{"id":32903,"date":"2013-11-26T06:35:35","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T12:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=32903"},"modified":"2013-11-26T14:45:10","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T20:45:10","slug":"if-rains-refill-reservoirs-can-texas-dams-hold-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/11\/26\/if-rains-refill-reservoirs-can-texas-dams-hold-up\/","title":{"rendered":"If Rains Refill Reservoirs, Can Texas&#8217; Dams Hold Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_31751\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Warren Samuelson is the Manager of the Dam Safety Program at the TCEQ.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/10\/IMG_2349.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-31751\" alt=\"Warren Samuelson is the Manager of the Dam Safety Program at the TCEQ.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/10\/IMG_2349-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/10\/IMG_2349-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/10\/IMG_2349-620x465.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Mose Buchele<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Warren Samuelson is the Manager of the Dam Safety Program at the TCEQ.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Recent <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/11\/22\/why-it-takes-a-lot-of-snow-to-equal-a-small-amount-of-rain\/\">rain and snow<\/a> haven&#8217;t been enough to replenish Texas&#8217; water supply. Years of <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/tag\/drought\/\">drought<\/a> have taken their toll on the state&#8217;s reservoirs, some of which remain <a href=\"http:\/\/www.waterdatafortexas.org\/reservoirs\/statewide\">nearly empty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the reservoirs should fill back up. (<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/11\/14\/evaporation-the-unseen-reservoir-killer\/\">Hopefully<\/a>.) But it&#8217;s unclear if Texas&#8217; infrastructure will be able to hold back the waters once that happens.<\/p>\n<p>Experts say that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/tag\/dams\/\">Texas&#8217; dams<\/a>\u00a0have incurred severe damage because of the drought and subsequent rains. Dry conditions can cause cracks to form in the dams, which undermines their structural integrity.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/121876336\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->This is especially true of earthen dams that are made out of soil and other natural materials, according to Warren Samuelson, head of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tceq.texas.gov\/field\/damsafetyprog.html\">Dam Safety Program at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[The drought] causes the dams to move, sort of,&#8221; says Samuelson. &#8220;Cracks are created because it&#8217;s dry, and so you have the shrinking and swelling of the soil because they&#8217;re earthen structures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32911\"  class=\"wp-caption module image center\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-32911\" alt=\"Texas' dams by primary type.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Screen-Shot-2013-11-25-at-3.28.57-PM-620x372.png\" width=\"620\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Screen-Shot-2013-11-25-at-3.28.57-PM-620x372.png 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Screen-Shot-2013-11-25-at-3.28.57-PM-300x180.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Screen-Shot-2013-11-25-at-3.28.57-PM.png 688w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Chart by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Texas&#39; dams by primary type.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Nearly 97 percent of the dams in Texas are earthen dams, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/geo.usace.army.mil\/pgis\/f?p=397:3:1158381884431901::NO::P3_STATES:TX\">National Inventory of Dams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Drought can also crack concrete dams by shifting the soil. As the ground around the dam moves, Samuelson says that cracks will &#8220;develop through the bottom, up from the concrete.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And those problems can be exacerbated by rain. Rain causes two main issues for cracked dams: it increases the size of the cracks, and it increases the amount of water that the dam must hold back.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You get a rainfall event, all the water goes down in the crack. And then you have a more fluid situation in the dam, which can result in slides, and possibly even failure of the dam,&#8221; Samuelson says.<\/p>\n<p>Samuelson says he has found cracks that are as large as five inches across by four feet\u00a0deep. But according to him, that\u2019s not something people think about when they\u2019re building a\u00a0house or a business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople that build downstream of dams don\u2019t understand that there is\u00a0a dam up there that could at some point could fail possibly. They don\u2019t\u00a0see any issues at all because there\u2019s no water behind it, therefore there\u2019s\u00a0no problem,\u201d Samuelson says.<\/p>\n<p>If precipitation refills more of Texas&#8217; reservoirs, those issues could soon become apparent downstream of dams across the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recent rain and snow haven&#8217;t been enough to replenish Texas&#8217; water supply. Years of drought have taken their toll on the state&#8217;s reservoirs, some of which remain nearly empty. Eventually, the reservoirs should fill back up. (Hopefully.) But it&#8217;s unclear if Texas&#8217; infrastructure will be able to hold back the waters once that happens. Experts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[335,61,33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32903"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32919,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903\/revisions\/32919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}