Wednesday’s story about the Welch Lake earthen dam just outside Columbia’s city limits that is in need of some costly repairs was a follow up to a story I wrote a couple of months ago.
The dam’s been in disrepair for about a decade, but the dam’s owner, Danny Miller, said he doesn’t have the estimated $250,000 to make the dam an adequate flood control.
It is heavily wooded and it’s spillways are clogged. A flood control that allows water to be let out of the lake in advance of forecasted-rain is broken, and may have contributed to the dam overtopping at least two times in the last five years.
Most recently, the drowning death of 20-year-old Michelle Runkle downstream from the dam on Sept. 14 caused some to re-examine the dam’s ability to control storm runoff. There is no way of knowing whether proper maintenance to the dam would have lowered the water level downstream where Runkel was swept away when she tried to rescue a stranded motorist
But, the agencies that know dams — MoDNR, the Corps and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, in particular — say there isn’t much, if any, funding available to owner’s like Miller to help them pay for these much-needed repairs. Many times this means the dams continue to deteriorate setting up the possibility of dangerous consequences for those downstream.
Here’s the story. Give it a read, if you like. But, I would like to hear any ideas out there about creative ways to solve this problem. Boone County has over a hundred dams like this in varying degrees of shape, so if these things are allowed to fall into disrepair, the problem could be more than just one dam, one stream, one neighborhood.
Let me know.
