State-Journal.com - Opinions differ on Dix Dam safety

Memories of 1978 flood still vivid

Local activists for the Kentucky Council for Dix Dam Safety say they’re old enough to remember people paddling in canoes on Capital Avenue and the destruction created by the 1978 flood.

The council says the severity of the flood “was due in part to the release of 10 feet off of Herrington Lake that was reportedly in danger of overtopping the dam. This release was done with no warning to Frankfort.”

Jeffrey Fraley, general manager of E.W. Brown Generation Station at Dix Dam, says “it was a record rainfall and Dix Dam didn’t contribute to the flood.

“There are people that believe Dix Dam caused problems by the way spill gates were operated, but that was proven to not be the case in court. It’s the flood of record on the Kentucky River.”

Cliff Feltham, KU’s statewide media relations manager, says “that’s where all this (current concern about the safety of Dix Dam) is coming from – that severe flooding because of all the water that came down the watershed of the Kentucky River.

“We opened our spill gates at the time to evacuate water from Herrington Lake,” rather than having water come over the top of the dam.

A lawsuit was filed against KU, “but it got thrown out of court,” says Marilyn Thomas, an engineer and dam inspector for the state Division of Water.

When KU opened the spill gates, “what they released was a drop in the bucket compared to what was already in the river,” Thomas says.

Council: Work paying off

The Kentucky Council for Dix Dam Safety believes its volunteer work is paying off. Here is what the council lists as its major accomplishments in the past year:

>Kentucky Utilities has “stepped forward and conducted proper inspections, including a new inundation study with more accurate times for when the water will arrive and new elevations of what the water levels will be.”

>KU has an updated emergency action plan “on procedures they will follow in case of dam failure that includes notifying city of Frankfort officials.”

>Frankfort/Franklin County Emergency Management Director Deron Rambo has received KU’s emergency action plan, and Rambo is working on a local emergency action plan with evacuation procedures.

>“The state Division of Water has “re-established and added to its file on Dix Dam, which includes current information on the dam. The division also formed a task force to review KU’s recent studies and that report should be finished soon.

>“There is increased citizen awareness of the dam and the impact failure could have on the community.”

Council member Jim Daniel, a retired enforcement agent for the Division of Water, says the citizens group is still concerned about some of the conclusions in the KU studies.

“A major concern is that the new inundation study reveals just how critical it is to maintain the dam in the best possible condition,” Daniel says.

For 30 years the Division of Water and KU said if Dix Dam failed it would take 14.7 hours for the water to arrive in Frankfort and 31.9 hours to crest, and the height of the water would be just shy of the record 1978 flood, Daniel says.

“But KU’s recent modeling indicated it will take just under 3 hours for the flood water to get here and reach a height of 35 feet above the floodwalls at 7½ hours,” Daniel says.

“This brings the water level nearly lapping at the Capitol steps.”

The disparity between those figures “warrants an independent third party review of the data,” Daniel says.

Daniel also says the Division of Water “should return to the proper regulatory position it had back in the late 1970s and early ’80s.”

The council’s work is not over, Daniel says, “but we’re getting closer to the time when we have done all we can do as a citizens group.

“Then it will be up to our Division of Water and elected officials to protect our city and furnish definitive answers and a sense of security for Frankfort’s riverside population.”

Daniel criticized the Division of Water last year for losing its file on Dix Dam. The file somehow disappeared and the division hadn’t replenished it, Daniel said in May 2009.

Peter Goodmann, assistant director of the Division of Water, downplayed the loss of the file, saying, “It wasn’t like there weren’t other copies. We had some (electronically) scanned copies…

“Most of what we had missing we either found in a secondary file or we were provided copies of inspection reports from KU.”

The council soon found out that wasn’t the case when it filed open records requests and Goodmann admitted to the council and State Journal he was wrong.

Goodmann said he misunderstood what engineer Marilyn Thomas, a state dam inspector, had told him about the files.

Thomas told Goodmann the division still had “the latest inspection reports and weir reports (to measure water leakage), and we had found copies of the Phase 1, Phase 2 and old breach analysis.” But many documents were missing.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Goodmann said on Jan. 8. “The council can be mad about that forever but it’s moot because we’ve replaced every bit of important information.”

Goodmann said KU helped replenish the file.

“They had all the documents we asked for,” he said.

Council member Bruce Cassidy, who works for the state Division for Air Quality, said last year he was “very familiar with the file. I’ve been checking the file out for 20 years. It was big, like a drawer and maybe another third.”

Daniel asked last year, “How do you lose a whole file like that?”

Earlier this month, Goodmann said somebody either stole it or it was lost through neglect. It could have been sitting outside an employee’s office and “a cleaning person or moving person picked it up,” he said.

“Obviously when something that voluminous goes missing, you have to scratch your head and say, ‘somebody really wanted that,’ if they took it.

“But I’m not accusing any person of taking it. Regardless of what happened, it’s our fault. The Division of Water file protocol that should have been in place either wasn’t, or it wasn’t followed. And that’s the way it is.”

Riverfront development following situation

Rodney Simpson believes riverfront development is going to provide a big boost to local tourism and the economy.

He’s a boater and co-chairman of the Frankfort Riverfront Development Committee, which recently unveiled ambitious plans for a 4-mile stretch of the Kentucky River in Frankfort.

Simpson says one of the reasons he retired last year as electric superintendent for the Frankfort Plant Board was to devote more time to riverfront development.

“And we’re certainly following the Dix Dam situation from the standpoint of its impact on riverfront development,” Simpson says.

He attended a South Frankfort Neighborhood Association meeting last October to listen to a panel discussion on the Dix Dam issue. The Kentucky Council for Dix Dam Safety participated along with the state Division of Water and Deron Rambo, local emergency management director.

Simpson said he plans to attend a February meeting in Frankfort in which Kentucky Utilities officials also will participate.

“I’ve visited the dam four times and I’ve had multiple conversations with KU officials and Marilyn Thomas, a dam inspector for the Division of Water,” Simpson says. “It’s all an integral part of riverfront development.

“The Division of Water inspects the dam every other year and scores it, and right now we have to go along with what the Division of Water says about the dam. We will continue to monitor the situation – and we’d be remiss if we didn’t – to be sure everything is in shape.”

Ed Councill, a former Division of Water employee, says he has the utmost respect for Jim Daniel, a retired Division of Water enforcement agent and a member of the Council for Dix Dam Safety.

“He’s a science-based individual, he has integrity and my dealings with him have never given me any reason to vary from those conclusions,” Councill says.

Councill is a member of the Riverfront Development Committee and the Frankfort Tourist Commission.

“I know this, state employees are restrained due to the magnitude of their jobs,” Councill says. “I don’t think they have enough resources to be able to solve many complex problems and the Dix Dam issue is a complex problem.

“The integrity of the locks and dams on the Kentucky River are vital to the success of our riverfront development and it’s the same with Dix Dam. We can’t take it lightly.”