Commissioner's Column: ARPA funds for high-hazard, municipally owned dams
The State of New Hampshire continues to direct American Rescue Plan Act funds toward major infrastructure projects that will yield real-life and much-needed benefits to our citizens. NHDES has offered over $100 million in funding for more than 200 drinking water, wastewater and flood-risk infrastructure improvement projects, as well as projects focused on energy efficiency; all of which are in various stages of the approval process.
Most recently, the state approved $35 million of ARPA money to go toward necessary repairs to State-owned dams and to fund the creation of a Dam Rehabilitation/Removal Grant Program for municipally owned high hazard dams. The failure of these dams would inundate homes, businesses and roads downstream and cause significant loss of life.
A large chunk of that money – $30 million – will go toward 11 State-owned dams that the NHDES Dam Bureau has identified as having known deficiencies. Some of these dams, like Goose Pond Dam in Canaan and Mendums Pond Dam in Barrington, have rehabilitation designs nearly complete, so ARPA money will be spent on construction contracts to complete construction of the design. Others, such as Little Bog and Lower Trio Dams in Odell and Sunset Lake Dam in Alton, will be reconstructed by NHDES’ in-house Dam Maintenance Crew with ARPA funding. The funding will be spent on the remaining dams to complete a design and prepare plans and specifications to reconstruct the dams and remediate known problems.
The remaining $5 million will fund the new Dam Rehabilitation/Removal Grant Program for municipally owned high hazard dams, which will pay up to $1 million per grantee toward the rehabilitation or removal of municipally owned high hazard dams that are rated in “Poor” or “Unsatisfactory” condition because they are unable to safely pass the design flood without overtopping, which could lead to failure during these floods. The goal of the new grant program is to make the dams compliant with current state dam safety standards or remove them and eliminate the risk to life and property that they pose.
New Hampshire’s municipalities own 218 dams. Forty-nine of them are classified as High Hazard Dams because their failure would cause flooding that would inundate houses or other occupied structures downstream and likely cause loss of life. Of these, 16 are currently rated in Poor condition, thus are eligible for this grant program. There are no municipally owned dams currently rated in Unsatisfactory condition. NHDES is prioritizing these critical dams rated in Poor Condition in this grant round, but if more money becomes available in the future, NHDES may use it to address less-severe deficiencies at other dams, currently rated in Fair Condition, across the state.
NHDES continues to update the status of infrastructure projects being funded through ARPA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on our NHDES Infrastructure Funding website. Potential grant applicants can also find information on applications, deadlines and more on the site.