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NEW ENGLAND DAMS
Description:
With the National Dam Inspection Act (P.L. 92-367) of 1972, Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to inventory dams located in the United States. The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (P.L 99-662) authorized USACE to maintain and periodically publish an updated National Inventory of Dams (NID). The Water Resources Development Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-303), Section 215, re-authorized periodic update of the NID by USACE, and continued a funding mechanism. The current NID is the result of this evolutionary process. The USACE continues to work closely with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO), FEMA, and other state and federal agencies to update and publish the NID. The success of the NID maintenance and publication program can be attributed to the cooperative participation of the 50 states and Puerto Rico (as facilitated by ASDSO), and 17 federal agencies, who provide information on approximately 77,000 dams currently in the NID. The Interagency Committee on Dam Safety (ICODS) created a subcommitee to advise USACE on the update o f the NID. The NID Subcommittee provides guidance and recommendations concerning the data elements, format, and publication media for the NID. Its membership consists of representatives of non-federal and federal agencies who participate in the NID. A web-enabled version of the 1998-1999 NID update was posted to the Internet in January 1999. For this update, nineteen new fields of information were added to the NID. This new information is necessary to assess dam characteristics, and more effectively and appropriately allocate federal resources for dam safety programs. The addition of these fields in the NID required eight new fields in the states' National Inventory of Dams Data (NATDAM) input file for incorporation into the NID (federal agencies must submit an additional eleven fields in their databases). Participants are continuing to work to improve completeness and accuracy for all data fields in the NID. Updated data received by USACE is posted quarterly to the on-line database. The Corps of Engineers and ASDSO are continuously improving the process of inventory data collection and transmission by the states and federal agencies to take advantage of current PC computers, software and the Internet. Software tools have been recently developed to improve the process of managing, inputting, and transmitting NID data. User training for the states and federal agencies on these software tools is starting in March 2001. Note that the objectives of the program to update the NID are the same as those stated in the 1989 manual ASDSO National Inventory of Dams Methodology: -Update the Dam Inventory data with information from the states and federal agencies. -Foster state self-sufficiency through assistance for states to maintain and update their own inventory systems, and transfer the information to the National Inventory. -Obtain participation of all states in the National Inventory. -Maintain state control of information they submit.