Dam Removal Success for Restoration & Landowners
Conner Smith, PE
Water and Land Solutions
Westerville, OH
Many privately owned dams were constructed well before dam regulatory guidelines and rules were established and do not comply with current regulations and safety standards. These often-large, private dams can be difficult for a landowner to maintain and frequently options to bring these dams into compliance are costly beyond the means of a private landowner to perform. Because these dam improvements can be so costly, often the cheapest option is to remove the dam embankment and dewater the impounded area. Dam removal still costs the landowner, and the result is a dry lakebed and a head-cutting channel with low ecological value.
A great alternative to maintaining the dam or simply dewatering the impoundment, is to remove the dam and restore the historic stream channel and wetland resources impounded by the dam. As a mitigation project, this option can be offered to a private landowner and turn what would be a costly repair into an opportunity to earn revenue. The resulting project produces a high-functioning ecological system in place of their former pond or lake. This provides a site for the mitigation bank to develop credits and takes care of the costly financial burden the landowner would have incurred.
Dam removal does, however, come with challenges, as often these older impoundment systems have large quantities of sediment build up within the lakebed, which can be difficult to manage and construct in. Historic topographic and bathymetric data can sometimes be unreliable because of sedimentation and shifting of the lakebed during drawdown. It is important to consider this during design and to collect current data to the extent possible.
This presentation will provide insight into the opportunities to perform dam removal for the purposes of stream and wetland restoration in the form of mitigation as a solution to non-compliant dams and impoundments. A discussion and review of several completed projects will provide real-world application results and lessons learned. Specific design considerations, construction techniques, and lessons learned will be shared to provide usable knowledge to the industry.
About Conner Smith, PE
Conner Smith is a Registered Professional Engineer in Columbus, Ohio, and is a Project Engineer with Water & Land Solutions with over twelve years of experience in ecological restoration, acting as lead designer and practitioner of stream and wetland restorations from the inception of the project, through field studies and assessments, design, construction implementation, and monitoring. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Ecological Engineering at Ohio State University and starting his career in professional consulting, Conner worked with both private and public sector clients developing and implementing project solutions to fulfill their ecosystem restoration objectives, including over 12 miles of stream restoration and over 80 acres of wetland restoration. Conner’s experience includes existing conditions morphological survey, stream and wetland design, species-specific habitat design, construction quality assurance and management, and post-construction project monitoring. At Water & Land Solutions, Conner utilizes his skills as a designer and field practitioner to develop and implement high-quality, stable, and diverse ecosystem restorations that achieve project ecological and regulatory goals.