There are 90,580 dams across the United States, including 1,737 in Colorado. Of those structures in this state, 432 are rated as high-hazard dams, meaning failure likely would result in human deaths. And of those, 27 have been rated by state inspectors as “unsatisfactory.”
Colorado’s high-hazard dams are, on average, 95 years old, and for decades experts have looked backward, at historic storms, to predict rainfall and what kinds of stresses these structures need to be able to withstand. But that’s changing.
Scientists expect climate change to cause temperatures spikes of at least 2 degrees Fahrenheit in Colorado before 2070, bringing warmer air that holds more moisture. That can mean increased potential for sudden hard rains and flooding that accelerates dam failures.
State regulators now want to be more forward-thinking, which is why, as environmental reporter Bruce Finley explains, new rules going into effect Jan. 1 require tougher dam designs that take into account the anticipated impacts of climate change.
Read more about that in today’s Denver Post.
— Matt Sebastian, Denver Post enterprise editor
Colorado rethinks dam safety as climate change heightens risk for state’s 27 “unsatisfactory” structures
RELATED: Thousands face risk because of aging U.S. dams, including some in Colorado, AP finds
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Five of The Denver Post’s best stories this week
Denver’s scandal-plagued convention project is closer to inking contract — but big questions unresolved
Nearly a year after a bidding scandal brought advance work for Denver’s $233 million convention center expansion to a screeching halt, the project remains far from actual construction, Jon Murray reports.
ICYMI: Fired Denver airport contractors’ claims raise questions about oversight as massive project restarts
Uncertainty remains as law enforcement, courts prepare for Colorado’s controversial red flag law to go into effect
Colorado’s law enforcement and courts are gearing up to implement the new law that would allow the state to temporarily take guns from people deemed extreme safety risks, but officials still don’t know how many requests they’ll need to field and how the system will work in counties where sheriffs swore they would not enforce it. Read more from Elise Schmelzer.
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A man eating alone at Denver’s Salvation Army Thanksgiving meal finds the compassion he craved
Dennis Emigh nodded with approval at the plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and stuffing set in front of him at the Salvation Army’s Thanksgiving meal, but what he really craved was warm conversation. By the end of the meal, he had found one, Elizabeth Hernandez reports.
A Colorado family finds closure 75 years after Germans killed soldier in Italy
One day in April, months before Ruben Valdez would die in his sleep, he received a phone call from a woman in Rome whom he’d never met.
The woman, a World War II historian, had tracked down the previously untold story of how Valdez’s brother, Paul, died in a small Italian town at the hands of the Germans. Read more from Alex Burness.
RTD’s next general manager will face bumpy road as metro Denver’s mobility landscape gets more complex
RTD is swimming against a tide that is impacting just about every transit agency across the country. The next person to head metro Denver’s sprawling transit network will face a long list of obstacles to reversing RTD’s declining ridership — and, industry experts warn, that new leader will have only so much power to set things right, John Aguilar writes.
ICYMI: RTD at 50 and the freeway fight that paved the way for transit in metro Denver
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