FEMA has recently released a new document titled “Summary of Existing Guidelines for Hydrologic Safety of Dams”. I was pleased to hear about this report from one of it’s co-authors, Amanda Hess of Gannett Fleming. Amanda was a colleague of mine in ASFE Fundamentals of Professional Practice (FOPP) Course No. 21. Here is Amanda’s synopsis of the document:
The document provides a nice history of the evolution of design flood selection for spillways, a description of the origins of dam safety guidelines and a summary of the current state of the practice. As part of our research, we surveyed dam safety representatives from all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico with the exception of Alabama and Florida. We also surveyed most of the federal agencies that are involved with dam safety.
She also indicated that the next step will be a subsequent report containing new hydrologic safety guidelines that will could be applied nationwide. We’ll keep our eye out for the new report sometime in 2013.