Flood threat keeps a city on edge

This year, some 56 dams - many of them small and old - are slated for demise.

In Wisconsin, considered a leader in dam removal, most closures came about because of safety concerns.

For many owners, the costs of ownership are simpy too high, says Meg Galloway, the state dam safety engineer at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. But fear of blame is playing a larger role, too. "Owners are becoming more savvy," she says, "and less comfortable taking on the liability of dams."

Residents near Mill River, meanwhile, are anxious for news of the Whittenton Pond Dam's condition.

Officials say a worst-case scenario would send a six-foot wall of water coursing downstream through downtown Taunton, a working-class city about 40 miles south of Boston.

"The hardest part is not knowing," says Kevin Strong, who has taken shelter with his two sons at Taunton High School since Monday night. "If it does go, everything I worked for is gone."

The city's largest flood came in 1886, some 50 years after the dam was built, says Charlie Crowley, a city council member who also writes books and gives tours of Taunton.

Repairs then allowed the dam to flourish, as immigrants poured into the city for textile and silversmithing jobs that abounded. It has been more than 30 years since the city last flooded.

A lull amid an unusually rainy October has helped water levels recede, but expected rainfall this weekend has officials on continued alert.

As in Massachusetts, New Jersey has also increased scrutiny following a series of dam failures there last year, says John Moyle of New Jersey's Bureau of Dam Safety and Flood Control. New procedures allow his office to fine safety code violators.

But of the 1,700 dams the state monitors, few owners have opted for removal, says Mr. Moyle. Why? Real estate. Owners who built their homes around the bodies of water that dams create hold fiercely onto their waterfront views.

"It may be costly to repair a dam," says Moyle, "but no one wants to [go from] looking at a lake to looking at a wetland area."

Environmental awareness may not be the principal reason that dam owners are opting to remove their structures. But when dams serve little direct function - such as walling in a community's drinking water or working as flood-control devices - Hover says he is seeing more owners interested in restoring rivers to free-flowing conditions.

That has happened on the Snake River and many dams in the West. And that is a big change. Says Hover: "Ten to 15 years ago, engineers and dam owners just weren't thinking about [removing] dams to improve the environment."

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