Forests
B.C.’s Dam Safety Program moved forward under new legislation that strengthens the ability of dam safety staff to inspect, audit and remediate more than 1,800 regulated dams in the province, according to the 2015-16 B.C. Dam Safety Program Annual Report.
The 2015-16 annual report, includes information on dam construction, inspections, audits, compliance, incidents and failures, corrective actions, dam owner training and other program management highlights.
All structures referred to in the dam safety report are licensed and regulated under B.C.’s new Water Sustainability Act and Dam Safety Regulation, which replaced the previous legislation, the Water Act and B.C. Dam Safety Regulation, effective Feb. 29, 2016.
The Water Sustainability Act and new Dam Safety Regulation require dams that divert and/or store surface and/or ground water in B.C. be licenced. Previously, under the Water Act, only those dams diverting and/or storing surface water were regulated.
The regulation change added another 217 dams to the registry, bringing the total number of structures overseen by the program to 1,879, from massive structures such as Mica Dam to small earth-filled dams used for domestic water supply.
Program improvements in 2015-16 include:
A new dam safety website, enabling relevant information, including the new regulation, to be more easily accessed by dam owners and the public.
Upgrades to the province’s dam registry to provide better information capture and reporting, consistent with the new Dam Safety Regulation, including emergency contacts, signage, surveillance requirements and dam emergency plans.
A continuing commitment to educate dam owners (or their representatives) on their obligations to comply with the requirements of the new legislation. Program staff trained more than 49 dam owners or their representatives and qualified professionals, including 12 government dam owners, on dam inspection and maintenance.
In addition, 20 staff from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations received training on dam assessments.
Operationally, dam safety program and ministry staff made significant progress working with dam owners to identify needs and address deficiencies where necessary. Here are some of the highlights.
Dam safety staff met the annual provincial target of 133 dam safety audits, part of the program’s commitment to audit all high, very high and extreme failure consequence dams – at least once every five years – and each significant consequence dam at least once every 10 years.
Annual dam status reports were received from owners of 99% of the 354 high, very high and extreme failure consequence classification dams in the province. Of these, dam owners reported that 95% of the dams were inspected annually.
Dam safety staff reviewed plans for 60 dams, including new dams, rehabilitation or upgrading of existing dams or dam removals, compared to those of 49 dams last year.
Staff reviewed 11 requests from owners to ensure that their failure consequence classification is correctly applied in response to downstream conditions.
Dam safety officers responded to one dam alert that required remedial action by the owner and two dam incidents and 10 reports of incidents for dams that did not require any remedial action.
There were no reports of dam failures this year, an improvement over the previous year when there were two dam failures.
Dam owners in B.C. are legally required to comply with the Dam Safety Regulation and are responsible for the safe construction, operation and maintenance, decommissioning, inspection and safety of their dams. Mine impoundments such as sludge ponds and tailing storage facilities are not subject to the new Water Sustainability Act and continue to be regulated by the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Learn More:
88% of water supply dams in B.C. can be viewed on Google Earth and through Data BC: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water/drought-flooding-dikes-dams/dam-safety/dam-safety-program-annual-reports
2015-2016 Annual Dam Safety Report: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water/drought-flooding-dikes-dams/dam-safety/dam-safety-program-annual-reports
