Courtesy Photo | Doug Crum, dam safety program manager, inspects the dam at Eau Galle Recreation Area,...... read more read more
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates and maintains approximately 740 dams and associated structures nationwide that provide significant benefits to the nation and its people, businesses, critical infrastructure and the environment. These benefits include flood risk management, navigation, water supply, hydropower, environmental stewardship, fish and wildlife conservation and recreation. The Corps of Engineers Dam Safety Program seeks to ensure these dams do not present unacceptable risks to people, property or the environment.
The St. Paul District Dam Safety program is set up to manage the district’s 32 dams, including 13 navigation locks on the Mississippi River. It involves numerous staff from many different disciplines with tasks ranging from daily monitoring of most of these structures to completing engineering inspections or risk assessments scheduled periodically on 5- or 10-year intervals (depending on the dam’s hazard class). The inspections and risk assessments are used to justify repairs and prioritize rehabilitation needs across the Corps of Engineers’ portfolio of dams.
Doug Crum, the St. Paul District’s dam safety program manager, has served in this role for more than 22 years. He started with the district in 1991 as a geotechnical engineer before taking on this role in Kansas City District, then returning to St. Paul District in 2013.
Crum’s supervisor, Ryan Price, said, “In addition to being the dam safety program manager, Crum is a technical expert in the field. One way or another, he is involved in almost every project at one our dams, whether that’s as a project delivery team member, reviewer, or just a resource for the team to consult with. His extensive knowledge on our dams continues to amaze me. Doug is a tremendous asset to the Dam Safety Program and the St. Paul District.”
About his job, Crum said, “I enjoy it. When you look at it closely, there’s a lot of interesting problems to solve. You get to zoom out to the management, big picture level and then zoom in to the details. It is constant movement between management and the details.”
Crum explained that the district’s program costs roughly $2 million annually and anywhere between 50-100 district staff are involved with it in any given year.
He said many of USACE’s dams have park rangers or lock staff at the site that maintain awareness of the dams and combine dam safety monitoring with other activities. Some dams have Automated Data Acquisition Systems that are used to capture frequent instrumentation data (mostly water pressures) and can be accessed in the office for real-time performance monitoring.
Inspections are often supplemented by the district’s dive team, but schedule site visits on different days. The divers monitor concrete damage, check for leakage, verify instrumentation results such as sounding data and scour protection, and provide underwater photographs and video. The same dive team routinely maintains the dams and locks by clearing debris or repairing broken parts such as bubblers for deicing, intake grating, concrete spalls, etc.
A ‘periodic inspection’ for a dam includes a thorough examination during a joint site inspection by all team members, with a goal to have hands-on access to all components. The inspection teams generally include structural, mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and geotechnical engineers in addition to the site staff. Risk assessments additionally include a geologist and economist.
The Corps of Engineers uses a 90-day milestone for completion of periodic inspection and risk assessment reports and submittal to the division headquarters. This time includes reviews by a separate quality control team. Risk Assessment reports are also reviewed by the Corps of Engineers’ Risk Management Center and presented to a headquarters dam and levee oversight committee.
Because of the district’s reputation and expertise in dam safety, Crum said he often receives queries from others who own and manage dams. He said requests for assistance, however, must go through the state and generally stop at the county or state level. Still, there are many times district dam safety personnel have assisted others with dam emergencies.
“The emergency work is probably the most rewarding,” he said. “It is always fast paced.”
Examples of recent emergency support include responding to the Rapidan Dam failure in Mankato, Minnesota, in 2024, and assisting with a dam owned by a papermill on the border between the U.S. and Canada in International Falls, Minnesota, during the 2022 Rainy River flood. “Nobody remembered what the spillway should look like during a flood. It had been 50 years since anyone had seen it,” he said. “The Federal Energy Regulation Commission asked us to look at it, because we were on site.”
USACE's dam safety program has many other activities and management functions as described in Federal Guidelines for Dam Safety, first published in 1978. The most influential development in the last 20 years has evolved around risk assessments. Risk assessments can use many analytical tools and mathematics, but the global dam safety community has developed risk assessment protocols best adapted to understanding risks posed by dams. A summary of risk information for Corps of Engineers’ dams is now available in the National Inventory of Dams, or NID, under the “Summary” and “Risk” tab for each project. The NID also includes other useful data, such as the dams’ components, size and hazard potential.
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| Date Taken: | 04.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2025 16:45 |
| Story ID: | 495797 |
| Location: | ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 67 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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