By Chelyen Davis
RICHMOND
--A House committee yesterday approved a bill that will allow Lake of the Woods to keep its dam as-is, without having to shell out millions of dollars to upgrade it.Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, submitted the bill because he said the state's revised dam regulations were excessive. The regulations, for example, required the Lake of the Woods dam to be able to hold 37 inches of rain over a 24-hour period-- an amount that Houck and his supporters say has never happened. The dam can hold 21 inches in 24 hours,
Upgrading the dam was expected to cost $6 million, which worked out to $1,200 per household.
Del. Ed Scott, R-Madison, who sits on the committee that heard the bill yesterday and has worked with Houck on the dam issue, said even during the worst flooding he can remember in Madison County, rainfall was far less than 37 inches in 24 hours.
Houck said about 600 dams across the state-- some owned by the state--were out of compliance with those regulations.
He said it's difficult to tell constituents they have to spend money to upgrade a dam when so many people are struggling economically. Houck said the state regulations were well-intended but too "one size fits all."
His original bill said that noncompliant dams didn't have to be upgraded until the state provided the money to do so. But the bill underwent some revisions.
Now it says dams in exis- tence or under construction by July 1, 2010, must be able to hold up to 90 percent of the probable maximum precipitation, and must comply with several other provisions, including daily monitoring, the existence of an emergency plan in case of dam failure, annual inspections, and enough insurance to cover downstream property damage in the event of a dam failure.
Lake of the Woods board of directors president Bruce Kay said the dam there meets those criteria, and the amended bill still solves the problem the community had.
The revised bill drew less opposition than the original bill did as it went through the Senate.
The Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation boards supports the revised bill, although its members had issues with the original bill.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation doesn't have an official position on Houck's bill. Acting director Russ Baxter said that lowering the standards for dams "will in some measure increase the risk of dam failure," and that the DCR "will hold owners very strictly to these provisions."
But he also said that while Houck's amended bill was not universally loved, it was "a reasonable approach," and in response to a question from the committee, Baxter said the bill does give DCR enough tools to protect safety.
Despite the amendments, the bill still drew opposition from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Representative Ingrid Stenbjorn said the bill "seeks to lower
Stenbjorn participated in an engineering survey of Virginia's infrastructure, which rated the state's dams a D-minus.
"We believe the reduced safety standards will be exceeded and the dams will fail," Stenbjorn said, adding that having an emergency plan "does not make a dam stronger" nor mitigate downstream property loss.
But delegates on the committee were inclined to relax the regulations.
Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, said it's bad to "make folks spend all this type of money" on standards that seem excessive.
"People lose faith in the regulatory process," he said.
The bill passed out of the House Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources committee unanimously. It will now to go the full House.