There have been improvements at the Lake Gladewater dam through regular monitoring and ongoing maintenance the past several years, but there’s far more to do.
With everyone getting on the same page (and initial funding inbound) the next big task is to formulate a plan. It’s a priority for city officials and practical steps are ahead.
The most recent dam inspection wrapped up in November, and it showed one key aspect hasn’t changed since the last engineer’s examination in March ’24.
“In both of those inspections, it was classified as a ‘Poor’ condition dam,” Schaumburg & Polk’s Andrew Wright reminded council members March 19.
Such structures fall into one of three categories for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: Good, Fair or Poor.
“Poor means there’s major deficiencies that if not addressed would lead to a failure,” Wright said.
Constructed in 1951-1952, the dam creates approximately 6,900 acre-feet of water, serving as the city’s sole source.
“It’s a ‘High Hazard’ structure, meaning the probability of the loss of life in the event of failure is more than seven people and it impacts economic activities.”
That’s not new information, and the label opens key avenues for public funding assistances. City officials, local officeholders and their counterparts at the regional, state and national level are generally in sync – the dam’s aging, it’s deteriorating, it needs work and it’s not going to be cheap.
“This particular structure has five or six major issues that are noted in the report,” Wright said. “Any one of those has led to a failure in the past on other structures.”
“The major area of concern to me is the service spillway.”
Learn more from the latest report here.
(Above: The Lake Gladewater Dam’s concrete spillway is a “major area of concern” for engineers due to numerous issues documented in the latest dam inspection report.)
With Gladewater Fire Chief Tim Basham newly-installed, city officials are once again updating the dam’s Emergency Action Plan. Other projects are in the works, Gladewater City Manager Charlie Smith said, and maintenance is ongoing.
“I think we’re just going to continue forward with the way we’re doing things and making sure it doesn’t bog down and stop.”
There will be follow-through, Mayor Brandy Flanagan added.
“This is a thing that affects us all as a community,” she said, opening the floor to questions from the audience at the council’s monthly meeting.
Local John Osteen visited City Hall that day to sit down with the 90-page report from SPI.
“Once I saw this thing advertised in the paper, it fascinated me to see what people were saying about the dam and the spillway. I’ve been around it a lot in my life,” he told the council and crowd. In addition to engineering assessment, the report includes 160 annotated photos of the dam: “I started going through it page-by-page. The one thing I couldn’t find is what the city has planned to do about it.
“If you see all those pictures in that documentation, it is absolutely a criminal act that it has gotten down that bad. There are cracks everywhere you turn. What has the city got planned to do about those things that can be done now instead of waiting for a disaster?”
Working at the federal level, Mayor Brandy Flanagan said, $1.5 million has been earmarked for the dam and more efforts are underway. (The funds have not yet been released.)
“The dam and the funding for it is discussed pretty regularly here,” she said, pointing the public to the city’s website for more documentation on the dam. “All the communities are struggling with this. It’s something that as a community we should all be passionate about
“I just want to assure you this team is on top of it, and we’re doing everything possible.”
The fire chief inspects the dam every month, councilman Kevin Clark added, and TCEQ inspects it quarterly.
“This didn’t happen overnight,” council member William Blackmon said. “It’s not going to be fixed overnight. You can beat a dead horse, but we are taking action on this.
“We want to make sure this is done right and right for another 75 years.”