DAMSThe Fate of Thousands of U.S. Dams Hangs in the Balance, Leaving Rural Communities with Hard Choices
Dams across the country are aging and facing intensifying floods wrought by climate change. But the price tag to fix what’s broken is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Sheldon Auto Wrecking is a local institution in southwestern Wisconsin’s Vernon County. It’s tucked in a lush valley just downstream of a 50-foot earthen dam, locally known as “Maple Dale.”
The salvage yard, which buys used vehicles and farm machinery in this rural area to sell for parts, has been in business for nearly 70 years. For most of those years, the dam — less than a half-mile up the road — has protected its yard of hundreds of old cars and broken-down equipment from frequent and sometimes severe flooding in the area.
The dam “was put in place for a reason,” said owner Greg Sheldon.
But it might soon go away.
Maple Dale is one of thousands of dams constructed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, beginning in the mid-20th century, for the purposes of flood control.
In 2018, five similar dams in the region failed during a massive rainstorm that caused property damage in the tens of millions of dollars. A study determined that several other dams in the watersheds hit hardest by the flood, including Maple Dale, were also vulnerable to failure but would be too expensive to replace.
As a result, local officials are voting on whether to dismantle the dams by cutting large notches in them, allowing the water to flow again, in a process called decommissioning. Experts say it could be the most dams ever decommissioned in a single county in the U.S.
And it could be a harbinger for other communities.
Although the county may be the first to take on a project of this size, it’s unlikely to be the last. Dams across the country are aging, and also facing pressures from urban sprawl and intensifying floods wrought by climate change. The price tag to fix what’s broken, though, is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, meaning dam owners could face hard questions about what to do with them.
In Viroqua, it’s also leaving the people who own property below the dams uneasy about what comes next — including Sheldon.
“To come along and just rip a big hole out and let the water run is a mistake,” he said.
Removal Plan Controversial
The southwest Wisconsin dams are among nearly 12,000 that have been built under the USDA’s Watershed Programs. Generally smaller and set in rural agricultural areas, they’re mostly clustered from the center of the country eastward. Oklahoma has the most, followed by Texas, Iowa, and Missouri.
