Jonny Soljberg (#)
April 25, 1998: the tailings dam at the
Aznalcollar mine near Sevilla, Spain failed. This has had BIG societal
implications -- the toxic waste has killed many fish and birds and flooded
thousands of hectacres of farmland. Who is to blame????
Is it the
Swedish-Canadian firm, Boliden Ltd. (#),
which operates the mine?
Is it the contractor, Dragados y
Is it the engineering firms, Itecsa and Geocisa, who
designed the dam?
Who is responsible for the damage?
This story has made the news a couple times recently. Check out Dam News for coverage.
Also, this page discusses many of the questions:
WISE Uranium Project (#)
They also list other
tailings dam failures (#)
February 26, 1999 marks the 27th anniversary of the failure of another
tailings dam on Buffalo Creek, West Virginia. 125 peoople were killed and
4000 were left without homes. The dam failure was compounded by the fact
that it was waste that was escaping; the waste caught fire and an explosion
eventually occured. source: Thomas, Henry. The
Engineering of Large Dams|
June 5, 1976: the failure in the Teton Dam led to flooding in the
cities of Sugar City and Reburg in Idaho. The dam failure killed 14 people and
caused over $1 billion in property damages. The dam failed because the bedrock
was not strong enough to support the structure. Currently the dam is once again
used for hydroelectric power. For more information regarding this disaster,
visit The Teton Flood Museum (#)
||See some of the devastation of the Teton Dam failure as its wrath
clip courtesy of KIDK TV (#),
July 17, 1995: a spillway gate of Folsom Dam failed, increasing flows
into the American River significantly. There are some
great photos of the failure on a UVA website (#).
The spillway was repaired and the USBR carried out an
investigation (#) of the water flow patterns around the spillway using
numerical modelling. No flooding occured as a result of the partial failure,
but flooding is still a major concern for this area. It seems that the Folsom
Dam may be due for a height increase as an answer to this concern -- check it
out in the Dam News!
source: US Bureau of
In recent years, dam failure numbers have decreased dramatically with the
increased consciousness about dam safety. In 1983, the Association of State Dam
Safety Officials (#) was formed to to improve dam safety across the
country and educate the public on it. Other organizations of this nature
United States Committee on Large
International Commission on Large Dams (#)
World Commission on Dams (#)
European Club of ICOLD National
Dam-Reservoir Impact & Info.
Canadian Dam Association (#)
Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission Office of Hydropower Licensing (#)
Reported dam failures in 1997 was
below 10. To see some more numbers on dam failures and incidents, check out
the National Performance of Dams