01/11/2023
I have become somewhat of a Dam Expert while working with a client over the past several months. Properties with ponds or lakes have dams, most are earthen embankments and may have potential undisclosed hazards. The Safe Dams Act was enacted to protect people in Georgia. As with almost all legislation in Georgia, there is almost no funding for the Safe Dams Program. The worst part is the law was enacted in 1978 and has never been updated to my knowledge. Any idea where the list of dams and the categories is maintained? An Excel spreadsheet!!! There are 3 types of dams in Georgia, Level 1, Level 2 and unregistered. Quick paraphrase of the types, Level 1 dam is over 25 feet high or holds more than 100 acre feet of water and if it fails, people could die downstream. Level 2 dams meet the requirements but if it fails the loss of life doesn’t exist. Unregistered means either the state doesn’t know about the dam or it is too small to be registered. The worst part is a potential buyer of land downstream from a level 1 dam has no idea, the current owner was most likely never notified and probably has no idea of the danger either. There is no requirement of maintaining a list of unregistered dams or embankments that don’t meet the requirement either. Here is a perfect example. A property I showed has a dam that is not listed on the safe dams registry. It meets the requirements of height but was built in the 1950s and has a failing drain. The buyer had to spend thousands of dollars to just get the survey and engineering study done because the current owner who inherited the land didn’t have any documentation proving it was exempt. It’s an undue burden for the owners and potential buyer. The biggest problem is that if a level 2 dam is changed to level 1 status, no one downstream is required to be notified. As a real estate professional, we are required to notify potential buyers of all hazards within 1 mile of a property that we are selling. If the current owner does not know that there is a hazard upstream, that information may not be passed on to the future buyers. It may create a liability issue for real estate agents and brokers. I would strongly suggest the Georgia legislature take upon the task of updating the Safe Dams Act and modernize the program. In the 21st Century there is no reason for such an important list to be maintained by an Excel Spreadsheet and why those landowners downstream are not notified of the potential upstream hazard if a dam changes categorization. I linked an article as well.
Georgia is home to the fourth-highest number of dams in the country: over 5,400. These dams dot the state—in backyards, near playgrounds, beside breweries. They are owned by individuals, homeowners associations, and state organizations. Over a third of the riskiest dams in the state are in the met...
