Low-Head Dam Inventory Included in 2024 Water Resources Development Act

American Whitewater was successful in getting a national low-head dam inventory into the final Water Resources Development Act of 2024 (WRDA 2024) for Congress to vote on before the end of this year. Over the past 50 years, low-head dams have claimed more than 1,400 lives. American Whitewater’s database of whitewater accidents and fatalities, maintained since 1972, documents that 10% of fatalities nationwide are a result of individuals getting caught in a low-head dam hydraulic. There has been no reliable understanding of where all these structures exist.

To address the issues of low-head dam safety, American Whitewater and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership led an effort to advance legislation in the Water Resources Development Act of 2022, with overwhelming bipartisan support, to establish a low-head dam inventory. That legislation authorizes the USACE to work with state and local partners to develop and maintain a nationwide inventory of public and privately owned low-head dams. However, it didn’t specify that the inventory should be included parallel to the existing “big dam” list, the National Inventory of Dams or NID.  Dams included in that database are eligible for key funding and loans that make addressing issues with them possible. The recently released WRDA 2024 bill clarifies that discrepancy and makes available funding for the Corps to work on the inventory and for potential removal and retrofit projects on identified dams. 

This effort is a key step forward in achieving our goals of increasing the pace and scale of river reconnection as we work to prioritize dams that create hazards to boaters and get them removed. As the Army Corps implements this directive, we will be able to better address the environmental impacts and public safety issues at these ubiquitous structures in rivers all over the country.

Photo credit: Kent Ford