Dam Owner Responsibilities

Liability and Responsibility Rest with the Dam Owner

Who Owns the Dams?

Breakout of Indiana Dam Ownership
Source: National Inventory of Dams 2013

Breakout of U.S. Dam Ownership

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) notes in its overview of dam ownership in the United States that Dam owners are responsible for the safety and the liability of the dam and for financing its upkeep, upgrade, and repair.

Although most infrastructure facilities, such as roads, bridges, and sewer systems, are owned by public entities, the majority of dams in the United States are privately owned. In general, very large dams are owned and regulated by the Federal Government.

Given the diffuse nature of dam ownership versus regulation in the United States, it is apparent that dam safety and security are often not solely a federal, state, or local issue. The safety and security of a dam can affect persons and property across local, state, and even national borders. An incident in one area can affect commerce, navigation, and power generation and distribution, or it can cause severe damage in another area.

For most dam owners and managers, a failure of their dam would be a personal as well as a legal calamity. Many owners are local residents and know the people, businesses, schools, and other institutions that would be impacted by an inundation.

Indiana NRCS and Neighborhood Dams

The Indiana Dam Safety Program does not know precisely how many EAPs there are on Indiana's 127 earthen dams that are part of 33 NRCS watershed projects built under Public Law 566. About 15 years ago, a NRCS report projected that 30 of the dams will have reached their 50-year design life by now. At that time 34 of the dams had homes or other buildings downstream and needed to be upgraded to meet current dam safety laws to protect people and property. Several dams had slope instability. The Indiana Silver Jackets program has made a priority of working with owners and sponsors of these dams to develop IEAPs for them.

Two-thirds of Indiana's dams are privately owned. Many are HHP dams owned by individuals or homeowners associations (HOAs). These HOA dam owners are often unaware that they own a dam, and thus unaware of the maintenance and repair requirements. Indiana has no funding sources to assist private owners with dam maintenance or repair.