CS34B - Concurrent Session 34B: Wellsville Reservoir Dam Decommissioning: a HHPD Success Story

Wellsville Reservoir Dam was built in 1926 to supply water to the Village of Wellsville which is located in eastern Ohio in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Operation and maintenance responsibilities for the dam had changed several times over the years. In 2011, the Village of Wellsville found itself the owner and responsible party for a high hazard dam in poor condition. In 2016, the Village had to declare fiscal emergency due to lack of funds.

Since 1973, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources, Dam Safety Program (Division) conducted 8 dam safety inspections and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted a Phase I Inspection. These inspections repeatedly identified several serious issues with the dam: no Emergency Action Plan, insufficient discharge/storage capacity, seepage, questionable stability of the principal spillway, concrete deterioration, unlevel crest, and questionable operation of the lake drain.

With prompting in 2017 from the Division, the Village was able to develop an Emergency Action Plan which showed that the Village itself would be impacted if the dam were to fail. After a dam safety inspection in 2019, the Division issued a Chief’s Order to the Village, forcing the Village to implement interim risk reduction measures which include lowering the reservoir by 15 feet and filling erosion holes found in the spillway with concrete. When the NOFO for the 2020 Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dam (HHPD) Grant Program included construction as an eligible activity, the Village and ODNR worked together to develop an application to render this dam nonhazardous. With funding help from FEMA and the Ohio Public Works Commission this dam was safely breached in the summer of 2022 and as a result the Village of Wellsville is much safer from a catastrophic failure of the structure. Join Division staff as they review the history of the dam and discuss utilizing the HHPD grant to successfully breach a dam.