This is the FIFTH in a series of stories focused on the Lake Gladewater Dam and published in the Nov. 6, 2025, issue of the Gladewater Mirror |
Part 1: The Sky is Falling
Part 2: Regular dam inspections show ongoing deterioration
Part 3: Gladewater dam creates community’s sole water source
Part 4: Plan for the Worst…
Part 5: …Work for the Best
Part 6: What can you do?
Part 7: Aging dams become common problem for U.S. communities
Add’l: Lake Gladewater Dam (Landscape Ecology assessment by E. Simpson, Aug. 2, 2024)
“I don’t want to be the one that waits for it to fail.”
The city currently has an active and ongoing maintenance schedule for the Lake Gladewater Dam, in addition to regular monitoring. Since 2023, it’s inspected annually by an engineer, and the structure gets a visual once-over after every storm. The lake level is checked constantly.
Firm plans to actually and finally fix the dam are still in the works.
There’s a rough cost estimate of $15 million, but that’s just a placeholder: “We don’t know the cost yet because we haven’t gotten to the engineering phase yet,” Gladewater Emergency Coordinator Mike Simmons confirmed. “Right now, we don’t have any hard, actual numbers.”
With an incident of some degree anticipated in the next five to 10 years, the city’s currently in Phase I of the dam project – design and engineering.
“As we mitigate it, we want to make sure we bring it up to codes and standards for future events,” Simmons said. “That’s kind of a lengthy process because of all the core samples, soil samples, engineering, running all the models.”
Once all that’s complete, Phase II is actual repair and reconstruction.
“Do we completely rebuild the entire dam?”
Technically, the funding portion is already underway – the City of Gladewater is exploring grant opportunities and applying when possible. That’s in addition to pre-qualification for state and federal dollars.
“Anything we do is going to bring it to the modern standard where it’s good for another 50 years,” Simmons said. “We should never really find ourselves in this situation again.”
– By JAMES DRAPER