Dam Incident and Failure Investigations
Failures, incidents, and their subsequent investigations lead to improved understanding of dam safety and often serve as catalysts for significant changes in the industry. Some failures and incidents have had multiple investigations, while others were not investigated for various reasons.
When formal investigations are performed, the resultant investigation reports should be made available so that the lessons learned from these incidents and failures can be distributed and applied throughout the industry. The following list provides access to available dam incident and failure investigation reports. If you know of any investigations that are missing from this list, please contact Nathaniel Gee ([email protected]).
- St. Francis Dam (California, 1928)
- Frenchman Creek Dam (Montana, 1952)
- Hebgen Dam (Montana, 1959)
- Governor’s Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- United States Senate – Committee of Labor and Public Welfare
- United States Bureau of Mines Volume 1
- United States Bureau of Mines Volume 2
- United States Geological Survey
- Committee on Natural Disasters, National Academy of Engineering
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – Activities to Date (June 2005)
- FERC – Summary of Conclusions (April 2004)
- FERC – Independent Consultant Review Panel Report No. 2: Technical Reasons for the Release of Silver Lake Reservoir (December 2003)
- FERC – Independent Consultant Review Panel Report No. 1: Field Investigation Report (June 2003)
- FERC – Initial Report of Findings (June 2003): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
- MWH Americas, INC.
- Washington Group International