December 2015 - 11:10 AM

RD - based on what I have been reading the Corps seems to believe that it will be possible to do all necessary repairs on the dam without draining the lake.

 

If it does require draining the lake down, I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to simply build an entirely new dam from scratch a very short distance - perhaps a few hundred yards - downstream from the existing one.   That was sort of what was done with the old Lake Dallas which was swallowed up by Lake Lewisville when the present dam was constructed.  Remnants of the old dam are still visible in the lake.

 

One thing that will help Lewisville from silting going forward is the existence of Ray Roberts lake immediately to its north.  Ray Roberts now absorbs some of the silt that previously went to Lake Lewisville from the Elm Fork of the Trinity.  Of course, Lake Lewisville has other tributaries as well so that won't stop all silting.

 

I recall earlier this year that Ray Roberts was one of the lakes they were concerned about and had a 24 hour watch on because the water level was at an unprecedented level. Of course, part of the concern might have been an abundance of caution over the condition of Lewisville Dam.  If the dam at Ray Roberts goes that would almost definitely take out the dam at Lake Lewisville.


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#13 Jimmy

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Posted 27 December 2015 - 11:14 PM

Ray Roberts and Lake Lewisville are both about 7 feet high right now.  That's a lot of extra water pushing on those dams.






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