Oregon Public Broadcasting

Washington State Ecology managers say they are going to inspect risky dams more often and impose stricter maintenance regulations.

But aging, federal dams in the Northwest are under pressure too. Specifically, managers are trying to shore up the leaking Howard Hanson Dam near Auburn, WA. Correspondent Anna King reports.

Howard Hanson Dam

Howard Hanson Dam is 48 years old and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it can't hold back the same amount of water it did last year.

That means the downstream cities of Auburn, Kent, Renton and Tukwila could flood.

Steve Kramer is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. He says unlike a bum knee, you can't X-ray or do exploratory surgery on a dam.

Steve Kramer: “You can't get around it, you can't get underneath it, you can't look through it in the way that you might like to be able to.”

Army Corps officials say there is no immediate threat that Howard Hanson will fail. But it has happened before in the Northwest.

In 1976, the earthen Teton Dam failed killing 11 people in Idaho.